Commentary on Action Research

I've had a fairly tense relationship with my action research project all semester. At first I couldn't think of anything that I really wanted to do in Mr. Conrad's classroom because everything seemed so purposefully seamless (and it was effective). Then, I combined his teaching style with some of my interests and put together a project, but I was still worried about data sources and reliable feedback and just not having enough time to really concentrate on the project and my teaching at the same time. In seminar, I received positive feedback on my write up (everything except findings, discussion/conclusion), but I still have reservations about the process of Action Research.
I have always been a proponent of this project and think its crucial to learn AR during the pre-service phase of our teaching experience. However, I think that the experience would be more beneficial if (at least the first time) the projects were a collaboration in which pre-service teachers collected and analyzed data from their mentor teachers' classroom. In this setup, both teachers would be responsible for the design, but the mentor teacher would implement the new strategies while the pre-service teacher observed and collected data. Then both teachers would collaborate on the conclusions of their findings, and the pre-service teacher would do the final write up and share.
I like this set up for a number of reasons - mostly because I think it's very difficult for a pre-service teacher to measure the effectiveness certain strategies when she is still learning how to teach. I find myself analyzing data that indicates certain research findings, but in the back of my head I think that my results were caused more by the person I am than by the strategies I implemented. That is to say, my teaching is too new and too variable to collect reliable data. By collecting data from a seasoned teacher, the projects might produce more reliable results. Additionally, I often hear pre-service teachers commenting on the difficulty of balancing action research with teaching and the comments go something like this: "I'm tired of my action research because I can't spend time on my lesson plans." I'm sure this frustration is communicated to mentor teachers as well, and the idea that action research is a useful endeavor is subsequently lost amid the frustration of balancing new teaching responsibilities with time-consuming project implementation. With a collaborative project, I think both pre-service and mentor teachers could more clearly see the benefits of conducting research in the classroom.

One final note -- I think it's ludicrous to wait until the final semester to plan the action research project, even if it ensures relevancy to the internship classroom. I would have much preferred writing a proposal and having a project planned out in advance even if it turned out to be a bad fit for my class. The responsibility of brainstorming the action research project in the final semester is not only REALLY STRESSFUL, but I think it also contributes to the negative connotation of Action Research being unnecessarily difficult and perhaps rushed and superficial.

Disclaimer -- I really do like the idea of action research. I just think we should improve it!