A common goal of educational psychology courses in teacher education programs is to ground the students’ educational practices in psychological theories in the ways that promote authentic teacher development. The key for achieving this goal is considered to lie in helping the students—pre-service or in-service teachers—develop a practice-linked understanding of psychological theories (Varrati, Lavine, & Turner, 2009; Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981). Then an important question is: How can we help our students meaningfully link psychological theories and educational practice?

In traditional educational psychology (or education) courses, teachers are not typically considered to be researchers. Rather, teachers are considered to be consumers of research, that is, teachers are handed down theories that researchers and experts developed, and are expected to diligently apply them in their classrooms (Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981). However, for teachers, this approach creates fragility of educational practice since each practice situation is unique, complex and open to numerous situational factors (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The complexity of real life teaching practice and students’ needs can easily go beyond the scopes of specific theoretical frameworks, and it could be overwhelmingly challenging and unproductive for teachers if they employ this consumer-of-research approach in their practice (Faircloth, He & Higgins, 2011).

Then how can theories and practice be effectively and meaningfully linked in education or educational psychology courses? Currently, many textbooks in those courses attempt to resolve this issue by incorporating a number of case studies (e.g., Ormrod, 2008; Willems & Gonzalez-DeHass, 2003). Through this approach is known to help students develop an integrated view of teaching and learning at an introductory level courses (Smith, Malkani, & Dai, 2005), it does not necessarily push students to go beyond the theories covered in the textbooks and engage in meaningful inquiries to take situationally meaningful actions to meet the needs in an educational setting. In education courses, it is important to identify a more effective approach to help the students narrow the gap between theories and actions-in-practice. Put differently, it is essential to consider what it means to teach educational theories to the students who are in teaching credential problems in terms of the ways they use (or do not use) academic theories covered in education courses.

This paper discusses an on-going study that examines how learning theories and actions-in-practice can be meaningfully linked in graduate level educational psychology courses through N=1 Action Research (NAR) where students conducted action research to meet educational needs of an individual learner. Action research is known as a form of practitioner research in which practice improvement is sought in actual teaching situations as practitioners take initiatives to research their own practice (Mills, 2011, Stringer, 2007).

Action research is becoming increasingly popular approach as a way to narrow the gap between theories and practice in teacher education programs including educational psychology courses (Deemer 2009). If action research is meaningfully infused into educational psychology courses, it could not only narrow the gap between theories and practice in teacher training programs, but also help students become ready for actual teaching practice. However, there are very few studies that looked into this issue systematically.

The question is how educational psychology courses could help students meaningfully link psychological theories to the act of teaching by incorporating action research as a part of the course requirement. What kinds of relationship between academic theories and actions-in-practice do students develop there?

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