Lists of action research titles are easy to find; most give a title and nothing else. DepEd’s Action Research Toolkit asks for more before a topic is chosen: list your classroom problems, rate each on four criteria, and pick the one that scores highest (section 2.2). This post gives titles by subject the way the toolkit would want them: each with the toolkit’s four scores and a number from DepEd’s own data that shows the size of the problem nationally. Use them as models, then score your own problems with your own class’s data.

It is written for teachers choosing an action research topic, and for school heads and LAC facilitators guiding them. For junior and senior high school, see Action Research Topics for Junior and Senior High School.

Key points

  • Start from a problem, not a title. The toolkit’s steps: reflect on your class, list at least three problems, rate them, choose one, and plan an intervention.
  • The toolkit’s rubric has four criteria, each rated from 5 (very high) to 1 (very low): strategic importance, urgency, magnitude and feasibility. The highest total wins.
  • Check the topic against the research agenda. The toolkit asks you to see which theme of the Basic Education Research Agenda (BERA) your topic falls under: teaching and learning, child protection, human resource development, or governance.
  • A good title names the intervention, the outcome and the learners, in at most 16 words, as the toolkit’s report guidelines require.
  • The data hooks are national; your scores must be local. A problem that is large nationally may be small in your class, and the reverse.

The toolkit’s rubric

From the toolkit’s Worksheet on Evaluating Possible Action Research Topics:

Criterion Description
Strategic importance “The number of other persons or subject areas that will benefit when the intervention is found to be effective”
Urgency “The degree to which the solution to the problem is needed in the quickest time possible”
Magnitude “The number of learners that will benefit when the intervention is found to be effective”
Feasibility “The degree to which the intervention can be implemented easily in the classroom or school”

Rating scale: 5, very high; 4, high; 3, moderate; 2, low; 1, very low. Add the four ratings for a total out of 20.

A worked example

A Grade 3 teacher with 38 learners lists three problems, with evidence from the class:

Problem Strategic importance Urgency Magnitude Feasibility Total
9 learners are struggling readers in Filipino on the CRLA 5 5 3 4 17
About half the class does not submit homework 3 3 4 4 14
6 learners arrive late most mornings 2 2 2 3 9

Reading wins on strategic importance (it affects every subject) and urgency (Grade 3 is the last grade the CRLA covers, and learners who cannot read by Grade 4 fall behind in every subject), even though fewer learners are affected than by the homework problem. The teacher’s next step is an intervention for the nine readers, then a research question and a title.

How to write the title

  • Name the intervention, the outcome and the participants: “[Intervention] and the [outcome] of [learners]”, or “Effects of [intervention] on the [outcome] of [learners]”.
  • At most 16 words. The toolkit’s guidelines for the report put the title in capital letters, in “an inverted pyramid” on the title page.
  • Avoid empty words such as “a study on”, “an analysis of” or “towards”.
  • Name the school only if it matters. The title page already carries it.

Weak: A Study on the Reading Problems of Pupils. Better: Daily Letter-Sound Drills and the Decoding Skills of Grade 1 Struggling Readers.

Titles by subject

In each table, the data hook gives the national picture, and the scores are ours for a typical public school class, assuming one teacher, one term and a small budget. Rescore every title for your own class.

Reading, Grades 1 to 3

Data hook: at the end of SY 2025-26, 10.0% of the 5.1 million Grade 1 to 3 learners assessed in the Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment (CRLA) were struggling readers, and Grade 1 in the mother tongue had the highest share, 14.4% (CRLA End-of-Year Results SY 2025-26). Fewer than half, 47.6%, read at grade level.

Title S U M F Total
Daily Letter-Sound Drills and the Decoding Skills of Grade 1 Struggling Readers 5 5 4 5 19
Peer-Assisted Repeated Reading and the Oral Reading Fluency of Grade 3 Learners in Filipino 5 4 4 5 18
Take-Home Decodable Readers With Parent Guides and the Reading Levels of Grade 2 Learners 4 4 4 3 15

More reading topics with school-level data: Action Research and Thesis Topics on Reading (CRLA).

Literacy, Grades 4 to 6

Data hook: in the Grade 3 Early Language, Literacy, and Numeracy Assessment (ELLNA) of SY 2023-24, the mean was 64.5 in English and 66.9 in Filipino, below the 75-point proficiency mark (ELLNA Grade 3 Results); learners carry these gaps into the upper grades.

Title S U M F Total
Reciprocal Teaching and the Reading Comprehension of Grade 5 Learners in English 5 4 4 4 17
Graphic Organizers and the Summarizing Skills of Grade 6 Learners in Filipino 4 3 4 5 16

Mathematics and numeracy

Data hook: numeracy is the weakest ELLNA component in every region, with a mean of 53.6 (ELLNA Grade 3 Results); in the Grade 6 National Achievement Test (NAT) of SY 2023-24, Mathematics averaged 56.4 (NAT Grade 6 Results).

Title S U M F Total
Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract Lessons and the Fraction Skills of Grade 6 Learners 4 4 5 4 17
Five-Minute Number Talks and the Mental Computation of Grade 3 Learners 4 4 5 5 18
Worked Examples With Self-Explanation and the Word-Problem Solving of Grade 8 Learners 4 3 4 4 15

Science

Data hook: Science was the weakest subject in the Grade 6 NAT of SY 2023-24, with a mean of 53.8, and only 10% of assessed schools had a Science mean of 75 or more (NAT Grade 6 Results).

Title S U M F Total
Guided Inquiry Activities and the Science Process Skills of Grade 6 Learners 4 4 4 4 16
Predict-Observe-Explain Demonstrations and the Misconceptions of Grade 7 Learners About Heat 3 3 4 5 15

Multigrade classes

Data hook: 5,974 of the 39,346 public schools with elementary grades (15.2%) had multigrade classes in SY 2023-24, and the share of multigrade classes is the most consistent correlate of lower ELLNA and NAT results within divisions (School Inputs vs Test Results).

Title S U M F Total
Learning Stations and the Reading Levels of Learners in a Grade 1 and 2 Combination Class 4 4 3 4 15
Cross-Grade Peer Tutoring and the Mathematics Scores of Learners in a Multigrade Class 4 3 3 5 15

Large classes and classroom shortage

Data hook: 25,724 of 47,495 public schools (54%) had a classroom shortage in 2023 (Chi-Square Test in Excel), and in SY 2024-25, 2,041 public schools held classes in two or more shifts, enrolling 20.4% of all learners (Class Shifts and Crowded Classrooms).

Title S U M F Total
Cooperative Learning Roles and the On-Task Behavior of Learners in a Class of 50 4 4 4 4 16
Structured Take-Home Learning Packets and the Achievement of Learners in a Shortened Shift 4 4 4 3 15

Learning with little technology

Data hook: 24.6% of public schools report no computer for learners at all, and the median school has 2.3 per 100 learners (DepEd ICT Data SY 2023-24); but two thirds of public schools have a smart TV (Smart TVs and Computers).

Title S U M F Total
Teacher-Made Video Lessons on a Classroom TV and the Science Scores of Grade 6 Learners 3 3 4 4 14
Shared-Device Rotation and the Basic Computer Skills of Grade 5 Learners 3 2 4 3 12

Health and hygiene

Data hook: public schools have 27.5 learners per functional toilet bowl and 3.3 functional handwashing facilities per 100 learners (DepEd WASH Data SY 2023-24).

Title S U M F Total
A Daily Group Handwashing Routine and the Illness-Related Absences of Kindergarten Learners 3 3 4 4 14

For school heads and master teachers

Data hook: the share of struggling readers ranges from 0.2% to 46.2% across the 232 schools divisions (CRLA End-of-Year Results SY 2025-26), and schools in the same division differ even more, so each school needs to read its own results.

Title S U M F Total
LAC Sessions on CRLA Results and Teachers’ Grouping of Learners for Reading Instruction 5 4 5 4 18
Coaching After Classroom Observation and the Reading Instruction Practices of Grade 1 Teachers 4 4 4 3 15

From title to research question

Each title becomes a question and a hypothesis. For the first reading title:

  • Question: Is there a significant difference in the decoding scores of Grade 1 struggling readers before and after ten weeks of daily letter-sound drills?
  • Hypothesis (null): There is no significant difference between the pretest and posttest decoding scores.

Action Research Questions and Hypotheses, With Examples shows how; the analysis follows in Paired and Independent t-Test in Excel.

Common mistakes

  • Choosing a title before a problem. A borrowed title rarely fits your class.
  • Topics with no intervention, such as “factors affecting reading”, which are not action research.
  • Titles that promise too much: one teacher in one term cannot “improve the reading performance of the division”.
  • Scoring without evidence. Base magnitude and urgency on your class’s results, not impressions.
  • Over 16 words, or titles stuffed with “a study on” and “the effectiveness of”.

Practice: how the NASH may test this

Question 1

Indicator 1.4.1, Research and innovation. Career Stage 1, Situational, Moderate.

In a planning session, three teachers propose action research topics: one on learners’ late arrival, one on homework completion, and one on Grade 1 decoding. The school’s CRLA results show that 40% of its Grade 1 learners are struggling readers. Time and funds allow one study this year. How should the school head guide the choice?

  • A. Let the teachers vote, since action research should come from the teachers’ own interests.
  • B. Choose the topic on late arrival, since it is the easiest to carry out within a term.
  • C. Have the teachers rate each problem on strategic importance, urgency, magnitude and feasibility, using the school’s CRLA and attendance data, and choose the topic with the highest score.
  • D. Ask the teachers to find a topic from a published list of action research titles.
Answer and explanation

Best answer: C. Points: A = 2, B = 1, C = 3, D = 0.

  • A (2 points, Multistructural). Teacher ownership matters, but a vote ignores the evidence on which problem is largest and most urgent.
  • B (1 point, Unistructural). Feasibility is one criterion of four; choosing on ease alone may leave the most serious problem untouched.
  • C (3 points, Relational). It uses DepEd’s own criteria for evaluating topics and grounds the ratings in reliable school data.
  • D (0 points, Prestructural). A topic from a list is not grounded in the school’s problems.

Why. This aligns with Career Stage 1 expectations because indicator 1.4.1 asks the school head to identify relevant findings from reliable sources to support evidence-based innovations. The Action Research Toolkit asks teachers to prioritize problems by strategic importance, urgency, magnitude and feasibility, and to start from their own classroom situation.

Indicator 1.4.1: Identify relevant research findings from reliable sources in facilitating data-driven and evidence-based innovations to improve school performance.

Sources: DepEd Action Research Toolkit (2019); DepEd Order No. 39, s. 2016; DepEd Order No. 024, s. 2020.

Frequently asked questions

How do I choose an action research topic?

List at least three problems in your class, rate each from 1 to 5 on strategic importance, urgency, magnitude and feasibility, as DepEd’s Action Research Toolkit suggests, and choose the one with the highest total. Base the ratings on your class’s data, and check the topic against the Basic Education Research Agenda.

How long should an action research title be?

At most 16 words, according to the Action Research Toolkit’s guidelines for the report, which also put the title in capital letters in an inverted pyramid on the title page.

What makes a good action research title?

It names the intervention, the outcome it should change, and the learners, such as “Daily Letter-Sound Drills and the Decoding Skills of Grade 1 Struggling Readers”.

Can I use a title from a list?

As a model, yes. The topic itself should come from a problem in your own class, with evidence, or the study will not fit your learners.

More on DepEd research

Sources

Written by Mark Anthony Llego for NASH Reviewer. The titles and scores are ours. NASH Reviewer is not affiliated with DepEd.