Action Research involves the creative application of research that already exists. In an action research project, one identities a specific problem of practice — in other words, something that can be fixed. For example, “my students don’t complete their assigned reading” or “my employees have trouble coming in on time.” Once you have identified the problem, you would then review the literature (i.e., existing knowledge) to see how others have addressed the problem, or use the literature in a creative way to address the problem. At this point, you would then create an intervention of some kind to address the problem. In action research, one literally takes action in the form of an intervention.

Program Evaluation is much more scientific and requires the evaluator to follow a very specific protocol. Therefore, there are typically no interventions in program evaluation; suggestions for interventions may be part of the conclusion or final step, though. Whereas action research targets a single problem of practice, program evaluation begins not by isolating a single problem but by evaluating an entire program — including strengths and weaknesses — from top to bottom, end to end. Rather than address a single problem, program evaluation examines both what works in a program and what does not work. In most cases, one is not familiar with the program under evaluation and therefore cannot initially isolate any problems of practice right away.