Less is more: Leveraging the power of de-implementation to drive excellence in education
March 2026
Teacher researchers in Guatemala: Lessons from an action research experience to address educational gaps in the classroom
Key Points
- Impact statement: The field of education is dominated by research from a handful of countries, with few opportunities for research and evidence from the Global South. This article summarizes findings from an initiative to train and support teachers to conduct research within their own classrooms. The paper includes teacher reflections and observations from their experience and how being a researcher informed and improved their classroom practices.
- Rural primary school teachers in Guatemala participated in action research to improve their teaching practices.
- The program, part of the USAID-funded BEQT activity, focused on addressing gaps in math, reading, and writing for grades 1–3.
- Teachers developed research skills to identify learning gaps, test solutions, and adjust lesson plans and teaching strategies.
- Reflecting on their experiences helped teachers improve teaching quality and gain insights into their practices.
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to describe the learnings of primary school teachers in rural Guatemala as a result of an action research experience. This experience took place in the context of the “Basic Education Quality and Transitions” activity, or BEQT, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by RTI International and its partners Funcafé, Funsepa, Wayfree, and the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG). UVG’s Centro de Investigaciones Educativas (CIE), as an RTI partner, developed and implements the “Teacher Researchers” program. The action research program engages teachers in identifying and bridging gaps in students’ learning of mathematics, reading, and/or writing with students in grades 1–3. During the portion of the program described in this paper, teachers reflected on the lessons learned and strengthened their research skills in an effort to identify gaps in content, as well as applying and reflecting on potential solutions that they then translated into adjustments in lesson planning and implementation of teaching strategies. A categorical analysis of the teachers’ reflections on these experiences showed how strengthened research skills helped teachers identify areas of opportunity in using teaching strategies to improve the quality of teaching, thus allowing them to reflect on their own teaching practices.
El presente artículo tiene como objetivo describir los aprendizajes de docentes de primaria del área rural de Guatemala que propicia una experiencia de investigación acción. Esta experiencia se desarrolló en el contexto del proyecto “Educación Básica de Calidad para la Transición”, o BEQT por sus siglas en inglés, financiado por la Agencia de EE. UU. para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID, por sus siglas en inglés) e implementado por RTI International con socios Funcafé, Funsepa, Wayfree y Universidad del Valle de Guatemala. El Centro de Investigaciones Educativas (CIE) de la Universidad del Valle de Guatemala como socio de RTI, desarrolla e implementa el programa “Docentes Investigadores”. El programa de investigación acción involucra a los docentes para identificar y llenar los vacíos en el aprendizaje de matemáticas, lectura y/o escritura con sus estudiantes de 1º a 3º primaria. Durante el programa, los docentes reflexionaron sobre los aprendizajes obtenidos y fortalecieron habilidades en investigación para identificar brechas en contenidos, así como la aplicación y reflexión de posibles soluciones que fueron reflejadas en ajustes en la planificación de clases y la implementación de estrategias didácticas. Por medio de un análisis categórico de las reflexiones derivadas de estas experiencias, se revela cómo el fortalecimiento de las habilidades de investigación permite a los docentes identificar áreas de oportunidad en el uso de las estrategias pedagógicas para mejorar la calidad de la enseñanza permitiendo reflexionar sobre sus propias prácticas docentes.
© 2026 RTI International. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
