Action research is a highly useful took in professional development where the work environment and the labor market have become highly competitive professionally developed individuals are rare though the labor market consists of high numbers of unemployed professionals. The difference lies in the fine-tuning of those developed ones, who have undergone in-depth analysis of their career goals and have shaped their studies, learning, and skills to achieve those objectives. But one cannot on his or her own develop the needed skills and fine-tuning. How one learns is through experience, especially when one talks for business graduates, who need insight of the challenges that working in a company bestows onto them. Without this insight it is difficult for them to counter the complexities once they enter into the real business environment. Herein proper guidance and direction and the required skills are required to develop the professional personality that is incumbent of the needed skills, as per the demand of the multinational corporations. This is the job of the institutions where career oriented individuals venture to acquire professional education. The institutions thus, have to continually assess their systems, analyze the environment, conduct researches, and incorporate the demands of the companies and the changing nature of work into their curriculum and develop training aids to qualify the students to cater better to the challenges of the new work environment.
Action research can be used as an effective tool in the institutions imparting professional courses and learning modules. Action research allows a much better transition from of the knowledge from the minds of the professors or the teachers to the students. Universities and institutions which are faced with the growing challenges of the changing nature of work, have to devise new and improved strategies and training aids to provide the students with the simulated learning environment which best reflects the real work environment. Much of this change has been because of the increasing employment of technologically advanced and reengineered business processes where the skills that were acquired by the graduates ten to twenty years back are slowly becoming obsolete and the new graduates have to taught in a way that allows them to be flexible when it comes to knowledge and training and enable themselves to be always open to change and incorporate the changing demands of the companies into their set of skills.
The new business environment is highly computer based and internet based, which is far beyond the mere concepts and notions of databases where the computer analysts or database managers were the only ones to handle the computer related queries. Now all major computer dealings are done via intranets and extranets and business processes are highly automated which leaves no room for paper-based workaholics, who would soon grow frustrated in an environment they have had no idea of previously. Thus, institutions have to induce this highly important notion and direction into the curriculum that they use to train the students seeking professional development training (Stringer, 2007).
But making the existing curriculum more competencies based is not the only advantage of implying action research in the educational system for professional development but therein also lies a very important implication which is essential to be a part of the education and training of all students about to impart into the business environment in any aspect and this is of the holistic element of business. With businesses realizing the importance of holistic marketing and other business practices, the educationalists too have to incorporate the notion into the teaching practices. What is holistic teaching procedure? Holistic environment is where various elements interact and integrate to create a better whole where synergy is best built when the importance of each and every element is well understood and enhanced via making better use of the benefits offered by each element. How can this concept be applied to education? The major thing to understand is to develop lessons plans and educational and professional training in such a way that integrates and merges up concepts and encourages and induces the students to think outside the realm of the books and the classrooms and correlate various concepts learned so that they can better develop a real picture in their minds as to how the real professional environment is working (Mertler, 2008).
With both notions, the high challenging skills and holistic work environment, put into effective practice via means cleverly designed and conducted action researches and using the data collected to devise more competitive and competent curriculum that is of highly responsive to the modern business environment, the educational institutions imparting professional development can become up to the standards and save themselves from becoming out dated based on how far behind they lie in terms of obsolete skills and training methods they have been using to teach.