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Sustaining education quality through action research demands empowerment and commitment of the front line implementers. Though this veracity has got recognition than ever before following the changing landscape of higher education (HE), the milieu and the practices in Ethiopian HEIs remain issues of further concern. To this end, the level of staffs encouragement and actual practices of action research; impulses for the observed practices; action research environments; the bond between institutional self-assessment and external audit; and perceived roles of action research to sustain quality have been addressed taking Education College of Addis Ababa University as a case. The ensuing lesson is that the academic staffs skimpy empowerment, commitment and conviction to take the driver s seat to improve their practices portend a sort of vicious circle. This work is believed to shed some lights on action research practices and roles to sustain quality education. This book, therefore, provides a bona fide account of the issue, and has paramount importance to higher education instructors, researchers, leaders, and students.

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Firdissa Jebessa, Researcher and Lecturer, Addis Ababa University (AAU); studied MA in Curriculum and Instruction at AAU, MSc in Educational Evaluation and Assessment at Twente University, Netherlands. He co-authored Action Research Handbook for Higher Education. Currently, he is a Deputy Coordinator of Academic Development and Resource Center of AAU.

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