Professional and competent teachers are reflective and constantly engage in classroom research as one of their roles requires them to be scholars, researchers, and lifelong learners. It is suggested that undertaking research can provide an authentic way for teachers to increase their understanding of issues relating to their practice. However, secondary school teachers in South Africa have not been developed to be researchers in their classroom practice. Leaving the situation unattended might result in teachers who cannot reflect critically on their classroom practices or take the initiative to handle issues in their practice by themselves. The purpose of this study was to employ lesson study to develop secondary teachers’ research skills in selected schools in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. The lesson was developed to introduce secondary school teachers to basic research skills such as the selection of a problem, planning the research, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, and reporting. The participants in the study were 16 secondary school teachers and two researchers. The study used a qualitative case study design based on the interpretive paradigm. Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews, reflection sheets, and field notes and analyzed using thematic approaches. The findings revealed that the developed lesson familiarized participants with basic research skills and developed their metacognitive skills. The findings also indicated the potential of lesson study as a professional development initiative that can be used as a research approach by the educational research community.

Keywords: Lesson study, Professional development, classroom research, reflection, research skills.