This chapter is broken down into five main areas; brief history, then a description of what’s involved in action research followed by some definitions and examples (all from the area of children’s education) and finally a brief review of the advantages and disadvantages.
The history section tells us that the first recorded use of what we now describe is action research was by Kurt Lewin in the USA in the early 40s. Hopkins records its first use in the UK in the 60s, either way this is not a new approach to research.
What’s involved; this section shares three diagrams illustrating both the participative and iterative nature of action research. The author shares these examples with some caveats specifically that given the dynamic nature of action research one should not feel constrained by a particular model. For me this is quite important as I intend to use action research within business to identify learning and development needs of employees which is quite different from the examples in this chapter. See diagrams below
1.1 Kemmis and McTaggart participatory research 1.2 Elliot 1.3 O’Leary 1.4 Macintyre
Research is about generating new knowledge so action research seeks to generate knowledge in a specific context often within a practical setting. Learning through observing one’s own or others actions, reflecting and then doing something different.
When I first read about this it sounded as if we were learning a practical skill such as woodwork or plumbing, however on reflection the difference for me here is that the knowledge is new and so we are taking action to discover what is not yet known rather than to become proficient in an existing sphere of knowledge.
I like the idea that action research gives us the opportunity to take a hunch and put some rigour behind it in order to draw conclusions and take action. There may even be the possibility to provide a basis for generalisation of the knowledge acquired in to other areas or at least the opportunity to research again using a similar approach.
Valsa Koshy offers the following definitions of action research
Advantages and disadvantages
The advantages of this type of research revolve around the personal nature of it, the fact that we have control over the context and as researchers we are able to both observe and participate. The way we set out to perform the research isn’t fixed, we have the opportunity for real-time evaluation and changes of methodology if what we started doing doesn’t quite work. We aren’t setting out to prove a hypothesis and therefore were leaving open the possibility for new theory to immerge and as Koshy put it this is an opportunity to bring life to a story.
In terms of disadvantages Koshy highlights the perception of action research as being the soft option and advises clear definition of the parameters of your research and to keep a clear focus on gaining insight and taking action which are the unique selling points of this method.
Given the local and participative nature of action research the ethical issues can be quite specific but this is detailed in a later chapter.
I hope you found this of some use thanks Charles.
charleshuduni 