A Useful Research Design

Action research has approached conflict mainly through the concept of conflict resolution, where action researchers play a role as third parties acting as organizers, conveners, and facilitators. This paper proposes a complementary role as stakeholders in the conflicts of territorial development and thus, as one more part in conflict. This is done in the context of one specific approach to action research, namely, action research for territorial development and one specific project, the Territorial Development Laboratory initiated in 2009 in Gipuzkoa, Basque Country, Spain. The paper argues that the ideological and political positions of action researchers, legitimated by the other stakeholders through the action research process, give them a stake in territorial development conflicts. It also revisits the interpretation of participation in action research in order to conceptualize action researchers’ role as stakeholders in the conflicts of territorial development. These discussions are of interest for any action researcher wanting to explore her or his role as a part in conflict in action research processes and not exclusively as a third party facilitating the process.

The unique affordances of Action Research, including flexibility, playfulness, accessibility, and a focus on practical problem solving provided crucial strategies for generating knowledge and developing solutions to the challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic. The move to online research settings, in particular, required action researchers to find ways to adapt existing research methods and to devise new approaches. This article describes the work of a group of doctoral students in an Educational Leadership program and their instructor in carrying out action research methods in both synchronous and asynchronous online settings. If the months of the pandemic have taught us nothing else, it is that flexibility and willingness to innovate, which are central to action research, are valuable assets in times of uncertainty. The unique affordances of Action Research include creativity, playfulness, accessibility to multiple participants and audiences, transferability of findings, and a focus on the generation of knowledge designed to be pragmatic and problem-focused. These qualities can be harnessed to address the multiple challenges we have encountered during the pandemic including health equity and access, poverty and unemployment, and the interruption of education for vulnerable student populations. They also offer us hope that action research can continue to contribute to addressing the challenges we are sure to face in the future. As students in an educational leadership doctoral program, we focus on examining problems of practice in our schools and districts through action research. As we adapted to online learning in our own schools, we were able to bring these skills to bear in our doctoral studies by developing strategies for conducting these action research methods in both synchronous and asynchronous online settings. This paper describes some of the approaches we developed in the hope that this will enable other action researchers to implement these methods in their own schools, organizations, and communities. The specific action research methods described in this paper are Future Creating Workshops, Citizens’ Juries, World Café, Nominal Group Technique, and Digital Storytelling.

This article explores the potential of action research by evaluating the research process, methodological nuances and experiential learnings of an action researcher involved in the action research conducted at Dudhera, a rural village in India on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). It documents the struggles and resistance of MGNREGA workers of Dudhera. They came together and decided to claim rights under MGNREGA when they felt powerless and starved - of both information and influence over the key decisions that affected their lives. The article critically examines the implementation failure of MGNREGA and the malpractices perpetuated by the Panchayat. It also portrays the community’s determination to bring change by claiming their right and challenging the status quo. The article also presents a reflexive analysis of action research, including the role of action researcher, community engagement and subjective transformation of both self and community in the action research process. The article advances knowledge about participatory action research and its potential for transformative change.

This is part of an ad hoc series of articles which we call ‘provocation papers’. These aim to provoke new ways of thinking and engaging with knowledge by questioning existing assumptions and practices. Provocations can draw on disciplines/theories beyond action research, but they must explain how these provoke us to reflect on action research and the ways it is used. In this paper, David Coghlan reflects on our learning and formation as action researchers as an integrative interweaving of first-, second- and third-person processes – a social science whereby we learn within the action research community and in second-person practice with co-researchers and through the third-person encounter with the literature (such as the writings of other scholars and accounts of previous research). Attention to single-, double- and triple-loop awareness and inquiry runs are at the heart of our first-person appropriation of what is to be an action researcher. David also relates examples of his development as an action research scholar and invites readers to attend to and appreciate the heritage of their scholarship of practice and how they frame their action research philosophy and practice.

This text is a report from the III International Symposium of Action and Participatory research that took place in Bogota (Colombia), from June 22 to 25, 2015. These conferences originated from the International Journal of Action Research’s intention of providing a regular space for action researchers to meet, share and evaluate their practices. As Colombia was the homeland of Orlando Fals Borda (1925-2008), his living memory was very much felt during the symposium, which was also intended to pay homage to this researcher who keeps influencing much of action and participatory research in Latin America. Investigacion Accion Participativa (IAP) revealed itself to be a quite well established approach within the larger context of action research. The papers were largely centered on methodological creativity, and the discussions called attention to the importance of situating research practices and projects within the present global social and economic context. Keywords: Action Research, participatory research, Investigacion accion participative (IAP), Orlando Fals Borda, participatory methodologies

The action research cycle reloaded: Conducting action research across buyer-supplier relationships

This paper reflects on the challenges and benefits of multidimensional collaboration in an action research study to evaluate and improve preoperative education for patients awaiting colorectal surgery. Three cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting were designed to evaluate practice and implement change in this interactive setting, calling for specific and distinct collaborations. Data collection includes: observing educational interactions; administering patient evaluation questionnaires; interviewing healthcare staff, patients and carers; patient and carer focus groups; and examining written and audiovisual educational materials. The study revolves around and depends on multi-dimensional collaborations. Reflecting on these collaborations highlights the diversity of perspectives held by all those engaged in the study and enhances the action research lessons. Successfully maintaining the collaborations recognises the need for negotiation, inclusivity, comprehension, brokerage, and problem-solving. Managing the potential tensions is crucial to the successful implementation of changes introduced to practice and thus has important implications for patients’ well-being. This paper describes the experiences from an action research project involving new and specific collaborations, focusing on a particular healthcare setting. It exemplifies the challenges of the collaborative action research process and examines how both researchers and practitioners might reflect on the translation of theory into educational practices within a hospital colorectal department. Despite its context-specific features, the reflections on the types of challenges faced and lessons learned provide implications for action researchers in diverse healthcare settings across the world.

The article explores the action research process throughout a land management research project, with the ambition to reflect upon action research as a working approach. It is shown how this process is experienced from a researcher’s point of view and it critically analyses its methodology and process, outcome and the role of the action researcher.

New Feminist Approaches to Social Science Methodologies: An Introduction

<JATS1:p>This book facilitates the completion of action research studies by providing a series of tasks that guide action researchers from the beginning of a project and selecting a topic for study, to completion of the project and editing final reports. All too often, students and practicing professionals in professional development schools are overwhelmed by the thought of doing an action research project and resort to using quasi-experimental designs. A Toolkit for Action Research puts an end to both, with the result being a life-long learning and reflection tool for teachers. This workbook can be used alone, or in conjunction with traditional action research texts, such as Daniel Tomal's Action Research for Educators.</JATS1:p>

This article served two purposes. First and foremost, it gave the author an opportunity to re-visit, and acknowledge, some ways in which her professional relationship with John Elliott and other professional friends influenced her work in action research. Second, it enabled the author to revisit current ideas held in two areas of interest that have, over the years, grown out of departure from, as well as identification with, John's own work. The first relates to the personal and emotional dimensions of theory in action research and the second, to issues of methodological creativity. In re-visiting these two areas of interest, the author tries to synthesise them in a new way in order to explore the connections between the personal, the emotional and the innovative in action research methodology. In this, the article attempts to link issues related to the ‘I’ of the action researcher with the ‘we’ of the collaborative research group. It is argued that our ‘self’ is implicated deeply in action research methodology, whatever form that might take. The emotional and social climate in which the ‘I’ operates is consequential. This means that we need to take a holistic view of the action researcher as person, and of collaborative colleagues as enablers and supporters, if we are to optimise the powers that can be brought to the process of enquiry and change. The article also tries to be ‘true’ to the notion that one's ideas, theories and work are shaped by what Wayne Booth calls ‘the company we keep’.

The theory and practice of communicative space is explored through three select action research studies from a past edition of Action Research, that focus on the practice of “opening communicative space” in action research. In an examination of these studies, a story is told of how the emancipatory interests of the marginalized (i.e. African-American students in public schools, the Aged in healthcare, and the Roma people of northeastern Hungary) can be realized through the opening and emergence of communicative spaces throughout the action research process. This story is told through successive themes that include the expectations and interests of action researchers, the challenges that they encountered once the action research process was underway, and finally, their reflective observations upon new communicative spaces that had emerged. While theoretical perspectives on communicative space are considered, such as the social theory of Jürgen Habermas, this article looks especially to the practical framework of William Isaacs on “Fields of Conversation” to understand how the opening of communicative spaces contributes to the emancipatory interests of action research.

While this article is located in a specific country, South Africa, the arguments developed are more generally useful for action researchers internationally. The author first discusses the critical importance of the broader context within which any action research project is embedded. Here, the point is to understand the specificity of the local political, research and educational policy climate, and how one's own biography as a researcher is shaped by this setting. Fragments from the author's life, together with three South African action research projects, are then outlined to illustrate these points. The case is then developed for the notion of critique in action research, arguing in effect for the central practical importance of rigorous theory‐based projects if action researchers are going to be able to step outside their taken‐for‐granted reality and push at the edges of their own experiences. This case is supported with reflections on the author's own educational development, shaped over time and grounded in the dialectical play of sociological theories and her empirical texts. Finally, the author considers what all this means for change: for her personal understanding, for wider questions of collective political action and for action research projects.

Changed views on the nature and purpose of knowledge production provide the backdrop for the authors’ demonstration of the ways in which action research on the development of general skills transformed their values into a living theory. This paper recounts how action research was used to integrate general skills into a medical curriculum. It also presents evidence of the critical scrutiny to which the first author’s educational practice was subjected. The distinctive features of action research provide an analytical framework for arguing that an action researcher can produce useful knowledge and so certainly can have a “scientific message”.

In this chapter I will describe an action research (AR) study that I used to develop local managers in a multinational company where I was a senior manager and had taken over responsibility for managing a newly set up global engineering operation. My study also contributed to completing a PhD thesis with the University of South Australia. I have structured the chapter as follows: I have started with a description of the context for my study and the reasons why the problem addressed in the study was important to the organisation where it was carried out, to me, and to the six managers reporting to me who became my coresearchers in the study. I will explain why I selected the action research model that I used it in my study. I will then introduce my Australian doctoral supervisors, the Singaporean managers who were involved as coresearchers as well as three other Singaporean managers, who were also doctoral candidates and who were being supervised by the same supervisors, with whom I formed an action learning set during the study. The role played by a virtual action learning set that I formed with an international group of action researchers will also be explained. I will then describe the setting which was a Japanese company, where the study took place. This will be followed by a description of the research carried out. I will follow this up with insights from my study. I will close the chapter with a reflection on how my study could have been done differently as I have now gained experience as an academic and supervisor of doctoral students who are using action research.