Participatory Rural Appraisal and Action Research

Whatever the problems involved in its deployment, there is a clear relationship between PRA, PE more generally, and AR. Local knowledge is valued and is taken as the basis for development program design and implementation. PRA does result in some warrants for action. These approaches also contain a strong critique of urban professionalism as

Central Perspectives of Action Research

As framed by Reason and Bradbury in their opening chapter for the Handbook of Action Research (2001a), AR centers on producing knowledge that is useful to people in everyday life, that increases the well-being of individuals and com­munities in the context of sustainable relationships with the rest of the world, that is emancipatory in

Human Inquiry in Action Research

PETER REASON ON HUMAN INQUIRY One of the most striking characteristics of these forms of inquiry is their ongoing trajectory of development through the steady incorporation of a wide variety of perspectives and practices. The genealogy of Peter Reason’s work stretches back to the late 1970s, and from then to now there is an

Action Inquiry and Self-Reflective Inquiry

Within this array of approaches, there clearly are different kinds of emphases. One such emphasis takes a harder-edged approach to the role of personal inquiry in making AR processes possible. Some of this work is influenced by the work of Argyris (see Chapter 15, “Action Science and Organizational Learning”), but it also owes a

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Cooperative Inquiry in Action Research

1. JOHN HERON ON COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY John Heron is a collaborator as well as a friendly critic of Peter Reason (he set up the New Paradigm Research Group in London in 1978 with Reason and John Rowan). He is also a prolific writer and practitioner in his own right. While Heron’s work has much

Action Science

We focus on the book Action Science, by Chris Argyris, Robert Putnam, and Diana McClain Smith because it contains the major ingredients of the action science approach; we have been able to use the book in the classroom, where it succeeds in making the arguments clear to first-time readers. We believe that the approach

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Organizational Learning

The long and fruitful collaboration between Chris Argyris and Donald SchOn led to a number of books; two of the most important are Organizational Learning ( 1978) and Organizational Learning II ( 1996). Though the term OL is now common, Argyris and Schon created it in 1978, at a time when organiza­tional behavior thinking

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The Skills Required for Action Science and Organizational Learning

Good AS practice focuses heavily on group process skills. In the interventions we have observed by some action scientists, we have been impressed by certain skills they develop. For one thing, they are very patient and persistent with the processes. The calm, persistent, clear, and supportive role interveners play does much to create the

General Considerations of Educating Action Researchers

There are a few postgraduate programs in AR and, to our knowledge, no specialized undergraduate AR programs worldwide. AR lacks any kind of forum for the discussion of the pedagogical strategies and choices involved in the competent training of students in AR. Action research can bridge the gap between universities and societies in ways

Action Research Praxis in Higher Education

The point of departure for AR in universities is a pedagogical approach that combines multiple professional knowledges (from one or more disciplines) with engagement with local problem owners in real-life problems in context. This contrasts with conventional university training that generally and pur­posely disconnects theory from practice, teaching from doing, and relies heavily on

Some Possibilities for Current Undergraduate Action Research Teaching

With the exception of offering some specialized programs for small groups of undergraduates, which we describe later, we think the main focus of AR under­graduate teaching should be to provide an initial understanding of what AR is, its goals, its history in the larger context of social knowledge production, and an initial understanding of

Ph.D. Training in Action Research

In our view, the most promising educational arena for AR is found in Ph.D. training. The students are more mature, can focus their attention on a partic­ular set of interests, and the Ph.D. program is of sufficient duration for major change projects to be possible. This creates a situation in which the students can

Situating Action Research Within the University

Teaching is one but not the only way of situating AR within the university. Universities are structured to suit the convenience of those who earn their livings there and who manage them. Having an array of separate departments, each putatively encompassing a discipline with no ambiguity at the borders, as if the disciplines had

Participation and Action Research

Because participation is often treated too generally, it is worthwhile both to differentiate and contextualize the concept in ways that can help action researchers triangulate the overall direction of their projects. Participation can be viewed from different perspectives. We have chosen three: the first is built on power and control, the second framed in

Democratization and Action Research

If understanding the diverse meanings of participation is complex, the concept of democratization offers even more challenges because its referents are even broader. This is a term that refers to structures, processes, governments, decision making, and moral goals, and no short treatment will do it justice. Despite the importance action researchers ascribe to it,

Venues for Participation and Democratization in Action Research

To this point, we have talked about participation and democratization in a fairly abstract way. Another strategy is to think contextually about the condi­tions of possibility that we find in the situations we work in. Conditions for participation and democratization differ in manufacturing, process, and ser­vice industries, and these conditions differ from those in

A Definition of Content Analysis

In content analysis, evaluators classify the key ideas in a written communication, such as a report, article, or film. Evaluators can do content analysis of video, film, and other forms of recorded information, but in this paper, we focus on analyzing words. Here is a formal definition of content analysis: it is a systematic

The Uses of Content Analysis

Here are several ways in which GAO evaluators have successfully used content analysis techniques. In Stars and Stripes: Inherent Conflicts Lead to Allegations of Military Censorship (GAO, 1988), GAO evaluators used content analysis to help assess issues of censorship, news management, and other influences on various editions of the military newspaper. Details of technique

Computerized Content Analysis

The increasing availability of written information on computer files, and the increasing number of computer programs to analyze text files, makes content analysis easier to do than ever before. Moreover, computerized programs can easily code textual data and combine them with quantitative data. The evaluator can then analyze both kinds of data with various

Some Advantages of Content Analysis

1. It Can Be Unobtrusive One problem with surveys and some experimental methods is that evaluators and their informants can interact during data collection in ways other than how they would “naturally” react. For example, a content analysis of the hearing transcripts might be more useful than interviews with federal officials about what took