Overview of Action Research Methodology

What is Action Research? Definition Action research is known by many other names, including participatory research, collaborative inquiry, emancipatory research, action learning, and contextual action research, but all are variations on a theme. Put simply, action research is “learning by doing” – a group of people identify a problem, do something to resolve it,

Action Research Defined

Action research is social research carried out by a team that encompasses a professional action researcher and the members of an organization, commu- nity, or network (“stakeholders”) who are seeking to improve the participants’ situation. AR promotes broad participation in the research process and sup-ports action leading to a more just, sustainable, or satisfying

General Overviews of Action Research Are Hard to Find

We decided to write a general overview of AR because of our experience with university students and practitioners encountering the subject for the first time. In our experience, students and novice practitioners generally lack access to a sufficiently comprehensive and balanced way to learn about the diverse origins, theories, methods, motives, and problems associated

Action Research, Applied Research, and Qualitative Versus Quantitative Research

Action research refers to the conjunction of three elements: action, research, and participation. Unless all three elements are present, the process may be useful but it is not AR. Put another way, AR is a research strategy that gener­ates knowledge claims for the express purpose of taking action to promote social analysis and democratic

Action, Research, and Participation

Despite the significant differences among AR practitioners and their life situa­tions, we believe that several important commitments link most of us. AR is composed of a balance of three elements. If any one of the three is absent, then the process is not AR. This is not to say that al non-AR processes are

Action Research, the Disciplines, and Coverage

As noted earlier, AR is not a discipline. It involves practitioners from anthro­pology, development studies, education, engineering, gender studies, human services, psychology, human services, social work, sociology, planning, civil engineering, and many other fields, including many forms of nonacademic practice. Consequently, students will not find AR presented in introductory disciplinary courses in most departments.

Our Take on AR: Pragmatic Action Research

Our experience is predominantly, though not exclusively, in industrial, com­munity, and higher education settings in Europe and the United States. Davydd Greenwood is an anthropologist and Morten Levin is a sociolo­gist with a background in engineering. Greenwood, a professor at Cornell University, a large combined state and private institution, has served as an academic

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A History of Action Research

History can be written in many ways, and no one ever writes the history. Our intention in this chapter is to present a genealogy of action research (AR) that centers on the way we have learned to understand it during our own years in the field. We do not believe that it is possible

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Action Research Cases of Stongfjorden: Village Development in Western Norway

Sailing south along the Norwegian coast and passing the westernmost reach of the mainland, one sees a narrow, short fjord reaching 3 miles inland. Stongfjorden is surrounded by low mountains cascading straight down to the water. At the shoreline, some scattered houses can be seen, along with an indus­trial building, a small school, a

Action Research Cases of Mondragon: Organizational Problems in Industrial Cooperatives

The Mondrag6n Cooperatives in Spain are one of the most successful examples of industrial democracy anywhere and are the subject of worldwide attention and debate. As a group oflabor-managed businesses, the cooperatives have been at the center of a great deal of debate focusing on the ability of democratic orga­nizations to compete successfully in

Action Research Cases of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations: Research and Extension

During one period in its history, Programs for Employment and Workplace Systems (PEWS) in the Extension Division of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University sought to enhance its connections and reputation among the resident faculty in the academic departments. It was having limited success because of deeply held beliefs among

Defining Scientific Research

To anchor our discussion, we define scientific research as investigative activity capable of discovering that the world is or is not organized as our preconceptions lead us to expect and suggesting grounded ways of understanding and acting on it. Scientific research documents both the investigative processes and conclu­sions arising from them in sufficient detail

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General Systems Theory

One stream of scientific ideas and concepts relevant to AR comes from a loosely integrated field that is known as “general systems theory” (GST), a field little taught to university students outside of the sciences and engineering. Having its origins in physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering in the 1920s and linked later to the

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Pragmatic Philosophy and Action Research

That a stereotypical view of science prevails among nonscientists does not mean that the world is or has been unaware of the perspectives we articulate here. Al the elements of a more complex and humanly meaningful view of science are well known and have been articulated effectively by John Dewey (1976), Charles Sanders Peirce

Epistemological Foundations of Action Research

The presentations of GST and pragmatism connect directly to AR. AR aims to solve pertinent problems in a given context through a democratic inquiry where professional researchers collaborate with participants in the effort to seek and enact solutions to problems of major importance to the local people. In doing this, AR specifically engages in

The Action Research Inquiry Process Is Thus Inevitably Linked to Action

Knowledge emerges and is evaluated through acting or as a consequence of actions. The discovery process is not purely mental, receding into the intellec­tual sphere at a distance from human actions. With Dewey, we argue for under­standing inquiry as a process linking reflection and action in a unified process for the creation of new

Credibility and Validity in Action Research Inquiry

Credibility and validity in conventional social science research function as the researchers’ amulet. In a world of confusing information, these practitioners seem to find comfort in an elaborate methodological (and deeply ritualized) apparatus that purports to resolve these thorny problems cleanly. By focusing on methodological rules as a substitute for facing the question of

Readdressing the Action Research Processes

We argued that relevant actions to solve the problem at hand are the first out­come of an AR process. We also argued that the meaning construction process linked to solving practical problems is the major knowledge generation ele­ment in AR. Finally, we discussed the situations that transfer learning from one context to another and

Political Economy and the Social Structure of Science

Underlying what we have said is a set of ideas about power relationships in our society. AR is about the transformation of power relationships in the direction of greater democracy. Yet most of the experience we have of the world is of authoritarianism, command and control systems, bureaucracies, narrow spe­cializations, separation of reflection and

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Can Action Research Produce Scientifically Meaningful Results of Action Research?

We begin with a review of the standard criticism that AR is unscientific. Some of our AR colleagues address this issue by accepting the idea that science itself is necessarily inhumane and alienating. They are proud to be called unscien­tific. We disagree with them vehemently and argue instead that AR can, does, and should