What is action research? Alfredo Ortiz
The quest for living knowledge is directly connected with working with people in their life situations, working with how people experience their worlds and how we might work together to change them. (Reason, 1996: 19)
What?
Action research (AR) is a process that has the dual purpose of supporting practical transformation and advancing knowledge (Huxham and Vangen, 2003: 384) in pursuit of worthwhile practice purposes (Reason, 2006: 189). AR represents ‘a collective commitment to investigate an issue or problem, a desire to engage in self- and collective reflection to gain clarity about the issues under investigation, a joint decision to engage in individual and/or collective action that leads to a useful solution that benefits the people involved, and the building of alliances between researchers and participants in the planning, implementation, and dissemination of the research process’ (McIntyre, 2008: 1). AR attempts to involve collaborators in participative and democratic relationships (Reason, 2006: 189)[i].
How?
The concept of action research…is obviously applicable to an examination of human activity systems carried out through the process of attempting to solve problems. Its core is the idea that the researcher does not remain an observer outside the subject of investigation but becomes a participant…in the action, and the process of change itself becomes the subject of research. (Checkland, 1981, 1993: 152)
Figure 1—Cycle of action research in human situations, adapted from (Adapted from Checkland and Holwell, 1998: 15)
AR is an emergent engagement process that utilizes many ways of finding out about issues and learning (ibid). Key processes include planning a change, acting and observing the process and consequences of change, reflecting on these processes and consequences, and then continuing within the same spiral of self-reflective cycles by re-planning, acting, reflecting, etc. (Kemmis and McTaggart, 2005: 563). AR processes will generate knowledge about a particular area of concern to researchers (A), but they also generate knowledge about the action-based methodology we use to intervene in a situation (M), and about existing theory or conceptual frameworks (F) that might inform and enrich our process (see figure 1).
This action research cycle allows for addressing worthwhile practical purposes , while at the same time being concerned about how we link the practical things we do with a wider field of scholarship (Reason, 2006: 189). In fact, action research offers opportunities for theory development that other methods do not, including generating rich data about what people say and do—and what theories relevant—when we are faced with a real need to take action (Huxham and Vangen, 2003: 384). ‘Action research is particularly appropriate for developing theory that relates closely to practice and is concerned with the process of managing’ (ibid: 399).
Why?
‘From our perspective the error is to separate these two [(theory and action)]; rather, we seek a living knowledge or action inquiry in which we act with knowledge and reflection; we seek a knowledge that is useful to us and others in action’ (Reason, 1996: 27, italics original)
‘But action research goes beyond the notion that theory can inform practice, to a recognition that the theory can and should be generated through practice, and, … that theory is really only useful insofar as it is put in the service of a practice focused on achieving positive social change’ (Brydon-Miller et al., 2003: 15).
‘The case for action-based research appears to me to be particularly strong if the aim of the research is to facilitate human advancement and social change’ (Dreze, 2002: 818).
Perhaps the most basic but bold claim made by action researchers is that effective learning comes through the process of trying to change things. Action is a way of knowing [and learning] because life itself is conducted through action – people come to know of the world as they interact with it every day. As people work, create, stir things up, advocate, react, adapt and relate in many other ways we make sense out of life. This sensemaking combines simultaneous action and adaptive reflection as people navigate their way through real-life situations in order to survive, learn and in some cases thrive. Knowledge informs our actions, which can generate further knowledge that can inform further action – towards any human purpose. This knowledge can be put to use for practical purposes such as addressing climate change and its effects on children and communities, violence in Brazilian favelas (illegal housing settlements), community-led sanitation efforts, community engagement by universities, power relations in community and voluntary organizations, strengthening militant organizational identity, and many others (Entire paragraph reproduced from Burns et al., 2012: 2).
AR in our cases
During the opening the semester, the class was divided into two groups with the focus of using action research to shed light on the realities of organizational sustainability. Through this process we examined what "community" means to a local arts-based community development organization so that it may better reach and serve that community (Group Rivera); and how a youth arts organization can better leverage its alumni to create broader, sustainable impact (Group Picasso).
[i] Note: this has implications on the role of the facilitator and the balance between: a) action and research—i.e.in the relative emphasis placed on the practical transformation vis-à-vis the advancement of more general knowledge or theory (Huxham and Vangen, 2003: 384); and b) researcher control versus broad democratic participation in AR phases. This then affects whether organizational participants are aware that they are participating in research beyond the practical action or learning they seek (ibid: 386). At one extreme, perhaps, is action taken in an organization by a researcher in which the organization only seeks practical improvements, while the researcher also desires to generate more general, theoretical knowledge. This is still AR to the researcher, but to the organization it is simply practical ‘action’. At the other end of the spectrum are AR definitions that seek practical action and knowledge generation but with a highly participative and democratic social change worldview, opening up the entire process to co-design and co-implementation and sense-making with participants (for example, see: Fals Borda, 2001, Greenwood and Levin, 2007, McIntyre, 2008, McTaggart, 1991).