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PART I
What is Written in an Action Research Text?
This Part deals with the question ‘What is written in an action research text?’ It outlines what you need to know and do in order to write an action research text, whether for higher degree accreditation or for publication in journals or as books.
This Part contains Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Chapter 1 asks, ‘What do you need to know about action research in order to write it?’ It outlines the differences between doing action research and studying what you do as you do it (which is what many people do in the real world), and studying action research as a topic (which is what many people do in higher institutional contexts). It outlines some of the practical implications for what you write and how you write it.
Chapter 2 asks, ‘What do you need to know to write action research? Why do you need to know it?’ The chapter outlines the main theoretical issues you need to know in order to do and write action research. It emphasises that you have choices about which issues you wish to engage with and how you choose to use your knowledge, with possible practical and ethical implications.
Chapter 3 asks, ‘What do you write in an action research text?’ It outlines what subject matter goes into a text, and how to achieve an explanatory level of writing appropriate for an academic text.
Chapter 4 asks, ‘What is the form of an action research text?’ It discusses what an action research text looks like, and how you can achieve an appropriate standard.
Throughout this Part practical advice is given about what you need to do to produce a high quality academic text. Please note that this Part is more conceptual than the rest of the book. There is a focus on the philosophy of action research, and strong theoretical frameworks are offered to ground ideas and practices. I hope these will help you as you weave together the theoretical and practical aspects of your work.
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ONE
What Do You Need to Know About Action Research in Order to Write it?
This chapter outlines what you need to know about action research in order to write it. However, these days this is not quite as straightforward as it used to be, because nowadays it is not possible to say definitively what action research is and what it means, given that there are many different action research traditions, all with varying perspectives. Therefore if you wish to write with authority and understanding you first need to know what the traditions are and what they say.
To help appreciate the different perspectives, first look at what Sowell (1987) has to say about a conflict of visions.
Sowell says that people often have different kinds of social visions: he calls one of them a constrained vision and the other an unconstrained vision. People with a constrained vision tend to see situations as given and closed, so learn how to work effectively within them. An unconstrained vision allows people to see possibilities and opportunities: they exercise personal and collective agency to realise them. A constrained vision errs towards orthodoxy; it is about being, and looks for answers and outcomes. An unconstrained vision is adventurous and on the lookout for new ideas; it is about becoming, at home with openness, optimism and critique.
This chapter looks at how these different visions influence the traditions of action research, and how different people with different visions have at times appropriated and misappropriated action research for their own purposes. The chapter covers the following:
1. The practice of action research as a practice and the study of action research as a topic
2. The misappropriation of action research
3. What does this mean for you as an action research writer?
First, let’s consider the differences between the practice of action research as a practice and the study of action research as a topic, and what they mean.
The Practice of Action Research as a Practice and the Study of Action Research as a Topic
Action research is universally acknowledged as about change, collaborative and democratic practices, and a commitment towards humans’ and other entities’ well-being, including animals and the living planet. Although these days there are multiple traditions in action research, most agree on certain goals. These include:
No matter how action research is done, or who does it, these matters are taken as standard. However, there are two key considerations.
First, the fact that action research is about collaborative and democratic practices makes it political. This is nothing unusual; all research is political, with social intent, though the intent may vary from helping others to controlling them. Action research is political because it aims to influence processes of change. This means engaging with different forms of politics, including the politics of research in general, of the social context, of the researcher and of the potential reader. These political contexts form backstories to the main stories of action research. To write and do action research successfully you need to know what the backstories say as well as the main public stories. You also need to think about what influences your own personal backstories as well as the stories you tell publicly.
Second, the rhetoric and practices of action researchers can differ. While many write about the democratic, collaborative, emancipatory and other principles of action research, their frequently territorial practices sometimes deny the rhetoric. This can make life difficult for scholars who take what they read in good faith, and so don’t know which story to believe.
To make sense of it all, think about the differences between the practice of action research as a practice and the study of action research as a topic, and how these are communicated.
The practice, study and communication of action research
The practice of action research as a practice and the study of action research as a topic are different and are communicated in different ways. Briefly:
• The practice of action research as a practice refers to what people do, individually and collectively, in particular social situations when they inquire into how they can find ways to improve what they are doing. This is a process of personal and collective inquiry. They communicate these stories through oral and written texts, often emphasising personal and collective struggles and achievements.
• The study of action research as a topic refers to how an observer observes, describes and explains what the people involved in those social situations do. How the observer studies this depends on how they position themselves in relation to the situation, whether as outsider or insider researcher (see below), and what their aims and purposes are. The researcher is usually from higher education and uses a traditional form of academic writing.
• The communication of action research depends on how writers see action research, whether as practices in the life-world or as a topic of study within a particular scholarly tradition. They communicate their understanding of action research through the texts they produce.
Here is a closer analysis.
The practice of action research as a practice
The practice of action research as a practice has been around throughout history, long before people called it action research. At a basic methodological level it can be seen as a general strategy that people and other organisms use when faced with dilemmas, puzzles and problems. It looks like this:
• Identify an issue that needs attention or investigation.
• Be reasonably clear why it needs attention.
• Show to oneself, and probably others, what the issue and its contexts look like.
• Imagine what can be done about it.
• Try out a possible strategy and see what happens.
• Change practice and thinking in light of the evaluation.
This evolutionary process is evident across the living world. When a plant or animal is under attack from a predator it tries to find a way of defending itself. When one person loves another, they try to find ways to get the other to reciprocate. When people get stuck in routines or lose momentum they try to find ways of leveraging themselves into new directions. All living organisms, including people, do this: they find ways of staying alive and well. In the human domain it is especially visible in the social world, and especially in processes of social and technological evolution. Examples of social evolution are judiciary systems, health services and the recognition of human rights. Examples of technological evolution are pitchforks, computers and cars. People have acted to make their lives more productive and fulfilling through whatever means are available. A good example is the military: a General sends out scouts on reconnaissance. They bring back intelligence, which is acted on to inform strategy. The strategy is implemented, and gains and losses evaluated. New strategies are planned,and the cycle begins again.
The practice of action research as a practice may therefore be seen in the process of life itself where everything is in a process of evolution. One event transforms into another in perpetual motion: the oak tree emerges from the acorn where it has lain phylogenetically dormant throughout history. Appreciating these processes means adopting an attitude to the world and, instead of simply taking things for granted and seeing them as objects in one’s space, seeing everything as in a process of evolution.
If anyone using this strategy were to articulate it, they would say something like the following:
• What do I wish to investigate? What is my research issue? What is my concern?
• Why do I wish to investigate it? Why is this an issue? Why am I concerned?
• What kind of data can I produce to show the situation as it is?
• What can I do about it? What are my options for action?
• What will I do? How will I do it?
• How will I continue to gather data and generate evidence to show the situation as it develops?
• How will I ensure that any conclusions I come to are reasonable and justifiable?
• How will I modify my practices in light of my evaluation?
• How will I explain the significance of my research in action?
From this perspective, action research can be understood as about people doing everyday actions and studying what they are doing as they try to live productive and meaningful lives. They do this in mundane settings such as doing the shopping, or in more recognised practice settings such as nursing and machine engineering. Practices may be formalised as projects but not necessarily so. Whatever the setting, the case remains that people work imaginatively and collaboratively in an emergent, developmental way. People also use symbolic forms, including language, to make what they are doing explicit: they offer descriptions and explanations for their actions, as well as their reasons and purposes. This process is known as theorising: they explain the significance of their actions for different constituencies, and imagine ways in which they could have done things differently. In this way they can develop cooperative and shared forms of learning that can facilitate the processes of social evolution. Action research may therefore be seen as a form of ethics in action, when ethics is understood as ‘a discourse for rethinking our relations to other people’ (Todd, 2003: 1). It is always about people thinking, working and creating knowledge together, a commitment towards improvement, that is, a move towards however those people understand ‘the good’. It is not knowledge about ethics so much as the practice of ethics in action.
These processes are communicated through texts in the form of stories. The Mills and Boon industry, for example, takes it as a standard model: boy meets girl, they fall in love, seemingly insurmountable misunderstandings develop (usually through external circumstances), and one party takes strategic action to resolve the dilemmas. Misunderstandings are clarified, conflicts resolved and lovers reunited. The recipe works, time and again. A book is written and sells widely, helped because the transformational dialectic of its plot is communicated explicitly through the structure of the text.
The study of action research as a topic
The study of action research as a topic also has a long history, extending formally over the last hundred years or so and informally long before that. It adopts a range o...
