You and Your Action Research Project

Jean McNiff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317437048
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

You and Your Action Research Project is packed full of useful advice to take the reader through the various stages of an action research project. Written for practitioners across professions who are studying on work-based learning programmes and award-bearing courses, this book contains practical strategies for improving project work.

Split into the following five sections;

• 
  
  

• Thinking about doing a project,

• 
  
  

• Getting ready to do a project,

• 
  
  

• Planning a project and managing it,

• 
  
  

• Doing your project,

• 
  
  

• Evaluating your action research project,

the structure is clearly accessible and easy-to-read, encouraging readers of cross-curricular interests from teachers, to nurses and social workers to try new approaches.

This fourth edition of the best-seller has been thoroughly updated and improved, with new and up-to-date case study material from a very wide range of disciplines, greater emphasis on the need for dialogical practices, points for reflection, more developed ideas about sorting and analysing data, and a stronger focus on writing as a form of research.

With key sections on engaging with the literatures and collaborative practices, whilst also developing ideas about writing and data analysis, this book will be essential reading for those wanting to begin and further develop their action research.

Jean McNiff is an independent researcher and writer, Professor of Educational Research at York St John University, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Limerick. She is also the author of key text Action Research: Principles and Practice.

Part I Thinking about doing a project

Action research is about taking action (what you do), researching the action (how you find out about what you do), and learning from the process. The three chapters in Part I deal with these issues.

Chapter 1 Action research: what it is and what it is not

The chapter outlines what is involved in all kinds of research, especially action research. It also outlines some of the distinctive features of action research.

Chapter 2 Who can do action research? Why should you do it?

The chapter engages with ideas about the politics of knowledge and makes a case for why you should do action research. It helps you to appreciate why it is important to do so both within a workplace and an academic context.

Chapter 3 Current issues in action research: what do you need to know that might affect your project?

This chapter considers what you need to know to ensure that the action and research elements of your project are of the highest standard.

Chapter 1 Action research: what it is and what it is not

DOI: 10.4324/9781315693620-1

Action research is about evaluating your practice to check whether it is as good as you would like it to be, identifying any areas that you feel need improving, and finding ways to improve them. Through studying and working with your practice you can turn yourself into a reflective practitioner (Schön, 1983), a critical thinker (Brookfield, 2013) and an agent for personal and social change (Arendt, 1958).

The term ‘action research’ comprises two words, each with a different focus.

• Action refers to what you do.
• Research refers to how you find out about what you do.

Doing action research therefore involves taking action ‘in here’, in your mental world, to improve the quality of your thinking, and ‘out there’, in the social world, to improve the quality of your interactions with others, who you hope are doing the same as you. It is always done in interaction with other people, so the knowledge you create is knowledge of practices, that is, how you work with others to ensure that what you say and do, and how you interact, will be for the benefit of all.

This chapter outlines the basic principles of action research. These involve becoming aware of what you need to do to improve your practice in your workplace, doing it, and then describing and explaining what you have done, how you have done it and why you have done it. If you can achieve this you can claim that you have generated your personal theory of practice.

Action research is one form of research among many. So to appreciate what it involves you need first to appreciate what all kinds of research involve. The chapter engages with these issues and is organised as follows:

1. What is involved in all kinds of research? Epistemological issues
2. What is involved in all kinds of research? Methodological issues
3. What is distinctive about action research?

What is involved in all kinds of research? Epistemological issues

We do research when we want to find out something that we do not already know. We then say what we have come to know, how we have come to know it and why the knowledge is important. We explain how we have tested the validity of findings against the critical feedback of others, including colleagues. This is the case in all research, including action research. Research always has to do with knowledge. If a study is not about knowledge it cannot stand as research.

First look at some issues concerning knowledge. The study of knowledge is called epistemology: the next section is about epistemological issues.

Epistemological issues

Doing research is about finding things out that you did not already know (you discover existing knowledge) and also about creating new knowledge that no one knew before (you create knowledge). By discovering and creating knowledge and sharing it with others you contribute to the body of existing knowledge of a particular field. If you are a bricklayer and develop new ideas about how to lay bricks, and share that knowledge through, say, a blog or an article for a trade journal, you contribute to your field of knowledge of bricklaying. You also contribute to its knowledge base (a knowledge base comprises all the texts written for the field).

There are many ways of doing research. No one form is better or worse than others; they differ in that they achieve the purposes for which they are designed. You use a fast car to get to places quickly; you use a sit-on lawnmower to cut the grass. Both are vehicles designed for different purposes. It is the same with research: each form has its own purposes and means of achieving them: you choose the form of research depending on what you wish to achieve.

All research has specific purposes including the following:

1. discovering and creating knowledge and making knowledge claims;
2. testing the validity of knowledge claims;
3. generating new theory;
4. sharing and disseminating findings.

Purpose 1: Discovering and creating knowledge and making knowledge claims

All research aims to find out something that is not already known, including:

• the discovery of existing knowledge: you read up about management strategies;
• the development and creation of new knowledge: you invent a new manufacturing process;
• the integration of different fields and forms of knowledge: you make connections between existing leadership and marketing practices;
• the application of existing knowledge to new practices: you try out something you have read about;
• and combinations of the above, to develop new forms of practice.

When you come to know something, you can make a claim to knowledge (or a knowledge claim). You say, ‘I know this’, meaning, ‘[I am claiming that] I know this’. However, if you are prepared to make a knowledge claim, you must also be prepared to back it up with evidence, because someone will rightly say, ‘Why should I believe you? Where is your evidence?’ Making knowledge claims is serious because it involves reassuring others of your integrity; it implies ethical commitment and honest dealing. You go to a dentist because you have confidence in their ability to work on your teeth; similarly others take you on trust.

Table 1.1 gives examples of different kinds of knowledge claim.

Table 1.1 Different kinds of knowledge claim

Claims to existing knowledge (what is known)	Claims to new knowledge (what was not known before)
I can play tennis.	I have learned that I play tennis better on hard surfaces than on grass.
John is my good friend.	I appreciate more fully why John is a good friend.
Water boils at 100°C.	I have learned that water boils at different temperatures in different circumstances.

The highest aim of all research, including action research, is to create original knowledge and explain its use value in personal, social, organisational or political contexts.

There are also different kinds of knowledge. Here are some of the most common.

Different kinds of knowledge

Knowledge takes different forms. It can be objective – knowledge of facts – and also subjective, when you develop new understandings. Objective knowledge is often understood in terms of know-that and know-how:

• Know-that (also called propositional or factual knowledge) is knowledge of facts. You say, ‘I know that today is Friday’. You demonstrate the validity of this claim by producing empirical data such as a newspaper or calendar. Most declarative statements take the form of ‘know that’: ‘[I know that] hairdressing involves on-the-job training’ or ‘[…] the meeting begins at 9am’.
• Know-how (also called procedural knowledge) is knowledge of skills and procedures. You say, ‘I can ride a bike’, or ‘I can speak Arabic’. You demonstrate the validity of this claim by riding a bike or speaking Arabic. Ryle’s The Concept of Mind (1949) contains ideas about ‘know that’ and ‘know how’.These kinds of knowledge are also referred to as technical rational forms of knowledge.

However, knowledge claims need to be kept in context. Sometimes people make definitive statements as if they are true for everyone for all time. It may be right for you to say, ‘[I know that] soup tastes better if you add salt’, but many people prefer unsalted soup. It is often wiser to hold your knowledge lightly and be aware that what may be true for some may not be so for others.

In real life all forms of knowledge are inseparable and integrated in the personal knowledge of the knower; this is a different kind of knowledge.

Personal knowledge is the knowledge we have from intuition and experience. Ingold (2013) tells how he wanted to learn a practical task while working with the Saami people in north-eastern Finland, and was told ‘Know for yourself’. He says this is how we find out; we learn for ourselves. Similarly, Sennett (2009) speaks about how craft workers learn to coordinate hand and eye when they make things. Making is not simply about applying skills; it involves finding out how to do things. Polanyi (1958) maintains that personal knowledge is the foundation of everything we do. He says we know more than we can say. Try asking someone to explain how their windscreen wipers work without using their hands, or how to tie their shoelaces.

Mike Walker and Liz Moloney (2015), both of North Cumbria University Hospitals, UK, make a case for developing emotional intelligence in surgery. They say:

It is our strong belief that the National Health Service (NHS) (probably other public and commercial organisations too) encourages the development of cognitive skills (IQ) but has failed to recognise the importance of developing emotional intelligence (EQ). Commonly workforces are expected to manage ever more rapid change … with only the emotional competencies learned from their own social networks.

Purpose 2: Testing the validity of knowledge claims

Making claims to knowledge, especially to original knowledge can be problematic because saying you know something usually means that you hold something to be true. People then say, ‘Why should I believe you? Show me that what you are saying is true’. It becomes your responsibility to produce authenticated evidence to test the validity (truthfulness) of your claim. If you cannot do this you should not expect people to believe you: the credibility of your knowledge claim becomes suspect. Articulating validation procedures is part of responsible and ethical research.

Purpose 3: Generating new theory

Demonstrating the credibility of a knowledge claim means offering an explanation. You say, ‘I can explain what I know and how I have come to know it’. The word ‘explanation’ means, broadly, ‘theory’: you say, ‘I have a theory about why things work as they do’; you can describe and explain what you observe. We all have millions of theories. You turn the key in the lock according to a theory of how keys and locks work. Claiming that you can explain something means claiming you have a theory about that thing. Claiming that you can explain what you are doing in your practice implies that you have generated a theory of practice.

However, just as there are different forms of knowledge, so there are different forms of theory, too. The most commonly accepted form in the western (probably now global) intellectual tradition is abstract, conceptual theory, the kind of theory we carry in our heads: this is also the most valued form in most universities and organisations. It is widely assumed that professional and other forms of learning are achieved by applying established theories to practices, on an ‘if you do this, that will happen’ basis (if x then y). Findings are arrived at by using ‘the scientific method’, where the quality of entities is compared by manipulating variables. But this is not the only kind of theory, nor necessarily the most appropriate for investigating the world or practices. Being in the world means being a participant, not a bystander: we create meanings through interaction. We generate personal theories from practice: we try things out and accept them if they work or find other ways if they don’t.

Purpose 4: Sharing and disseminating fi...