Action research is a cyclical process of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting to address practical issues in real-world situations. It involves collaborative inquiry by reflective practitioners to improve their practices through a process of self-evaluation and participatory problem-solving. Key elements include working on participants' own problems, seeking to improve practice, being collaborative and participatory, taking a problem-solving approach, being undertaken in real-world contexts, and involving ongoing cycles of diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation.

1. ACTION RESEARCH
© LOUIS COHEN, LAWRENCE
MANION & KEITH MORRISON

2. STRUCTURE OF THE CHAPTER
• Defining action research
• Principles and characteristics of action
research
• Participatory action research
• Action research as critical praxis
• Action research and complexity theory
• Procedures for action research
• Reporting action research
• Reflexivity in action research
• Some practical and theoretical matters

3. ACTION RESEARCH
• Action research is a small-scale intervention
in the functioning of the real world to address
practitioners’ own issues, and a close
examination of the effects of such an
intervention.
• Kemmis and McTaggart (1992: 10):
– ‘to do action research is to plan, act,
observe and reflect more carefully, more
systematically, and more rigorously than
one usually does in everyday life’.
• Action research combines diagnosis, action
and reflection.

4. ACTION RESEARCH COMBINES 6 NOTIONS
1. A straightforward cycle of: identifying a
problem, planning an intervention,
implementing the intervention,
evaluating the outcome;
2. Reflective practice;
3. Political emancipation;
4. Critical theory;
5. Professional development; and
6. Participatory practitioner research.

5. ELEMENTS OF ACTION RESEARCH
• It works on participants’ own problems;
• It seeks to improve practice;
• It is collaborative and participatory;
• It is problem-solving;
• It is undertaken in situ;
• It is an ongoing cycle of diagnosis, planning,
implementation and evaluation;
• It is methodologically eclectic;
• It requires reflection;
• It builds on professional development.

6. ACTION RESEARCH IS . . .
• Critical (and self-critical) collaborative
inquiry by
• Reflective practitioners being
• Accountable and making results of their
enquiry public
• Self-evaluating their practice and
engaged in
• Participatory problem-solving and
continuing professional development.

7. PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH
• It commences with explicit social and political intentions
that articulate with the dominated and poor classes and
groups in society;
• It involves popular participation in the research process;
• It regards knowledge as an agent of social
transformation as a whole, constituting a critique of
those views of knowledge (theory) as separate from
practice;
• Its epistemological base is rooted in critical theory and
its critique of the subject/object relations in research;
• It engages issues of power;
• It raises the consciousness of individuals and groups;
• It is a democratic activity.

8. ACTION RESEARCH AS CRITICAL PRAXIS
• The emancipatory interest of Habermas:
to understand and change the world
• Ideology critique and action
• People taking control of their own lives
• A challenge to the illegitimate operation
of power
• A concern for equality and social justice
• Empowerment of individuals and groups

9. CRITICISMS OF ACTION RESEARCH
AS CRITICAL PRAXIS
• It is uncritical and self-contradicting;
• It will promote conformity through slavish
adherence to its orthodoxies;
• It is naïve in its understanding of groups and
celebrates groups over individuals;
• It privileges its own view of science (rejecting
objectivity) and lacks modesty;
• It privileges the authority of critical theory;
• It is elitist whilst purporting to serve egalitarianism;
• It assumes an undifferentiated view of action
research;
• It attempts to colonize and redirect action
research.

10. THE ACTION RESEARCH CYCLE
T h e n P la n
R e s e a r c h I m p le m e n t
A c tio n
and
M o n ito r
F ir s t A c tio n
P la n Act
P la n a c tio n thoughtfully
A c tio n (to g e th e r )
Reconnaissance
(First Cycle) R e fle c t
E v a lu a te R e s e a r c h F ir s t
(o n A c tio n )
a c tio n a c tio n P r o d u c e
D a ta
and
R e v ie w
(R e s e a r c h )
P r o c e s s T h e n
(s e p a r a te ly A n a ly s e
a n d to g e th e r ) D a ta
(Tripp, 2003)

11. IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM –
CAUSES NOT SYMPTOMS
Diagnosis:
• What actually is the real problem?
• What are the causes?

12. PLAN INTERVENTIONS
Divergent Phase:
• What actions are possible?
• What alternatives are there?
• Evaluate alternatives.
Convergent Phase:
• Which intervention will be adopted?
• Decide from amongst the alternatives.
Planning:
• How will the intervention be implemented?

13. IMPLEMENTATION
Putting the plan into action
• Initiation
• Development
• Sustenance
• Follow-up

14. EVALUATION
How successfully has the intervention
addressed the issue?
• What are the success criteria?
• How will you know if the intervention has been
successful?
• What are the outcomes of the intervention?
• What ongoing monitoring will there be?
• What will you do if the intervention is not
working?

15. REFLEXIVITY IN ACTION RESEARCH
• A self-conscious awareness of the
effects that the participants-as-
practitioners-and-researchers are having
on the research process, how their
values, attitudes, perceptions, opinions,
actions, feelings etc. are influencing the
situation being studied.
• How the researcher/practitioner may be
biasing the research.