Research Student Seminar with Anna Robinson-Pant, Action Research Workshop
This week's seminar focused on action research. We began with an overview of the history, approaches and tensions within action research, presented by Dheeba Moosa (see attached Powerpoint). We then went on to discuss accounts of action research studies/projects from around the world (each of us presented on a different article).
Dheeba began by explaining that this would not be a chronological account because action research has developed in so many diverse contexts, different parts of the world within various disciplines and fields (including health, education and community work), and serving different purposes. She discussed some of the factors that had given rise to the development of action research within the field of education. In particular, in the early to mid 20th century, people began to feel that the dominant positivist methodologies (particularly experimental research) were insufficient for researching social issues and institutions. In the US, after the Second World War, social science researchers began to search for new research tools to address the problems of social injustice and racial discrimination. Another influence on the emergence of action research was the recognition of a gap between what happened in the classroom and the educational theories given and prescribed by university-based researchers (a gap between theory and practice).
In three definitions of action research that Dheeba had drawn from different contexts (see slide), we identified some common themes: collaboration/participation, a process of reflection and action, emphasis on the generation of knowledge. Differences included the kind of action envisaged - whether this was social change on a large scale. Dheeba went on to trace some of the philosophical roots of action research which could be seen behind these definitions. Dewey emphasised promoting ‘participative democracy' through involving people in the generation of knowledge, whereas Freire through his work with oppressed communities in Brazil had advocated that people should be in dialogue with each other in order to come up with ways of improving their lives. Looking at action research in the US, Dheeba suggested that though Kurt Lewin is often considered ‘the father of action research', action research had ‘been alive before he came into the picture' but that he had perhaps been the first to generate a theory of action research based on his work to involve people in initiating social reform. Many of the key figures in action research - such as Fals Borda in Colombia - had moved between academia and community activist work in an attempt to use research to work for social change.
In the UK context, key figures in the development of action research were Lawrence Stenhouse and John Elliott in the early days of CARE. Dissatisfied with the standards-based school curriculum dominant in the 1970s that marginalized some groups of students, they pioneered ways of researching together with teachers in their schools to develop a new curriculum. As well as introducing qualitative research methods, this approach involved teachers in their own professional development through researching their practice. In Australia, action research emerged as a tool to empower teachers to work against some of the constraints in the educational system. This politicised approach conceptualised change, not just in terms of individual professional development, but also aimed to empower teachers to work for large scale reform in education and other social structures.
Dheeba identified several tensions in the debates on action research that she had read about - particularly around the ideas about whether action research should be for social justice and emancipation or more for professional and individual development. These had led her to reflect on questions like: Should all forms of action research always be intended to empower or emancipate people? Should all action research aim to contribute to large scale reform (or is it sufficient to aim for changes in the individual's practices)? Dheeba concluded her presentation with a diagram illustrating the action research spiral of reflection, planning, action, and observation. This raised questions from our group about whether it is necessary to start at any particular point of the process, or if you can start at all of these steps? Several people felt it would be difficult to start with ‘action', without having observed and reflected on a situation first.
The second half of the seminar consisted of individual presentations on articles about research projects, discussing how and why these might be considered as action research and relating these to some of the issues that Dheeba had outlined.
Faizal Abdullah introduced us to an account of the development of a 6th grade geology curriculum in Palestine (see attached Powerpoint): M. Al-Quran with Haikal, Razeq, Shalabi, Fathi, Abu Ghoush and Mjdawi (2001) ‘The development and implementation of a sixth grade geology unity through collaborative action research', Educational Action Research, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp 395 - 412. . A team of seven researchers (including several teachers) worked together to develop a curriculum which could address the problems they had identified in the schools: the students found the knowledge they gained was not relevant to Palestine and the classes were dominated by a strongly ‘didactic, teacher-centred' teaching approach. They planned and implemented new geology units though a ‘curriculum enquiry cycle' - examining curriculum practices, conducting research in the class, creating optimal learning conditions and making decisions together as a team about the changes they would make. The teachers involved also worked through a process of planning, action and reflection. The research project had two dimensions - the teachers developing a new curriculum to meet their students' needs and the researcher was investigating ‘what can a researcher learn about teacher training through teachers participating in research?' The project resulted in teachers becoming more motivated towards ‘continuous learning' (such as searching for new materials on the internet and taking the students for field trips) since they recognised themselves and the students as a source of knowledge. Faizal suggested that this was a clear example of ‘collaborative action research', with teachers working together on the plan-action-reflection cycle in a similar way to Stenhouse's model of action research for developing a new curriculum and contributing to teachers' professional development. Some of the points discussed by our group included:
- the potential for interaction between the two dimensions of action research in this example (researchers reflecting on the research process with teachers and teachers reflecting on their work in the classroom)
- Were there any negative outcomes of the research process? (Time constraints did not seem to be a problem which was surprising as the teachers were already teaching 30 hours a week).
- Where is the end point in such a cyclical process as action research? Could the process described go on forever? How do you sustain the momentum of the initial project?
Li-Ling Wang (Visiting Professor in CARE) described the next account - of a job creation project in Australia that was intended to provide skills training for young people who were not able to obtain a job or access to further study (A. Street (1987) ‘Growing plants and growing people; the research activity through the eyes of a practitioner-researcher' (in University of Deakin 2001 Action Research Reader). Li-Ling saw this as action research because the author was an ‘insider researcher' (as co-ordinator of the project). She focused on the practical problems and described the cycle of planning, observation and reflection that the trainees went through. It was not clear if the author also went through this cycle herself, though she had two ‘critical friends' from the university to discuss the project findings with. Li-Ling was concerned that the project involved collecting data only from the participants on the changes that they had observed in themselves (self-assessment) rather than triangulating this with, for instance, interviews with their parents. She wondered whether this was because in Western society (as compared with her own country, Taiwan) young people would be more independent and so it would be less essential to involve their parents in such research. Li-Ling concluded with three more general questions about action research:
- Can you talk about the distinction between ‘researcher' and ‘researched' (as my guidelines had suggested) in action research since the terms ‘research participants' are more usually used? We discussed the power dimensions implicit in conventional research (implied by ‘researched') and whether these are ever present in action research projects too? In the Palestine example, you could consider that the teacher researchers were simultaneously the objects of research (i.e. the ‘researched') by the university researchers.
- Can action research be considered a methodology? Li-Ling referred to a paper by John Elliott and we discussed our different understandings of the terms ‘methdology', ‘method', ‘approach' and ‘strategy'.
- How should a research journal be used in action research? Li-Ling said that her colleagues in Taiwan have a debate about the use of a research journal in qualitative research. Some argue that it cannot be used as a source of data because it is a ‘refraction' of the data but can be a memo for interpretation. We discussed the different kinds of research journal we had come across in action research projects (some also contained raw data), whether there was a difference between fieldnotes (which could include reflective notes) and a research journal and how far a research journal could be used as a main source or just one part of your data.
Monika Oledza-Nielson presented on an article about a doctoral student in Canada who worked with a small NGO who provided support services for abused women and children in a small multi-cultural community (in the 1980s): Maguire, P. (1993) ‘Challenges, contradictions and celebrations: attempting participatory research as a doctoral student' (from University of Deakin 2001 Action Research Reader). Monika noted that at this time, action research had not been so influenced by feminist perspectives. As the researcher began to work with the NGO, she realised that they did not involve the clients in making decisions about the organisation but just focused on providing services. She questioned whether this would be a suitable organisation to work through (as her aim was to help facilitate empowerment of these women through the research). As she became more and more involved in the everyday work of the organisation, she also began to question how she could conduct participatory research as there were the competing pressures of trying to be a researcher and doing the work with the women at the same time. She decided to start a support group and recruited 11 women, who then invited other women to join. They gradually grew in confidence and continued to run their own meetings even when the researcher was absent temporarily. The final stage of the project was evaluation of the impact of this group and though it folded up when the researcher finally left the organisation, the outcomes had been positive in terms of how much the women learnt about themselves. Monika identified the discussion of the power relations between the researcher, the group and the NGO as being central to the research process described in the article. The challenges of combining action research with PhD study were also discussed, raising questions including:
- It takes time to build relationships with people, to get involved in their lives and to become an ‘insider' researcher, but at this stage, can you step back and look at the situation objectively?
- How far is the action research process about transforming ourselves as facilitator-researchers too? (The author described how it was not just about changes in the women's lives but changes in herself too).
- There were academic disappointments here - worries about the research in terms of ‘is it scientific/good enough?'
- How can we sustain the action? When we leave from the field - in a role as external facilitator as discussed here - will the participants continue? What are the problems of being reliant on an external facilitator?
Finally I presented on an article that compared an action research project and a collaborative research project in the field of mathematics education in Canada (see attached hand-out summary): ‘Lorraine Savoie-Zajc and Nadine Descamps-Bednarz (2007), Action research and collaborative research: their specific contributions to professional development', Educational Action Research, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp 577 - 596. This presented a contrast to Faizal's example from Palestine which he had discussed in terms of ‘collaborative action research'. The distinction made in the Quebec paper between ‘practitioners as co-researchers' in action research and ‘practitioners as co-constructors of meaning' in collaborative research (see the table) led us to discuss how can action research contribute to theorisation? What do we consider as knowledge? If action research is focused on generating solutions to local problems (as in the example that Monika had introduced), does this mean it is less valuable knowledge? We also talked about the problems of ensuring quality in action research (just as in other forms of research) and that maybe the rapid popularity and spread of action research could mean there is more ‘bad' action research around now!
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this session through a presentation (and to Leo Che-Yu Chen who sent the attached presentation even though he was unable to attend) - this made for a rich collection of material on action research for our discussion. You will find the articles referred to here in the Deakin University Action Research Reader (available from CARE library) or the Educational Action Research journal.
