» What is Action Research?

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What is Action Research?

Action research focuses on solving context-bound real-life problems. Knowledge production cannot be done without taking into account the wholeness of the situation. Inquiry is based on questions emerging from real-life situations as opposed to the conventional academic way of working where questions are oftentimes left re-circulating through the academic community for critic and clarification, with an almost complete disregard to the practical nature of the work.

Action Research is not applied research. Inherent in its foundations, is the rejection of the separation of thought and action that has characterized social research for many years. The belief that the social scientist should be held "outside of" or worse yet "above" the dynamics of the situation under study, weakens the fundamentals of a three pillar approach to Action Research: action, research and participation.

The current view of 'living systems' such as humans and their associated social systems has re-emphasized the need to create research methodologies focuses on properties and processes of systems that are in continual motion. Social systems are inherently dynamic, interlinked and self-organizing. Humans have the unique ability to analyze situations, be influenced and change their behavior, making outcomes highly unpredictable.

Action Research focuses on the researcher and participants as active learners, not passive listeners, in an evolving system. The feedback of the continuous cycles of action and reflection is grounded in the active pursuit of a clearer understanding of complex, evolving situations. Geoffrey Vickers constructed an epistemology he called "Appreciative Systems" to illustrate the process people use to bring ideas into action over time. The following diagram illustrates the structure of an appreciative system (Source: Checkland and Casar (1986), Checkland, 1999, p. A52)

Credibility in Action Research rests in the involvement of action between what is possible and what actually happens in 'real-life'. In all human, social situations there are always more possibilities than actual outcomes. The action component and subsequent reflective feedback, allows Action Researchers to examine whether their deliberate course of action had an effect on the overall system. In real life, it is not an isolated group of variables that unlocks a 'magic formula' and solves generalized problems, it is the intersection of a group of interested people within a changing environment that really causes change.