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What is Action Research?

A blog inspired by Davydd Greenwood’s “An analysis of the theory/concept entries in the SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research: What we can learn about action research in general from the encyclopedia. 2015. Action Research,13(2), 198-213”

Greenwood draws from The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research to highlight how action research realities are essentially complex, dynamic, open systems. As such, there can be no single method or framework that can simply fit AR realities. Another simple and elegant observation by Greenwood is that if there’s no action, there’s no action research. The intent to try to change something differentiates AR from other research approaches.

I found Greenwood’s reflections on rigor and generalizability, validity, reliability, credibility, and transferability interesting. He challenges objectivist, “spectator” academic researchers’ positivist notions that AR is not scientific. He argues that rigor, validity, reliability, and credibility will be shown to the extent that the practical project works. The AR process itself will test and show how these criteria are met.

A final point I would like to highlight is Greenwood’s view of co-generative approaches. Because AR uses every participant’s experience, expertise, and goals as resources to help generate improvements, AR can create win-win situations that are relevant to the intervention environment.

As a student, this article was interesting in presenting mainstream discussions within the AR world, and the Encyclopedia format allowed me to understand Action Research in a more systematic way.

I recommend other students read Greenwood’s article, and then read Bob Dick’s Reflections on the SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research and what it says about action research and its methodologies (2015) to develop a more complete picture of the Encyclopedia’s contributions. These articles fulfill my Action Research framework and help me to clarify conceptual and methodological understanding in Action Research.

Reference
Dick, B. (2015). Reflections on the SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research and what it says about action research and its methodologies. Action Research, 13(4), 431-444. doi:10.1177/1476750315573593

Article info
Greenwood, D. J. (2015). An analysis of the theory/concept entries in the SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research: What we can learn about action research in general from the encyclopedia. Action Research,13(2), 198-213. doi:10.1177/1476750315573592

NOTE: The blog picture used the article: An analysis of the theory/concept entries in the SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research: What we can learn about action research in general from the encyclopedia by Greenwood and generated the word cloud from https://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/ by Davies.

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Blog post by Yingying Pang