Research Methods

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Research Methods

• Action Research
• B.Sc. Health Sciences B.Sc. Sport Studies
• Jenny Greener

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Learning outcomes

• By the end of this lecture the student should be
  able to
• Define Action Research
• Outline its strengths and weaknesses
• Suggest appropriate research questions that can
  be addressed using of Action Research

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(Positivist) Research in general

• Objective
• Focus on measuring
• Treat research participants as subjects
• Provide insight for someone else to do something
  with (e.g. policy makers, managers, etc.)

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Action Research definition

• Is research where the research role is involved
  and interventionist, because research is joined
  with action in order to plan, implement and
  monitor change. Researchers become participants
  in planned policy initiatives and use their
  knowledge and expertise to serve a client
  organisation.
• Abercrombie, N., 1988, Dictionary of Sociology,
  Harmondsworth Penguin

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Action Research The Difference

• Being educative
• Dealing with individuals as members of social
  groups
• problem-focus, being context specific and
  future-oriented
• involving a change intervention
• Aiming at involvement
• a cyclic process in with research, action
  evaluation are interlinked

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Underlying principles

• Action Research is based on the notion that
  social research should be participative and
  democratic.
• A primary purpose of Action Research is to
  produce practical knowledge that is useful to
  people in their everyday life.
• Ladkin (2004) Action Research, In Seale et al.
  (eds.) Qualitative Research Practice, Sage
  London

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Cyclic reflective

• The term Action Research was first coined by
  social psychologist Kurt Lewin.
• Action research is both cyclic and reflective in
  that it involves continual rethinking the issue.

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Lewinian Cycle

• identifying an issue or problem
• study this issue and assess the data
• formulate a plan of action
• implement this plan, i.e. act
• observe the impact and effects of the plan
• reflect and evaluate the plan and consider
  effects of the action as a basis for further
  planning.

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Lewinian Cycle
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Lewins description of initial cycle

• The first step then is to examine the idea
  carefully in the light of the means available.
  Frequently more fact-finding about the situation
  is required. If this first period of planning is
  successful, two items emerge namely, an overall
  plan of how to reach the objective and secondly,
  a decision in regard to the first step of action.
  Usually this planning has also somewhat modified
  the original idea.
• Lewin K (1948) Resolving social conflicts
  selected papers on group dynamics. GW Lewin
  (ed.). NY Harper Row,

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Action Research example

• What kind of study areas lend themselves to
  Action Research?
• Specific questions
• Need for intervention
• Size and nature of group / intervention
• Example learning difficulties a sports club

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Role of Action Researcher

• change agent, identifying clarifying the need
  to change in a certain direction, working and
  negotiating to bring about change
• researcher who records events that occur, using
  whichever techniques are available and
  appropriate, reflects on them, and draws
  conclusions from them.

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Action Researcher can

• offer new way to conceptualise an old problem
• help members of organisations to form a clear
  picture of way they would like their organisation
  to look in future compared to present situation
• point out discrepancies between stated aims and
  objectives and actual behaviour work done
• Pick up issues lingering in the organisation.
  Being sensitive to different perspectives and
  feelings of members of the organisation under
  study.

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Collaboration / ownership

• Participants in the organisation may not be
  certain how they will react to any changes until
  they experience them, but, as a change is more
  likely to be effective if those affected by it
  understand and own it than if it is imposed it
  is a key concept in Action Research that the
  members of the target organisation should feel
  that they own and control the project.

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Action Research Strengths I

• Particularly appropriate in a particular setting
  when the purpose of study is to create changes
  gain information on processes and outcome of the
  strategies used.
• Hunt (1987) The process of translating research
  findings into nursing practice, J. Advanced
  Nursing, 12101-10

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Action Research Strengths II

• Uses different methods, can get the best out of
  the different methods employed, if done well!
• Also stakeholders are included throughout, it is
  more likely that findings are taken on board,
  i.e. researcher is more likely to make a
  difference.

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Action Research Weaknesses I

• Typically takes place in one organisation only at
  a particular time and could not be interpreted
  within different organisations in the same way.
  Therefore, research finings are hard (impossible)
  to generalise.

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Action Research Weaknesses II

• If research participants do not feel they
  understand and own the research project, this
  could lead to a potential conflict of interest
  between the researcher and those participating in
  the organisation, but also between the researcher
  with some participants on the one hand and other
  members of the organisation, on the other.

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Collaboration groupwork

• Some insist that Action Research is a form of
  collective self-reflective enquiry undertaken by
  participants in social situations in order to
  improve the rationality and justice of their own
  social or educational practices, as well as their
  understanding of those practices and the
  situations in which the practices are carried
  out
• Kemmis McTaggart (1988) The Action Research
  Planner, Geelong, Victoria Deakin Univ. Press.

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Research ethics I

• Action research has some difficulties with
  informed consent. Problems with informed consent
  arise when a group in the population is studied
  collectively, as one sample, rather than people
  in that group individually.
• Homan, R., 1991, The Ethics of Social Research,
  Longman Group

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Research ethics II

• Process consent attempts to overcome problems
  associated with traditional application of
  informed consent. Process consent augments the
  usual components of informed consent, ...
  encourages mutual participation and, perhaps,
  mutual affirmation for the participants and the
  researcher. Raudonis 1992246

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Research ethics III

• Process consent appropriate for Action Research
  as it aims to acknowledge the dynamic and
  emergent nature of research design. It includes
  the initial input and suggests of the
  participants in the study and negotiates further
  input regarding changes over time.
• Raudonis (1992) Pearls, pith and provocation
  ethical considerations in qualitative research
  with hospice patients, Qual Health Res, 2238-49

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Some literature

• Frisby W, et al. (1997) Reflections on
  participatory action research The case of low
  income women accessing local physical activity
  services. J Sport Management, 11, 8-28.
• Green BC. (2001) Action research in youth soccer
  Assessing the acceptability of an alternative
  program. In A. Yiannakis M. Melnick (Eds.)
  Contemporary Issues in Sociology of Sport (pp.
  79-90). Champaign, IL Human Kinetics.
• Chalip L (1997) Action research social change
  in sport. J Sport Management, 11, 1-7.
• Ladkin D (2004) Action Research, In Seale et al.
  (eds.) Qualitative Research Practice, Sage
  London 536-48.
• Bowling A (2003) Research methods in health (2nd
  edn) Buckingham Open Univy Press 366-71.