Participatory Action Research

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Participatory Action Research

• Professor Anne Burns Department of Linguistics
• and PICT

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What is action research?

• What does action research mean?
• How is it carried out?
• What kind of research is it?
• How can it be used in this project?

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Some definitions

• Action research is simply a form of
  self-reflective enquiry undertaken by
  participants in social situations in order to
  improve the rationality and justice of their own
  practices, their understanding of these practices
  and the situations in which the practices are
  carried out.
• (Carr Kemmis, 1986, p. 162)

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Some definitions

• AR involves a self-reflective, systematic and
  critical approach to enquiry by participants who
  are at the same time members of the research
  community. The aim is to identify problematic
  situations or issues considered by participants
  to be worthy of investigation in order to bfing
  aboout critically informed changes in practice.
  Action research is underpinned by democratic
  principles in that the ownership of change is
  invested in those who conduct the research.
• (Burns, cited in Cornwell, 1999)

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Aims of PAR

• PAR has a double objective. One aim is to
  produce knowledge and action directly useful to a
  group of people - through research, adult
  education and sociopolitical action. The second
  aim is to empower people at a second and deeper
  level through the process of constructing and
  using their own knowledge
  (Reason, 1998, p.
  271)

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Characteristics of action research

• focus on a particular social situation
• collaboration/dialogue with others to identify
  the issues and to collect and analyse data
• deliberate intervention into the operation of the
  status quo
• processes of research lead to the construction of
  knowledge and theory (and political action)

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Characteristics of action research

• testing of knowledge and theory by feeding them
  back into changes in practice
• evaluation of changes through further cycles of
  action and reflection
• opening of theories and knowledge to wider
  scrutiny through publication, information
  dissemination, and application by others in their
  own situations

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Processes of Action Research

• Plan - develop a plan of critically informed
  action to improve what is already happening
• Act - act to implement the plan
• Observe - observe the effects of the critically
  informed action in the context in which it occurs
• Reflect - reflect on these effects as the basis
  for further planning, subsequent critically
  informed action, etc. through a succession of
  stages.
  (Kemmis McTaggart, 1988, p.
  10)

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Processes of Action Research

• Exploring
• Identifying
• Planning
• Collecting data
• Analysing/reflecting
• Hypothesising/speculating
• Intervening
• Observing
• Reporting
• Writing
• Presenting
• (Burns, 1999, p. 35)

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AR - what kind of research is it?

• Research paradigms determine whether research
  assists in the maintenance of the status quo in
  society or helps to transform the dominant social
  paradigm. As a result it is important to examine
  the practices and politics of the different
  research paradigms the positivist, the
  interpretivist and critical and
  poststructuralist paradigms (Fien Hillcoat,
  1996, p. 26)

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Paradigms of research

• positivist/post-positivist - to describe,
  control and predict
• interpretive/hermeneutic - to empathise and
  understand
• critical - to change
• poststructuralist - to deconstruct
  (Lather, 1992)

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Action research and critical theory

• Central concepts are
• the empowerment of participants in the social
  situation
• confrontation of inequities/ in the system
• transformation of the social situation
• movement towards a better world
• self-conscious criticism through awareness of
  ideological and epistemological assumptions that
  shape the social situation
• enhanced awareness of participants own
  subjective, intersubjective and normative frames
  of reference

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Undertaking action research

• Key issues
• Who will you involve?
• What issues/questions will you focus on?
• What steps in the process will you put in place
  next?
• How will you collect data/information?
• How will you track/analyse it/identify emerging
  issues?
• What resources do you need?
• What skills/knowledge do you need?

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References

• Burns, A. (1999). Collaborative action research
  for English language teachers. Cambridge
  Cambridge University Press.
• Carr, W Kemmis, S. (1986). Becoming critical
  Knowing through action research. Geelong, Vic
  Deakin University.
• Cornwell, S. (1999). An interview with Anne Burns
  and Graham Crookes. The Language Teacher, 23
  (12), 7-9.
• Lather, P. (1992). Critical frames in educational
  research Feminist and Post-Structural
  Perspectives. Qualitative Issues in Educational
  Research, 31 (2), 87-9.
• Fien, J. Hillcoat, J. (1996). The critical
  tradition in research in geographical and
  environmental educational research. In M.
  Williams (Ed.), Understanding geographical and
  environmental education. London Cassell.
• Reason, P. (1998). Three approaches to
  participative inquiry. In N.K. Denzin Y.S.
  Lincoln (Eds.), Strategies of qualitative
  research. London Sage.