Action Research

The main features of action research are as follows:

• It includes a developmental aim that embodies aprofessional ideal and that all those who participateare committed to realizing in practice.
• It focuses on changing practice to make it moreconsistent with the developmental aim.
• In identifying and explaining inconsistenciesbetween aspiration and practice (such explanationmay lie in the broader institutional, social, and political context), it problematizes the assumptions andbeliefs (theories) that tacitly underpin professionalpractice.
• It involves professional practitioners in a process ofgenerating and testing new forms of action for realizing their aspirations and thereby enables them toreconstruct the theories that guide their practice.
• It is a developmental process characterized by reflexivity on the part of the practitioner.

From an action research perspective, professionalpractice is a form of research and vice versa.

Good action research is informed by the valuespractitioners want to realize in their practice. In socialwork, for example, it is defined by the professionalvalues (e.g., client empowerment, antioppressivepractice) social workers want to realize. Professionalvalues are ideas about what constitutes a professionally worthwhile process of working with clients andcolleagues. Such values specify criteria for identifying appropriate modes of interaction. In other words, they define the relationship between the content ofprofessional work, practitioners, and their variousclients.

Terms such as care, education, empowerment, autonomy, independence, quality, justice, and effectiveness all specify qualities of that relationship. Good actionresearch is developmental; namely, it is a form ofreflective inquiry that enables practitioners to betterrealize such qualities in their practice. The tests forgood action research are very pragmatic ones. Will theresearch improve the professional quality of the transactions between practitioners and clients or colleagues?Good action research might fail this particular test ifit generates evidence to explain why improvement isimpossible under the circumstances, in which case itjustifies a temporary tolerance of the status quo. In eachcase, action research provides a basis for wise and intelligent decision making. A decision to wait awhile withpatience until the time is ripe and circumstances opennew windows of opportunity is sometimes wiser thanrepeated attempts to initiate change.

These are not extrinsic tests but ones that arecontinuously conducted by practitioners within theprocess of the research itself. If practitioners have noidea whether their research is improving their practice, then its status as action research is very dubiousindeed. It follows from this that action research is nota different process from that of professional practice. Rather, action research is a form of practice andvice versa. It fuses practice and research into a singleactivity. Those who claim they have no time forresearch because they are too busy working withclients and colleagues misunderstand the relationship. They are saying they have no time to change theirpractice in any fundamental sense. When practicestrategies are viewed as hypothetical probes into waysof actualizing professional values, they constitute thecore activities of a research process, a process that mustalways be distinguished from research on practice byoutsiders.

Action research aims to realize values in practice. Practitioner action research may use outsiderresearch, but it always subordinates the generation ofpropositional knowledge to the pursuit of practicalsituational understanding.

Action Research Develops the Curriculum

Good action research always implies practice development. Practice is never simply a set of statements aboutthe content of activities. It always specifies a mode ofinteraction. If it is specified in terms of specific behavioral objectives, then the message to clients and [Page 9]colleagues is that the objectives of professional workdefine them in terms of deficits and that remedies forthese deficits may be found only within a dependencyrelationship. The question then is whether such practices enable professional workers to represent theirwork in a form that is consistent with the nature offacilitative, caring, or educational relationships.

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