The All you need to know about action research (2nd Edition) action research book authored by McNiff & Whitehead provides practical guidance and an in-depth understanding of how action research can benefit professions in the field of education. Action research enables practitioners including educationists to evaluate and investigate their work. They ask, ‘What am I doing? Do I need to improve anything? If so, what? How do I improve it?” (McNiff & Whitehead, 2011, p. 45). It is more about observing, reflecting, acting, evaluating, and modifying, a process that helps to improve on new theories or discover new theories. As shown, action research is suitable when one wants to improve understanding and develop one’s learning and other people’s learning. This helps educationists improve on their evidence-based teaching mechanisms.
One of the remarkable highlights is in Part III. The section sheds light on designing, planning, engaging literature, and initiating the action plan during the action research process. Most action research focuses on the ‘out there’ social world (doing things while focusing on persons you are dealing with). However, one also needs to focus on the ‘in here’ mental world (reflect and think about what one is doing when performing the research). The ‘in here and ‘out here’ world planning requires an action researcher to address his/her concern for the research, the action to take, data type to be gathered, judge how his education influence the research, ensure that the conclusions are reasonable and evaluate research validity.
When it comes to designing an action research project (Part III), one should develop a conceptual/theoretical framework that details reasons that have subjected one to undertake the research. The conceptual framework(s) should link to literature ideas; what key authors have noted about concepts one has included. In addition, the design process should include the methodological framework to detail how to conduct the research process. The methodological framework chosen should communicate openness to novel possibilities; necessitate systematic inquiry and continual critique.
Part IV details how to get compelling evidence to keep away suppositions and opinions, which may nullify the claim, a very fundamental part of action research. Compelling evidence narrows down to data. To gather quality data, one needs to determine the kind of data one is looking for and find out the most appropriate place to gather it. The best place would be in one’s field of practice where data collection opportunities are always available. One also needs to analyze; sort and store data to generate quality evidence. When doing this, one should avoid social closure (thinking that one is right and the rest are wrong), and professional closure (comply with professional experience/knowledge) that can generate bias. To monitor the quality of the data collected, it necessitates one to re-think, reflect and use ‘critical friends to help correlate the data gathered, the process used to gather it, and the real intention of the action research process to see the research is on the right track. This helps to scrutinize the data gathered and develop ideas to enhance data quality.
For the public domain to validate the research claim, an action researcher needs to test the legitimacy and validity of the claim epistemologically and methodologically (part five) after collecting quality data. This is done by creating a self-evaluation report that shows that one is contributing to public knowledge. In the report, the researcher should articulate standards of judgment used while showing his/her awareness of the research problems that exist. This ensures that what the researcher says is logical in association with the researcher’s ability to produce a coherent narrative account showing the transformational process, issue identification stage to original knowledge claim stage. In addition, this ensures that what the researcher says is truthful, he/she is authentic (show how values are or are not realized), and speaks appropriately (demonstrate socio-political and cultural forces supporting his/her knowledge).
Action research also needs to disseminate and share the value of his research to the public. This is where the research determines who should tell the story, which voice should be heard. The voice should sound truthful and comprehensible. Hence, a researcher should come up with high-quality accounts by taking up an interpretive approach, which acknowledges practitioners are actual participants thus validating them as research-observer. Apart from this, researchers should incorporate the ‘underprivileged’ (unheard) voices by using real case stories. This also happens when writing a research report. The voice used should indicate that the report is for scholarly practice; should not only contain the importance of the research but also what the researcher has learned from the practice coupled with an analysis, which should be in a reflective commentary form. While disseminating the research, the research’s significance should be explained about the researcher’s line of work and its ability to transform the entire field of education. This is the only way that a research project is included in scholarly works; demonstrated to be of the highest quality with the ability to benefit persons in the field of education around the globe.
Reference
McNiff, J., & Whitehead, J. (2011). All you need to know about action research (second edition). London: SAGE.