Using an Action Research Framework to Explore Assessment: A South African Case Study

This article is a reflection of my first experience with action research in trying to devise a system of assessment that would benefit both first and second language speakers of English in an assessment system that is plagued by its separatist past. In this paper, I discuss an action research study on oral assessment implemented at two tertiary institutions in South Africa. The actual details of each phase of the assessments are not reported on, but the methods used to facilitate the processes are. The findings and adaptations after each phase of the assessments are discussed to show the effectiveness of using an action research methodology.

Professional Development through Action Research: Case Examples in South African Higher Education

This paper identifies the quality characteristics of a professional development (PD) program on action research (AR) and presents the results of a second-order evaluation of such a program. Three case examples in South African higher education demonstrate how AR methodology has been applied to design, conduct and evaluate the PD program and to identify new ways of learning and improving professional practice in higher education. From data analysis, we distinguish six factors significant in contributing to the quality of the PD program in all three universities: facilitator expertise, adaptive planning, responsive evaluation, critical events, application, and self-efficacy. On the basis of the evaluation results, we present five models: (1) the AR workshop cycles; (2) characteristics of a quality PD program; (3) a PD program on and through AR; (4) three levels of reflection on AR; and (5) meta-action research.

Reflection on the Purposes of Research,Action, and Scholarship: A Case of Cross-Cultural Participatory Action Research

Beginning with some basic principles of participatory action research, the author draws upon personal experience to identify the ways in which the experience of the practice of participatory action research creates forms of publication somewhat different in intent and nature from conventional forms of research. The experience selected involves cross-cultural research, and the particular problems of representation of the other in such settings are engaged. The overall experience is then drawn upon to identify some of the key qualities of action research which differ both from other forms of research and from some of the advocacies for action research.     

Action Learning and Action Research (ALAR): A Methodological Integration in an Inter-Organizational Setting

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how action learning and action research were used concurrently as a single ALAR methodology in one research project which focused on collaborative improvement in the supply chain. The research in which the ALAR methodology was used was a European Union funded research project called CO-IMPROVE which sought to develop a business model, supported by a web-based software system, and action learning-based implementation guidelines to support the design, implementation and ongoing development of collaborative improvement between partners in Extended Manufacturing Enterprises (EMEs). The article describes how the participating managers worked in an action learning to achieve their commercial objectives and how action research was used by academic researchers to consolidate the action learning processes and to generate actionable knowledge.     

From Researching Regions at a Distance to Participatory Network Building: Integrating Action Research and Economic Geography

This paper describes the change in a researcher's practices from one of studying regional industrial development at a distance to one of working closely with a network of agri-food managers. This is accompanied by a discussion of the methodological and theoretical possibilities for an action research inspired economic geography. Some of the core characteristics of a pragmatic conceptualization of action research are revised. It is argued that theoretical developments within economic geography make possible a dialogue between researchers and local actors and that economic geography is challenged to accept that knowledge is generated through such a dialogue. Attempts to create a dialogue between action research and economic geography in a specific Norwegian industrial and geographical context are described. These attempts indicate that the researcher's methodological approach has been transformed from a narrow one relying solely on conventional social science methods to a broader one including participatory action research.     

The Role of Action Research (AR) in Environmental Research: Learning from a Local Organic Food and Farming Research Project

We expand on the FMA model of inquiry elucidated by Checkland and Holwell (Syst Pract Act Res 11:9, 1998) and identify three kinds of research: interactive Action Research (AR), extractive participatory research, and traditional science, that were integrated into an interdisciplinary agro-environmental research project involving researchers from eight countries around the Baltic Sea. The research project held the goal of creating scientific understanding of the ecological, economic and social effects of the sustainable development of local food systems, while also having the explicit goal of implementing change in the studied systems. Based on our experience working as action researchers in the project, we highlight the role that normative goals and facilitation process competence play in complex interdisciplinary research projects. Our reflections focus on project design, including the relation between AR and other kinds of research when employed in a single project, and includes reflections on preconditions for stakeholder participation in AR projects.     

Action Research for Sustainable Water Futures in Western Sydney: Reaching Beyond Traditional Stakeholder Engagement to Understand Community Stakeholder Language and Its Implications for Action

Action on issues of ecological significance often requires changes in personal behaviour and political consensus on technologies to support these changes. Unfortunately, many consultation processes only engage a narrow range of stakeholders, usually those professionally engaged or already active on a range of community issues. This paper illustrates how people who are ‘hard to reach’ or seen as ‘apathetic’ might be engaged using ‘action-conversations’ that explore the social climate for action and how scientific/technical messages can be framed in the language of the community.     

Analytic and Dynamic Approach to Collaboration: A Transdisciplinary Case Study on Sustainable Landscape Development in a Swiss Prealpine Region

The involvement of stakeholders and the public in societal decision processes has lately received increased attention. We suggest that appropriate and tailored techniques should be selected and integrated to provide the prerequisites for inclusive involvement depending on the issue, type, goals and phase of the decision process in question, i.e. an analytic, systematic and dynamic approach to collaboration. In a transdisciplinary case study design we integrate diverse analytical methods whereby a process of mutual learning between science and people from outside academia is strived for. Our framework for collaboration is illustrated by a case study on sustainable landscape development in the Swiss prealpine region of Appenzell Ausserrhoden.

Some Common Ground That Can Provide a Basis for Collaboration Between Action Researchers and Scientists: A Philosophical Case That Works in Practice

By analysing 22 case studies of good research, both action research and agricultural science, I believe I have found some criteria of good research that is common to all of them. These criteria match the philosophical pragmatists argument that the best a researcher can do is to provide a warranted assertion from a methodology which is fit for the specific research purpose and is internally consistent. They also include Popper's requirement that a methodology needs to seek disconfirming evidence and Habermas's requirement that subjective data is important in all research. These criteria have provided me with a basis for collaboration with my scientific colleagues and can provide a basis for collaboration between other researchers, whatever their methodology.     

Applying the Clinical Inquiry Approach to Understand and Facilitate Enterprise Restructuring in Transitional Economies: A Case Study From the Moldovan Wine Industry

Enterprises in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) have had to fundamentally reform how they are managed and operate to cope with the switch from central planning to a more market based economy. In understanding these challenges and how firms are reacting to them, the clinical inquiry approach, a variant of action research, is deemed particularly appropriate. Research following this approach was conducted with a case study enterprise drawn from the Moldovan wine industry. The process encouraged self-diagnosis and intervention and a PSEFI (Problems, Strategies, Evaluations, and Future Issues) matrix was drawn to guide and assess the companys evolution. Reflections on the benefits of the clinical inquiry approach in transitional economies, compared to more conventional business support and research methods are discussed.     

Yeperenye Dreaming in Conceptual,Geographical, and Cyberspace: A Participatory Action Research Approach to Address Local Governance Within an Australian Indigenous Housing Association

Systemic Practice and Action Research - This paper discusses work in progress with an Indigenous housing association in Central Australia. It builds on and extends a 2-year policy and planning...