Data Analysis

The Nature of Data and Data Analysis in Action Research

Action research is a research approach typically applied in an organizational, educational or community setting whose central characteristic is that the outcomes of the research process are twofold, an action (e.g. a completed project or organizational change) and new knowledge or theory. Action research can be viewed as the ultimate case study approach due to its systematic framework for gathering data and insights into an organization or a community and its processes and behaviour. Core to action research is a cyclical process, which typically embraces two layers of cycles. The primary cycle involves constructing what the issues are, planning action, taking action and evaluating action. Overlaid onto each stage of this cycle is the secondary, reflection-based cycle of taking action, experiencing, understanding and judging. This reflective cycle promotes inquiry into the four steps of the primary action research process and thereby generates learning about learning, or meta-learning.

Due to the cyclical nature of action research and the embedding of reflection as a key stage in the action research cycle, data analysis is in one sense integral to and ongoing throughout the action research process. Nevertheless, as the project draws to a close, there is a phase during which there is an enhanced focus on data analysis. In this phase, the researcher seeks to take an overview, make sense and generate understanding and insights from the base of evidence and reflection that has emerged during the action research project, with a view to contributing to knowledge or theory. This can be viewed as the summative phase of data analysis in action research, whereas the analysis in earlier cycles might be seen as formative. Typically, the summative phase of data analysis is inextricably linked to the writing up of a thesis or a report, with the insights and contributions to knowledge and theory emerging and cohering as the writing process progresses. The researcher works with two interleaved processes, associated with organizing and analyzing the data sets and writing up a thesis, report or other account. Both of these processes can be seen in terms of the secondary action research cycle and its four processes of taking action, experiencing, understanding and judging. Data analysis in this context is likely to draw on a range of sources and records and to be largely qualitative in nature.

...