Critical Action Research

Action Research

Kurt Lewin, one of the principal founders of action research, called for a collaboration between organizational members and researchers on all phases of research from planning to analysis. Action research is characterized by three key qualities: (1) a focus on problem solving, (2) an emergent nature, and (3) a collaborative effort between researchers and participants.

The overarching trait of action research is that it involves generation of practical knowledge useful for sustainable organizational or community change. Action research, by definition, always occurs within practice in concrete situations. Action research is change oriented and accomplishes this by involving the people under study as co-researchers, thereby providing them with the tools to effect change themselves.

Action research involves an emergent inquiry process that evolves throughout the research effort and focuses on generation of new knowledge and ways of thinking and seeing the world. In action research, scientific knowledge is combined with organizational knowledge in a collaborative effort designed to solve actual organizational problems. In addition, local knowledge held by the organizational stakeholders is considered to be equally as valid as, or more valid than, that held by the “professional” researchers.

Action research is more concerned with the relational cooperative process between the researcher and the researched, and with the practical nature of the research outcomes, than with following positivist research criteria. In opposition to positivist research, action research deobjectifies research participants by making them co-researchers rather than “subjects” under study and gives participants the opportunity to understand their (and others') interpretations of the world.

Action research may include qualitative or quantitative research methods and data collection methods such as questionnaires, in-depth interviews, focus groups, informal conversations, journaling, document reviews, and observations. Action research often includes multiple methods and many different ways of knowing as it strives to be inclusive of diverse viewpoints. Regardless of the method used, action research [Page 140]occurs within natural contexts and often uses interpretive methods of analysis.

Critical Theory

Critical theory looks at, exposes, and questions hegemony—traditional power assumptions held about relationships, groups, communities, societies, and organizations—to promote social change. Combined with action research, critical theory questions the assumed power that researchers typically hold over the people they typically research. Thus, critical action research is based on the assumption that society is essentially discriminatory but is capable of becoming less so through purposeful human action. Critical action research also assumes that the dominant forms of professional research are discriminatory and must be challenged.

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