Action Research

Historical Development

Although not officially credited with authoring the term action research, Dewey proposed five phases of inquiry that parallel several of the most commonly used action research processes, including curiosity, intellectualization, hypothesizing, reasoning, and testing hypotheses through action. This recursive process in scientific investigation is essential to most contemporary action research models. The work of Kurt Lewin is often considered seminal in establishing the credibility of action research. In anthropology, William Foote Whyte conducted early inquiry using an action research process similar to Lewin's. In health sciences, Reginald Revans renamed the process action learning while observing a process of social action among nurses and coal miners in the United Kingdom. In the area of emancipatory education, Paulo Freire is acknowledged as one of the first to undertake action research characterized by participant engagement in sociopolitical activities.

The hub of the action research movement shifted from North America to the United Kingdom in the late 1960s. Lawrence Stenhouse was instrumental in revitalizing its use among health care practitioners. John Elliott championed a form of educational action research in which the researcher-as-participant [Page 5]takes increased responsibility for individual and collective changes in teaching practice and school improvement. Subsequently, the 1980s were witness to a surge of action research activity centered in Australia. Wilfred Carr and Stephen Kemmis authored Becoming Critical, and Kemmis and Robin McTaggart's The Action Research Planner informed much educational inquiry. Carl Glickman is often credited with a renewed North American interest in action research in the early 1990s. He advocated action research as a way to examine and implement principles of democratic governance; this interest coincided with an increasing North American appetite for postmodern methodologies such as personal inquiry and biographical narrative.

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