Action research in developing knowledge networks

Seeley, H. & Urqhart, C. (2007). Action research in developing knowledge networks. In P. Bath, K. Albright & T. Norris (Eds.), Proceedings of ISHIMR 2007, The twelfth international symposium on health information management research (pp. 217-235.) Sheffield: Centre for Health Information Management Research, University of Sheffield.

Action research as foresight methodology

To the action researcher, who laboriously spends his or her hours working within the local contexts of communities or organisations to co-generate meaningful research, and who’s theories are hardened on the anvil of creating meaningful social change; futures studies might seem the discipline the most peripheral to its interests, and the most ill equipped to deal with the local and intimate domain of community existence. To the futurist, who laboriously spends his or her hours understanding the nuances of history and social change, who through persistent work, begins to make sense of the weak signals and the subtle shifts, action research would seem as simply an auxiliary field, inappropriate for understanding the greater scheme. I invite the reader, however, whether they belong to one camp or the other, to let go of their respective disciplinary perspectives, and see both belonging to each other. [Introduction] .

Using Single-Case Participatory Action Research as a Methodology to Explore Appalachian Summer Camp Communities

Community educators have long known the value of direct experience in the learning process. Participatory action research extends this philosophy to the realm of research. This article examines the value of involving front line camp staff, members of the camp community in Appalachia as practitioner researchers with university scientists in studying the type and conditions of transformative learning in young adult camp staff. A young adult who was a camp community member assisted the researchers with methodology, data analysis, data interpretation, and dissemination of findings. This resulted in a more accurate, richer, and thicker description of the camp community member’s transformative learning experience. The benefits of involving practitioner researchers are examined, as well as promising practices for conducting participatory action research in community education environments.

Developing a participatory impact assessment approach and action research culture within a communication for social change organisation in Nepal

Developing an effective impact evaluation framework, managing and conducting rigorous impact evaluations, and developing a strong research and evaluation culture within development communication organisations presents many challenges. This is especially so when both the community and organisational context is continually changing and the outcomes of programs are complex and difficult to clearly identify.----- This paper presents a case study from a research project being conducted from 2007-2010 that aims to address these challenges and issues, entitled Assessing Communication for Social Change: A New Agenda in Impact Assessment. Building on previous development communication projects which used ethnographic action research, this project is developing, trailing and rigorously evaluating a participatory impact assessment methodology for assessing the social change impacts of community radio programs in Nepal. This project is a collaboration between Equal Access – Nepal (EAN), Equal Access – International, local stakeholders and listeners, a network of trained community researchers, and a research team from two Australian universities. A key element of the project is the establishment of an organisational culture within EAN that values and supports the impact assessment process being developed, which is based on continuous action learning and improvement. The paper describes the situation related to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and impact assessment before the project began, in which EAN was often reliant on time-bound studies and ‘success stories’ derived from listener letters and feedback. We then outline the various strategies used in an effort to develop stronger and more effective impact assessment and M&E systems, and the gradual changes that have occurred to date. These changes include a greater understanding of the value of adopting a participatory, holistic, evidence-based approach to impact assessment. We also critically review the many challenges experienced in this process, including:----- • Tension between the pressure from donors to ‘prove’ impacts and the adoption of a bottom-up, participatory approach based on ‘improving’ programs in ways that meet community needs and aspirations.----- • Resistance from the content teams to changing their existing M&E practices and to the perceived complexity of the approach.----- • Lack of meaningful connection between the M&E and content teams.----- • Human resource problems and lack of capacity in analysing qualitative data and reporting results.----- • The contextual challenges, including extreme poverty, wide cultural and linguistic diversity, poor transport and communications infrastructure, and political instability.----- • A general lack of acceptance of the importance of evaluation within Nepal due to accepting everything as fate or ‘natural’ rather than requiring investigation into a problem.

Reciprocity : where art meets the community : action research in response to artistic encounters and relationships

This practice-led research project examines some of the factors and issues facing artists working in the public domain who wish to engage with the community as audience. Using the methodology of action research, the three major creative projects in this study use art as a socio-political tool with the aim of providing an effective vehicle for broadening awareness, understanding forms of social protest and increasing tolerance for diversity. The three projects: Floodline November 7, 2004, Look in, Look out, and The Urban Terrorist Project, dealt with issues of marginalisation of communities, audiences and graffiti artists respectively. The artist/researcher is outlined as both creator and collaborator in the work. Processes included ephemeral elements, such as temporary installation and performance, as well as interactive elements that encouraged direct audience involvement as part of the work. In addition to the roles of creator and collaborator, both of which included audience as well as artist, the presence of an outside entity was evident. Whether local, legal authorities or prevailing attitudes, outside entities had an unavoidable impact on the processes and outcomes of the work. Each project elicited a range of responses from their respective audiences; however, the overarching concept of reciprocity was seen to be the crucial factor in conception, artistic methods and outcomes.

Having a yarn about smoking : using action research to develop a 'no smoking' policy within an Aboriginal health organisation

Objectives: This article reports on a culturally appropriate process of development of a smoke-free workplace policy within the peak Aboriginal Controlled Community Health Organisation in Victoria, Australia. Smoking is acknowledged as being responsible for at least 20% of all deaths in Aboriginal communities in Australia, and many Aboriginal health workers smoke. Methods: The smoke-free workplace policy was developed using the iterative, discursive and experience-based methodology of Participatory Action Research, combined with the culturally embedded concept of ‘having a yarn’. Results: Staff members initially identified smoking as a topic to be avoided within workplace discussions. This was due, in part, to grief (everyone had suffered a smoking related bereavement). Further, there was anxiety that discussing smoking would result in culturally difficult conflict. The use of yarning opened up a safe space for discussion and debate,enabling development of a policy that was accepted across the organisation. Conclusions: Within Aboriginal organisations, it is not sufficient to focus on the outcomes of policy development. Rather, due attention must be paid to the process employed in development of policy, particularly when that policy is directly related to an emotionally and communally weighted topic such as smoking.

Towards participatory action design research : adapting action research and design science research methods for urban informatics

This paper proposes a new research method, Participatory Action Design Research (PADR), for studies in the Urban Informatics domain. PADR supports Urban Informatics research in developing new technological means (e.g. using mobile and ubiquitous computing) to resolve contemporary issues or support everyday life in urban environments. The paper discusses the nature, aims and inherent methodological needs of Urban Informatics research, and proposes PADR as a method to address these needs. Situated in a socio-technical context, Urban Informatics requires a close dialogue between social and design-oriented fields of research as well as their methods. PADR combines Action Research and Design Science Research, both of which are used in Information Systems, another field with a strong socio-technical emphasis, and further adapts them to the cross-disciplinary needs and research context of Urban Informatics.

Innovation through action research in environmental education : from project to praxis

This thesis is a work-in-progress that articulates my research journey based on the development of a curriculum innovation in environmental education. This journey had two distinct, but intertwined phases: action research based fieldwork, conducted collaboratively, to create a whole school approach to environmental education curriculum planning; and a phase of analysis and reflection based on the emerging findings, as I sought to create personal "living educational theory" about change and innovation. A key stimulus for the study was the perceived theory-practice gap in environmental education, which is often presented in the literature as a criticism of teachers for failing to achieve the values and action objectives of critical environmental education. Hence, many programs and projects are considered to be superficial and inconsequential in terms of their ability to seriously address environmental issues. The intention of this study was to work with teachers in a project that would be an exemplar of critical environmental education. This would be in the form of a whole school "learnscaping" curriculum in a primary school whereby the schoolgrounds would be utilised for interdisciplinary critical environment education. Parallel with the three cycles of action research in this project, my research objectives were to identify and comment upon the factors that influence the generation of successful educational innovation. It was anticipated that the project would be a collaboration involving me, as researcher-facilitator, and many of the teachers in the school as active participants. As the project proceeded through its action cycles, however, it became obvious that the goal of developing a critical environmental education curriculum, and the use of highly participatory processes, were unrealistic. Institutional and organisational rigidities in education generally, teachers' day-to-day work demands, and the constant juggle of work, family and other responsibilities for all participants acted as significant constraints. Consequently, it became apparent that the learnscaping curriculum would not be the hoped-for exemplar. Progress was slow and, at times, the project was in danger of stalling permanently. While the curriculum had some elements of critical environmental education, these were minor and not well spread throughout the school. Overall, the outcome seemed best described as a "small win"; perhaps just another example of the theory-practice gap that I had hoped this project would bridge. Towards the project's end, however, my continuing reflection led to an exploration of chaos/complexity theory which gave new meaning to the concept of a "small win". According to this theory, change is not the product of linear processes applied methodically in purposeful and diligent ways, but emerges from serendipitous events that cannot be planned for, or forecast in advance. When this perspective of change is applied to human organisations - in this study, a busy school - the context for change is recognised not as a stable, predictable environment, but as a highly complex system where change happens all the time, cannot be controlled, and no one can be really sure where the impacts might lead. This so-called "butterfly effect" is a central idea of this theory where small changes or modifications are created - the effects of which are difficult to know, let alone determine - and which can have large-scale impacts. Allied with this effect is the belief that long term developments in an organisation that takes complexity into account, emerge by spontaneous self-organising evolution, requiring political interaction and learning in groups, rather than systematic progress towards predetermined goals or "visions". Hence, because change itself and the contexts of change are recognised as complex, chaos/complexity theory suggests that change is more likely to be slow and evolutionary - cultural change - rather than fast and revolutionary where the old is quickly ushered out by radical reforms and replaced by new structures and processes. Slow, small-scale changes are "normal", from a complexity viewpoint, while rapid, wholesale change is both unlikely and unrealistic. Therefore, the frustratingly slow, small-scale, imperfect educational changes that teachers create - including environmental education initiatives - should be seen for what they really are. They should be recognised as successful changes, the impacts of which cannot be known, but which have the potential to magnify into large-scale changes into the future. Rather than being regarded as failures for not meeting critical education criteria, "small wins" should be cause for celebration and support. The intertwined phases of collaborative action research and individual researcher reflection are mirrored in the thesis structure. The first three chapters, respectively, provide the thesis overview, the literature underpinning the study's central concern, and the research methodology. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 report on each of the three action research cycles of the study, namely Laying the Groundwork, Down to Work!, and The Never-ending Story. Each of these chapters presents a narrative of events, a literature review specific to developments in the cycle, and analysis and critique of the events, processes and outcomes of each cycle. Chapter 7 provides a synthesis of the whole of the study, outlining my interim propositions about facilitating curriculum change in schools through action research, and the implications of these for environmental education.

Developing and evaluating interventions that are applicable and relevant to inpatients and those who care for them; a multiphase, pragmatic action research approach

Background Randomised controlled trials may be of limited use to evaluate the multidisciplinary and multimodal interventions required to effectively treat complex patients in routine clinical practice; pragmatic action research approaches may provide a suitable alternative. Methods A multiphase, pragmatic, action research based approach was developed to identify and overcome barriers to nutritional care in patients admitted to a metropolitan hospital hip-fracture unit. Results Four sequential action research cycles built upon baseline data including 614 acute hip-fracture inpatients and 30 purposefully sampled clinicians. Reports from Phase I identified barriers to nutrition screening and assessment. Phase II reported post-fracture protein-energy intakes and intake barriers. Phase III built on earlier results; an explanatory mixed-methods study expanded and explored additional barriers and facilitators to nutritional care. Subsequent changes to routine clinical practice were developed and implemented by the treating team between Phase III and IV. These were implemented as a new multidisciplinary, multimodal nutritional model of care. A quasi-experimental controlled, ‘before-and-after’ study was then used to compare the new model of care with an individualised nutritional care model. Engagement of the multidisciplinary team in a multiphase, pragmatic action research intervention doubled energy and protein intakes, tripled return home discharge rates, and effected a 75% reduction in nutritional deterioration during admission in a reflective cohort of hip-fracture inpatients. Conclusions This approach allowed research to be conducted as part of routine clinical practice, captured a more representative patient cohort than previously reported studies, and facilitated exploration of barriers and engagement of the multidisciplinary healthcare workers to identify and implement practical solutions. This study demonstrates substantially different findings to those previously reported, and is the first to demonstrate that multidisciplinary, multimodal nutrition care reduces intake barriers, delivers a higher proportional increase in protein and energy intake compared with baseline than other published intervention studies, and improves patient outcomes when compared with individualised nutrition care. The findings are considered highly relevant to clinical practice and have high translation validity. The authors strongly encourage the development of similar study designs to investigate complex health problems in elderly, multi-morbid patient populations as a way to evaluate and change clinical practice.

A course for teaching design research methodology

Design research informs and supports practice by developing knowledge to improve the chances of producing successful products.Training in design research has been poorly supported. Design research uses human and natural/technical sciences, embracing all facets of design; its methods and tools are adapted from both these traditions. However, design researchers are rarely trained in methods from both the traditions. Research in traditional sciences focuses primarily on understanding phenomena related to human, natural, or technical systems. Design research focuses on supporting improvement of such systems, using understanding as a necessary but not sufficient step, and it must embrace methods for both understanding reality and developing support for its improvement. A one-semester, postgraduate-level, credited course that has been offered since 2002, entitled Methodology for Design Research, is described that teaches a methodology for carrying out research into design. Its steps are to clarify research success; to understand relevant phenomena of design and how these influence success; to use this to envision design improvement and develop proposals for supporting improvement; to evaluate support for its influence on success; and, if unacceptable, to modify, support, or improve the understanding of success and its links to the phenomena of design. This paper highlights some major issues about the status of design research and describes how design research methodology addresses these. The teaching material, model of delivery, and evaluation of the course on methodology for design research are discussed.

Action design research: a comparison with canonical action research and design science

This research in progress paper addresses the IS issue in relation to conducting relevant research while keeping academic rigor. In particular, it contributes to the ongoing academic conversation around the investigation on how to incor-porate action in design science research. In this document the philosophical underpinnings of the recently proposed methodology called Action Design Re-search [1] are derived, outlined and integrated into Burrel and Morgan’s Par-adigmatic Framework (1979)[6]. The results so far show how Action Design Research can be considered as a particular case of Design Science Research (rather than a methodology closely related to Action Research) although they can assume two different epistemological positions. From these philosophical perspectives, future works will involve the inclusion of actual research projects using the three different methodologies. The final goal is to outline and structure the divergences and similarities of Action Design Research with Design Science Research and Canonical Action Research.

Growing up expectations. Better understanding the expectations of community partners in participatory action research projects

This paper challenges the assumption that youth and youth agencies are in a condition of equality when entering a participatory action research (PAR). By asserting that it is not a state of equality that practitioners nor youth should assume nor be immediately striving for, but a consistently equitable process, this article draws from and reflects on the relationship between young people and researchers who have used a PAR methodology in action oriented projects. Using the UNESCO Growing up in Cities Canada project as a case example, this review extrapolates from and reflects on challenges faced by the project as a whole. Using semi-structured interviews to explore the roles of adults and youth, a number of strategies are highlighted as the techniques used to overcome these challenges. The discussion concludes with further reflection on the complexities of equality and equity, recommending a number of actions that have the potential to create an equitable environment in PAR projects similar to the one examined.

The challenges of creating actionable knowledge: an action research perspective

Academia has a critical role in developing new knowledge which construction industry practitioners need to envision, undertake and sustain successful innovation. The new knowledge produced by academia, however, often does not satisfy the needs of practitioners. This unsatisfactory state of affairs is frequently taken to be the consequence of the cultural, motivational and operational differences between the two communities. Actionable knowledge is presented as a useful concept which can fuse the expectations, contributions and outputs of academia and practitioners. Within this context, action research is argued to be an appropriate methodology to develop successful actionable knowledge. Results from an action research project are given which provide researchers and practitioners greater understanding of the key factors that shape the degree to which action research produces actionable knowledge: change focus, collaboration capabilities and systematic process. The criteria intrinsic to Mode 2 research (Gibbons et al., 1994) are demonstrated to have utility in evidencing actionable knowledge. The implication for policy is that there is a need to develop and use appropriate actionable knowledge frameworks and measures to design funding calls, and to evaluate research proposals and outputs.