Action Research: A Handbook for Practitioners

"The language of the book is eminently accessible to practitioners who may be unfamiliar with typical research parlance. . . . Every procedure described is accompanied by step-by-step instructions. The novice will surely appreciate being helped at each juncture as well as the professional, who will find the details useful precisely because the approach differs so dramatically from what is normally found in a research methods text." --from the Foreword by Egon G. Guba Research takes place in many different settings besides the most obvious one--the academic community. Action research itself represents a type of research undertaken by workers in a wide variety of community, organizational, or institutional settings. Action Research provides a series of tools to assist the novice practitioner researcher in moving more comfortably through the research process. After defining and setting community-based action research into the context of qualitative research methodology, the book describes an uncannily simple but effective model for approaching action research: Look--building a picture and gathering information; Think--interpreting and explaining; and Act--resolving issues and problems. Author Ernest T. Stringer concludes with issues of legitimacy surrounding this type of research and ponders the future of community-based action research. Action Research is the perfect text for professionals and students in research methods, sociology, evaluation and applied research, management and organization studies, and qualitative research.

Ernest T. Stringer

After an early career as a primary teacher and school principal, Ernie was a lecturer in education at Curtin University of Technology, in Western Australia. From the mid-1980s, based at Curtin’s Centre for Aboriginal Studies, he worked collaboratively with Aboriginal staff and community people to develop a wide variety of innovative and highly successful education and community development programs and services. His work with government departments, community-based agencies, business corporations, and local governments assisted them to work more effectively with Aboriginal people. In recent years, as visiting professor at the University of New Mexico and Texas A&M University and as visiting scholar at Cornell University, he taught research methods courses and/or engaged in projects with African American and Hispanic community and neighborhood groups. As a UNICEF consultant, he recently engaged in a major project to increase parent participation in schools in East Timor. He is author of Action Research (Sage, 2007), Action Research in Education (Pearson, 2008), Action Research in Health (with Bill Genat; Pearson, 2004), and Action Research in Human Services (with Rosalie Dwyer; Pearson, 2005). Until recently, he was a member of the editorial board of the Action Research Journal and past president of the Action Learning, Action Research Association (ALARA).