Action Research

"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

Community-based action research seeks to involve as active participants those who have traditionally been called subjects and is intended to result in a practical outcome related to the lives or work of the participants. No matter the setting―organizational, institutional, or educational―there are particular skills needed to conduct action research successfully.

Author Ernest T. Stringer provides a series of tools that assist the researcher in working through the research process. Action Research, Second Edition provides a simple but highly effective model for approaching action research: * Look: Building a picture and gathering information * Think: Interpreting and explaining * Act: Resolving issues and problems Thoroughly revised and updated in this second edition, the scope of the book has been broadened to include university and other bureaucratic settings. New end-of-chapter summaries provide a practical checklist for researchers and an appendix provides an entry into the world of electronic resources.

Clear, concise, and always pragmatic, Action Research, Second Edition is a must for the library of professionals and students involved in the research enterprise.

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).