Rhetoric and Practice in Action Research
Paper presented at the annual conference of the British Educational Research
Association, University of Exeter, 12-14 September 2002
Dr Eileen Piggot-Irvine
Director New Zealand Principal and Leadership Centre
Senior Lecturer, Massey University
Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
e.piggot-irvine@massey.ac.nz
Abstract
This paper begins with a description of the elements of a Problem Resolving Action
Research Model (PRAR) that I have developed (Piggot-Irvine, 2001) for working
with groups in management development. The model has many features in common
with other approaches to action research. It also has characterising features and these
are given specific attention.
The next part of the paper provides a brief overview of one example of an action
research project that adopted the PRAR model. It involved five middle managers (all
appraisers) in a New Zealand secondary school participating in a year-long
intervention to improve the way that they established an “educative” process with
appraisees. The third part of the paper draws upon the findings from the observation
of this project to demonstrate factors that both limited and contributed to the
implementation of the PRAR model.
Limitations include low ownership, reduced collaboration and restricted time. Factors
contributing to the PRAR model implementation include data-based reflection,
consciousness-raising associated with exposure of the espousal-practice gap in change
implementation, the employment of mutually informing theory and practice,
narrowing the theory-practice gap, providing extended support and the opportunity to
repeat learning.
Introduction
During the last ten years I have facilitated multiple action research groups, taught
others how to implement the approach, and established (in 1993) the New Zealand
Action Research Network (NZARN). Such involvement and experience in action
research has been associated with a roller-coaster of emotions concerning my own
abilities as an action researcher and the “worth” of the process to participants, or
education, or research in general. In this paper I will describe a small segment of a
component of the roller-coaster journey. As noted in the abstract, the paper begins
with a description of the features of a model that I have employed with action
research groups.
The Rhetoric: The Problem Resolving Action Research (PRAR) Model
The PRAR model (Figure 1) has multiple features, theoretical and philosophical
underpinnings frequently described for action research (see Piggot-Irvine, 2001 for
detail). A brief description of the latter is provided followed by a more detailed focus
on characterising features of the model.
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Figure 1: The PRAR Model
Features in Common with Other Action Research Approaches
Iterative
The iterative, or cyclical, action research process is apparent in the PRAR model.
Wadsworth (1998) suggests that in action research there are countless tiny cycles of
reflection on action, learning about action, and then new informed action, which is
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then the subject of further reflection. The iterative nature of the critical reflection on
action is a strong determinant of the PRAR process.
Experiential
The PRAR model, as with most other action research models, involves experiential
learning cycles (Kolb, 1984). In experiential learning, knowledge is gained from
observations, questioning and reflection related to concrete experience or action. This
learning leads to generalisations or the formulation of abstract concepts, the
implications of which are tested in new situations. A new concrete experience then
occurs, followed by another cycle of learning. Understanding, improvement and
transformation of the specific situation in which the group are working, is the ultimate
outcome of these learning cycles (see Cardno & Piggot-Irvine, 1996, for elaboration
of the action research and experiential learning links).
Intra-Organisation Focused
As with other action research models, the PRAR model focuses on research carried
out within the organisation of the participants themselves.
Rejection of Positivistic, Value-Free Espousals
The PRAR model, like other action research models, rejects the positivist value-free
espousals (Cardno & Piggot-Irvine, 1996). In the PRAR model the exposure and
examination of values is given high priority.
Acknowledgement of Multiple Perspectives
In action research generally (and emphasised in the PRAR Model) multiple
perspectives are acknowledged through the employment of multiple data collection
methods, or triangulation (Cohen & Manion, 1994).
Developmental
The assumption of improvement is explicit in many reports of the goals of action
research (Kemmis, 1988; McNiff, 1990; Oja & Smulyan, 1989; Shumsky, 1958; Taba
& Noel, 1957), as is an aligned educative feature of knowledge generation.
... teachers ... are taking on the personal challenge of attempting to find ways
in which they can improve and develop both themselves and the situations in
which they live. (McNiff, 1990:52)
Zuber-Skerritt (1989) accentuates this further by stating that action research is
professional development. In the PRAR model the action research is improvement
orientated and therefore constitutes a form of professional development.
Public accountability
The PRAR model includes public accountability in order to enhance the validity of
the action research. As Passfield (1992) suggests it is an ethical requirement to make
the findings of action research public through publication or presentation. It is
through this public reporting of the research that the “critical response of a skeptical
public” (Bawden, 1991:41) is achieved. Public accountability generally occurs in
action research through such diverse avenues as the publication of the findings in a
thesis or paper for a journal, a press release, or a report for an organisation.
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Characterising Features of the PRAR Model
Transformative
Action research has not yet achieved, nor may ever achieve, paradigm status (Kuhn’s,
1970, description of the set of beliefs, values, techniques and so on, shared by a given
community). As an approach, however, what distinguishes it as a form of research is
its emphasis on transformation or change.
It focuses on changing practice to make it more consistent with the ideal.
(Elliot, 1997:25)
The “implementation” or “change” phase of the PRAR model explicitly aims to
transform practice. Change, however, does not just happen at one specific point, or
cycle, in the action research. It happens throughout the entire process and leads to a
frequent unpredictability about the focus and outcomes of the process. In keeping
with Zeichner & Noffke’s (1998) perception, transformation elicited in the PRAR
model is most strongly situated to occur at the personal level (see also the work of
Elliot, 1991; McNiff, 1993; Posch, 1993; and Schratz & Walker, 1997). It could
occur at the professional level (as reported in studies by Calhoun, 1993; Carr &
Kemmis, 1986; Elliot, 1991; Kemmis & Grundy, 1997; Lomax; 1994; Stenhouse,
1975) and/or management development level (as suggested by Calabrese & Bartz,
1990; Cardno & Piggot-Irvine, 1996; Perry & Zuber-Skerritt, 1994; Robinson, 1986;
Zuber-Skerritt, 1996).
Action research is often touted as leading to transformation at the political level.
Kemmis & McTaggart (1990), for example, present action research as a new,
emergent, research paradigm that has a “praxis for critical theory” (Habermas, 1972)
underpinning and emancipatory goal. Carr & Kemmis (1986), and McTaggart (1997),
advocate that action research should emancipate the group from the social and
political constraints of the organisation and society in which they operate. They
believe the emancipatory approach (which is classified as “strong” action research by
Peters & Robinson, 1984) to be an essential feature of action research. These authors
offer this emancipatory approach as being the only legitimate approach to action
research. The consequent implied rejection of either technical or practical action
research, the “weaker” (Peters & Robinson, 1984) forms is, in my opinion, flawed for
several reasons (see Piggot-Irvine, 2001) and rejected in the PRAR model. In the
PRAR model the more realistic, yet still personally emancipatory, claims for critical
social science suggested by Fay (1987) are intended. Fay says that critical social
science should:
… give up any pretensions to capture the ‘essence’ of liberation. [It should
offer] an account of the ways in which it is inherently and essentially
contextual, partial, local and hypothetical. (Fay, 1987:213)
The PRAR model is designed to be contextual, partial, local (primarily personal, but
still political) and hypothetical and also contains elements of the technical, practical
and personally emancipatory typologies (Carr & Kemmis, 1986) of action research. It
embraces the conception of the overlapping and interweaving, simultaneously
operating features of each of the typologies and acknowledges the unrealistic
segmentation of action research into such a categorisation. It is eclectic - an approach
also supported by McKernan (1991) and Robinson (1993).
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Action research is not necessarily a technical, critical, liberal or
emancipatory endeavour. It may be any of these depending on the nature of
the particular problem and the resources required to resolve it. (Robinson,
1993:287)
Narrowing the Theory - Practice Gap
In the PRAR model, like other types of action research, the aim is to narrow the gap
between theory and practice by practitioners carrying out an investigation on their
own practice (Kincheloe, 1991; McKernan, 1991; Prideaux, 1995; Stenhouse, 1975).
It offers an alternative to the view that theory is the province of academics
and, at best, is marginally useful for those engaged in the reality of practice ...
action research involves practitioners theorising about their practice through
reflection on action. (Prideaux, 1995:5)
The PRAR model, however, rejects the requirement for practice to precede theory.
Instead it is underpinned by a “constructivist/interactionist epistemology” (Peters &
Robinson, 1984:121) where theory and action develop together. In such a reciprocal
relationship (also supported by Grundy, 1987) theory and practice are seen to inform
each other and are mutually interdependent.
Data-based Reflection
It is effective when ... reflective practice is data-based; multiple perspectives
are acknowledged. (Cardno & Piggot-Irvine, 1996:20).
In order for rigorous reflection to occur in the PRAR model, data is drawn from a
number of sources. As with most action research, the predominantly qualitative data
collected (but not always, because quantitative data can also be collected) is
interpreted, analysed and reflected upon by the collaborative group or the individual
researcher. Both reflection-upon-action (reflecting retrospectively to action) and
reflection-in-action (reflecting whilst in the action), as described by Schön (1983), are
employed. In the PRAR model an important element of reflection involves
participants becoming aware of the potential fallibility of their own stance or
assumptive frameworks (adapted from Robinson, 1993). The latter is extremely
complex: a type of “double-loop learning” (Argyris & Schön, 1974) involving the
action researchers using the multiple data collected to examine the underlying values
and assumptions that generate their behaviour.
Problem-Solving and Dialogical Interchange
... diagnosing a problem in a specific context and attempting to solve it in
that context. (Cohen & Manion, 1989:217)
Practitioner understanding of problems and problem-solving (Calhoun, 1993; Cardno,
1994; Elliot, 1991; Rapoport, 1970; Robinson, 1993) is given prominence in the
PRAR model. Such involvement situates the action researcher as an “active seeker
and negotiator of meaning” (Zuber-Skerritt, 1992:35). The understanding of
problems can be arrived at in multiple ways, but a particular emphasis is placed on
dialogical interchange between the practitioners themselves in their analysis of
practice. Such interchange involves collectively and openly discussing, debating and
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reflecting upon data with other action researchers. Such dialogical interchange is
designed to challenge and deepen insights.
It is based on the epistemological assumption that knowledge is constructed
socially through a process of dialogue. (Hall, 1993, in Zeichner & Noffke,
1998:18)
This dialogical interchange requires, early in the process of the action research, an
understanding of practitioner value-laden interpretations of their world (Robinson,
1993:264). Unraveling these interpretations is a complex, lengthy, intensive personal
examination and involves confronting the gap between “espoused theories” and
“theories in use” (Argyris, 1985). Pope & Denicolo (1991) reiterate the need for this
personal examination when they suggest that a person’s core constructs need to be
changed or challenged in order to bring about change.
Collaborative?
Action research is usually a collaborative approach. Where an outside expert is
involved, the ideal is for this person to be an equally collaborative practitioner in the
study (McTaggart & GarbutcheonSingh, 1986), with the learning seen as a social
enterprise and an emergent property of the group (Piggot-Irvine & McMorland,
1997).
Action research is not something that the outsider should ask others to do.
(Prideaux, 1995:6)
The advantages of collaboration to participants are cited as manifold (Kemmis &
McTaggart, 1988; D’Arcy, 1994; Tripp, 1990; Wadsworth, 1998). In the PRAR
model, where dialogue is a feature of the interactions, collaboration allows for public
testing of private assumptions and reflections, that is, it helps to avoid self-limiting
reflection (Schön, 1983). The collaboration can also enhance ownership and
commitment to change and leverage the change to a level frequently unattainable
through individual reflection alone.
The ideal of collaboration, however, is not always realistic, nor is it always realised,
despite the best of intent. It can also be problematic. In the PRAR model, where
action research aims to effect change at the personal level, there is a potential for the
production of “severe tensions in the maintenance of a collaborative situation”
(Waters-Adams, 1994:195). Specifically, this tension can occur in the process of
reflection. Reflection requires objectivity based, as Waters-Adams suggests, on the
two frequently incompatible features of intensely personal action on the one hand (for
example, the examination of the espousal and action gap in values and strategies), and
intersubjective discourse (the expectation of group dialogue) on the other. Where
personal and collective values vary, Waters-Adams thinks it is naïve to believe that
practitioners will initially be able to put aside differences in the quest for agreed
understanding. He also adds that the highlighting of differences itself may increase
insecurity, mistrust and tension in already stressed practitioners and consequently
decrease their confidence.
Other problems with collaboration are also evident in action research generally. A
major issue often surrounds how this can occur effectively in the complex
environments of the organisations many of us work in. In the school context this
complexity as well as overload is particularly extreme. In such environments just the
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physical difficulty of negotiating to find a common meeting time is often fraught for
action researchers (an issue also raised by Reimer & Bruce, 1994).
Judith McMorland and myself (Piggot-Irvine & McMorland, 1997) examined the
form which collaboration often takes and determined challenges at five deepening
levels of collaborative learning in an action research context. The fifth and deepest
level of collaboration occurs when new levels of awareness of both ourselves and
others emerge as courage is expressed and inquiry leads to action. This level is often
distinguished by spontaneity, synergy and creativity and we note that it is the fifth
level that is associated with openness, trust and learning in action research groups. In
the PRAR model this is the ideal.
An Example PRAR Model Project
The action research group that I will use as an example of application of the PRAR
model, the “Appraisal Project”, involved five appraisers in middle management
positions (Heads of Departments) from a New Zealand (NZ) secondary school of a
low to middle socio-economic level, 890 students and approximately 60 staff. The
appraisers chose to participate in the group as part of a full year developmental
approach. Their focus was to improve the way that they established open, bilateral,
problem-confronting, high trust relationships with appraisees. I have described such a
relationship as “educative” (Piggot-Irvine, 2001) in the appraisal context. Three of
the five appraisers made considerable progress with this difficult improvement - a
signal that the action research had somewhat “successful outcomes” as recorded in an
earlier report (Piggot-Irvine, 2001).
During the year I sought permission from the group to track all action research group
interactions in meetings and to map individual appraiser and appraisee progress via
multiple sources of data. The latter included taping and transcribing all appraisal
interactions, surveying and interviewing appraisers and appraisees.
My role with this action research group therefore was not a participant but rather an
external recorder and, when requested, a coach for both the action research approach
and the educative process. It was the first time that I had adopted such a nonparticipant role in action research and this only occurred in order to reduce any
conflict of interest associated with the fact that I was observing the group as part of a
PhD study. This detached role is not one that I would have preferred. In all other
action research groups I have been associated with I have tried to be an equally
collaborative practitioner in the study (McTaggart & GarbutcheonSingh, 1986).
In this paper I wish to only report on conclusions drawn from the tracking of the
action research group interactions. The second component of my data collection
linked to appraisal interactions and outcomes is reported on in Piggot-Irvine, 2001.
Factors Limiting the PRAR Model Implementation
My observation of the action research group led me to conclude that several of the
earlier mentioned features of the PRAR model were frequently unrealised. A
summary of these factors is discussed but it should be noted that they are based on the
“Appraisal Project” alone and although they are not presented here as generalisable
they do provide key reminders for good practice.
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Ownership
My experience with every action research I have been involved in has shown that the
issue or central focus for the group has to be owned by the group. In the “Appraisal
Project” I thought that this existed because participants self-selected to come into the
project following an invitation to collaborate in long-term professional development
associated with an educative appraisal process. However, observation of the group
revealed low levels of commitment (for example, frequent dependency on me to
organise meetings and a low level of willingness to make time for involvement) that
indicate low ownership.
A key recommendation from the findings is that external assistance needs to be
minimised to ensure that group participants take responsibility for group decisionmaking and process development. As Grundy (1982) suggests, my idea was the
source of power for action, and therefore I may have been seen as potentially
controlling the power.
Collaboration
Tracking of the project showed that participants barely moved beyond Levels 1 and 2,
the “introduction” levels of collaboration (Piggot-Irvine & McMorland, 1997). Fewer
meetings, and the lack of collaborative activity, I believe, may have reinforced limited
levels of learning. I do not think the group moved beyond Level 1, the “introduction”
level of collaboration (Piggot-Irvine & McMorland, 1997), where collaboration is of a
superficial and task specific type.
The higher levels of collaboration described in the PRAR model were not achieved.
For example, collaborative interactions based on reduced threat and defensiveness
were not evident in observations of the group nor were the outcomes of high trust and
openness. The transformative dialogue interactions that characterise higher levels of
collaboration did not occur.
Analysis of participant feedback revealed that a major contributing factor to this low
level of collaboration was group member unwillingness to share results of their
individual analyses linked to interactions with their appraisees due to the sensitive
nature of these interactions. The lack of willingness to share collaboratively is in
keeping with Waters-Adams (1994) concerns about tensions created as a result of
trying to combine the two frequently incompatible features of intensely personal
reflection on actions and the expectation of group dialogue. In the appraisal context,
where anxiety about interactions is usually high, it may have been unrealistic to
expect that group participants would have collaborated in sharing reflections on
action.
A recommendation may be that action research is best suited to dealing with issues of
low personal threat.
Time
Even if the issue had not been threatening, creating collaboration at the deep level
described earlier required considerable time from the action research participants. In
the “Appraisal Project”, finding time to meet was a continual problem and when the
group did meet the time spent together was limited by late arrivals, early departures,
frequent interruptions, or on several occasions members forgetting that meetings had
been planned. Reluctance to meet before or after school was an issue with some of
the group members, which left only lunch-breaks or pre-arranged release time. In all
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cases these times were too short. The physical difficulty of finding a common
meeting time was not only fraught with this project but was an issue also raised by
Reimer and Bruce (1994). The lack of meeting itself may have added to the lack of
ownership and commitment of participants in the project.
I have reflected on what could have been done to change the issues associated with
time. Perhaps I should have been more assertive in negotiating with management that
time would need to be made available for the appraisers’ involvement. I suspect
however that it is doubtful in the current climate of limited funding for development
that the school management would have seen this as an high enough priority to
provide the support for the time required.
In my experience in school settings, overload is high: spare time is rare or nonexistent. Teacher involvement has only ever occurred in action research groups that I
have been associated with if there has been funding to cover the costs associated with
relief from timetabled teaching. The implication therefore is that for the type of
action research described in the PRAR model to be implemented in schools either
local or national support is required. Such support requires commitment to the
philosophy that value and behaviour shifting change best occurs in longer-term
interventions rather than the short-term courses that proliferate for teacher
development. In New Zealand, recent emphasis on central development funding
being awarded to longer-term action research type interventions provides evidence of
such commitment.
Factors Contributing to the PRAR Model Implementation
The tracking of the “Appraisal Project” group also revealed some features that
contributed to realising the implementation of the PRAR model features.
Data-Based Reflection Leading to Transformation
In this project the appraisers who actively engaged in substantial data-based analysis
of interaction transcriptions as a tool for reflecting on their practice were those who
subsequently demonstrated substantial change in their educative process skills. These
participants also reported that they got most out of the action research approach.
Further, this change or improvement was evidenced in later appraisal interactions and
also reported by appraisees. For those appraisers who showed little engagement in
this data-based reflection the improvement in practice was least evident (see PiggotIrvine, 2001, for a detailed account of the results). For three appraisers transformation
of practice occurred at the personal, professional and management levels, as intended
in the PRAR model.
Consciousness-Raising
As well as the transcripts providing data for critical reflection they also provided the
vehicle for consciousness-raising. It is my belief that the success of the three
appraisers in applying the educative process skills strongly hinged on the use of the
transcripts as a point of consciousness-raising. It was only when appraisers examined
their initial meeting transcripts in the reconnaissance stage of the action research that
the extent of the gap between the theory and practice of educative process skills
implementation became clear. Or to put this another way, change only occurred when
appraisers saw that they had a problem in their own practice and that there was a need
to change/improve. In Down, Chadborne & Hogan’s terms this was when the
appraisers felt “the need for help” (2000:219). The transcripts, in effect provided
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undisputable evidence of practice. In Dick & Dalmau’s (1999:5) terms they
“generated the dissonance” which was so necessary to motivate improvement. They
starkly highlighted the gap between the appraisers’ espoused theories and theories-inuse (Argyris, 1982), the two facets of theories of action (Argyris & Schön, 1974).
This was a turning point in the learning for the three appraisers - one that was in
keeping with the suggestion by Argyris (1990:95) that trainees needed to diagnose the
extent to which they had created and maintained problems.
Mutually Informing Theory and Practice
As intended in the PRAR model, in the “Appraisal Project” theory and practice
mutually informed each other and in doing so helped to narrow the theory-practice
gap. The latter is a feature of action research stated by the likes of Kemmis &
McTaggart (1990) and Prideaux (1995). Appraisers used the transcripts of their own
practice as an observation point and the theory associated with an educative appraisal
process provided criteria for analysis of the transcripts. The analysis, in turn,
provided a catalyst for further practice, that was further informed by the theory linked
to the criteria. I believe that this complex, dialectical and mutually interdependent
relationship between theory and practice was linked to improvement. Such informed
action based on a reciprocal theory and practice relationship is also supported by
Grundy (1987).
Narrowing the Espousal-Practice Gap
The results of this research showed that the appraisers who were committed went
beyond just highlighting the espousal-practice gap: they narrowed the gap by actively
changing their educative interactions with appraisees. This was an intent articulated
for the PRAR model and is supported by others such as Kemmis & McTaggart (1990)
and Prideaux (1995). The three successful appraisers made considerable shifts in
order to “to resolve the inconsistency” (Dick & Dalmau, 1999:5) which the transcripts
highlighted.
Extended Support
I believe that another condition associated with the successes shown for some
appraisers in this action research was linked to the extended support which I was able
to offer. Not that I am suggesting I am the only one who could have supported the
appraisers, but this action research, because of its longer-term, follow-up
characteristic, allowed me the opportunity to provide intensive assistance for those
appraisers who wanted it. This support needed to be challenging of trainee
assumptions and actions on the one hand, and on the other respectful of the fragile
learner. When I provided this support I needed to have an immediate astuteness in
recognising either defensive or productive values and strategies, that is, to be able to
reflect in action (Schön, 1991). I believe that I achieved this with the three appraisers
who made progress with the implementation of the educative process skills and
feedback from these appraisers confirms this. An outcome of this extended support
(and challenge) was hopefully greater trust between myself and the appraisers - the
sort of trust and openness which I was also encouraging them to develop with their
appraisees.
Repeated Learning Opportunities
Another possible condition for success which was highlighted in the results for this
action research was linked to appraisers having the opportunity to repeat their learning
experience with further appraisal interactions. This was in keeping with Argyris’
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(1990) suggested fourth stage for training for productive reasoning and it provided
extended and deepening learning due to opportunities to examine continuing practise.
Conclusions
Superficially, action research is a deceptively simple approach to development. In
reality, as the report on the “Appraisal Project” shows, it is complex and has multiple
constraints to implementation. The challenge for action researchers is to persist in
confronting the challenge to close the rhetoric and practice gap, regardless of the
action research model employed.
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