For Research courses in Counseling, Social Work, and Human Services. This practical, clearly-written text helps readers understand the purposes of action research and guides them through the process of conducting their own action research studies. The book is appropriate for counselors, social workers, and other helping professionals, as examples and applications are all drawn from human services settings. Not only does the text help readers understand how to conduct research on their own practice, but it also helps them apply the results of their research to improve their effectiveness as helpers.
* What is action research and how can it best be understood? * How can practitioners use action research to deal with problems and improve services? * What are the different types of action research and which might be most appropriate for use in a particular setting? This book has been designed for use as a core text on research methods courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level and on professional training courses. It is divided into three parts. Part one traces the history of action research and shows the links between its use in education, community development, management research and nursing. Building on this background the book explores different ways in which action research has been defined and proposes four different types, each appropriate to a different problem situation and context. In part two, five case studies of action research are described from the perspective of the researcher, including case studies of success and instructive failure. Part three is designed to enable the reader to find a route through the maze of methods and approaches in action research by the use of such things as self-assessment and mapping exercises, a guide to diary keeping and to evaluation. The final chapter suggests that by developing a 'project perspective' action research can be of practical benefit to health and social care professionals in promoting service improvements.
Action research is a term used to describe a family of related approaches that integrate theory and action with a goal of addressing important organizational, community, and social issues together with those who experience them. It focuses on the creation of areas for collaborative learning and the design, enactment and evaluation of liberating actions through combining action and research, reflection and action in an ongoing cycle of cogenerative knowledge. While the roots of these methodologies go back to the 1940s, there has been a dramatic increase in research output and adoption in university curricula over the past decade. This is now an area of high popularity among academics and researchers from various fields—especially business and organization studies, education, health care, nursing, development studies, and social and community work. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research brings together the many strands of action research and addresses the interplay between these disciplines by presenting a state-of-the-art overview and comprehensive breakdown of the key tenets and methods of action research as well as detailing the work of key theorists and contributors to action research.
The current orthodoxy is that 'knowledge' is the most powerful resource for organisational success. So how can managers develop the appropriate knowledge base to make their organisations grow? The answer lies in action research. Action research is increasingly perceived and used as a powerful methodology to promote professional awareness and development. However, there are very few texts that demonstrate how this can be utilised to promote management and organisational improvement or that emphasise the reflective nature of improving professionalism. Action Research in Organisations fills this gap. Aimed at both practising managers and university students alike, key features of this title include: * the location of management and organisational theory within a framework * examination of the principles and practice of action research * real-world examples and case studies of people attempting to improve their own situations through action research.
Action Research in Healthcare is a practical guide to using research for improving practice in healthcare contexts. As an increasingly popular method of inquiry, action research is widely used in healthcare to investigate professional practice and patients' experience while simultaneously: - introducing innovations - planning, actioning and evaluating new ideas - seeking to improve patient care - working collaboratively. Taking you through the process step-by-step, Action Research in Healthcare explains how to tackle each stage of your project - from planning the study and undertaking a literature review, through to gathering and interpreting data and implementing findings. Examples of action research projects are included throughout to illustrate how the method works in practice. Action Research in Healthcare assumes no previous knowledge of the subject and is the ideal resource for anyone about to start or already involved in a project.
′For anyone seeking to create meaning out of life, inspire others with publication of research discoveries and insights, and help the world become a better place within which to live and work, action research holds great promise as an approach. The challenge is to do it well and with rigor. The Handbook is a magnificent collection of articles that will help the reader do all of that′ - Richard E. Boyatzis, Case Western Reserve University and ESADE ′This second volume will be a welcome extension of the landmark first volume of the SAGE Handbook of Action Research. It effectively secures the field′s ′second wave′ in a particularly powerful and creative articulation of well-theorised practice. It could not be more timely for a fast-growing field that has attracted recent appreciation from parties as disparate as Shell, 3M, Australian Aboriginal women in outback Australia working to prevent harm to children and the Secretary General of the UN′ - Yoland Wadsworth ′For anyone thinking about or doing action research, this book is an obligatory point of reference. If any one text both maps the action research paradigm, and at the same time moves it on, this is it′ - Bill Cooke, Manchester Business School Building on the strength of the seminal first edition, the The SAGE Handbook of Action Research has been completley updated to bring chapters in line with the latest qualitative and quantitative approaches in this field of social inquiry. Peter Reason and Hilary Bradbury have introduced new part commentaries that draw links between different contributions and show their interrelations. Throughout, the contributing authors really engage with the pragmatics of doing action research and demonstrate how this can be a rich and rewarding reflective practice. They tackle questions of how to integrate knowledge with action, how to collaborate with co-researchers in the field, and how to present the necessarily ′messy′ components in a coherent fashion. The organization of the volume reflects the many different issues and levels of analysis represented. This volume is an essential resource for scholars and professionals engaged in social and political inquiry, organizational research and education.
The first edition of The Action Research Dissertation: A Guide for Students and Faculty was a first-of-its-kind reference, distilling the authors’ decades of action research experience into a handy guide for graduate students. The Second Edition continues to provide an accessible roadmap that honors the complexity of action research, while providing an overview of how action research is defined, its traditions and history, and the rationale for using it. Authors Kathryn Herr and Gary L. Anderson demonstrate that action research is not only appropriate for a dissertation, but also is a deeply rewarding experience for both the researcher and participants. This practical book demonstrates how action research dissertations are different from more traditional dissertations and prepares students and their committees for the unique dilemmas they may face, such as validity, positionality, design, write-up, ethics, and dissertation defense.
Presents a clear, theoretical rationale for the importance and viability of action research in a variety of professional settings The book exposes the limitations of existing models of the relationships between professional theory and professional practice Contains credible case-studies of work undertaken by practioners and service-users Offers practical guidance and strategies for carrying out such work
Qualitative Methods in Social Work Research provides accessible, how-to instruction for carrying out rigorous qualitative research. Deborah K. Padgett’s thoroughly revised Third Edition offers a comprehensive introduction to qualitative methods based on six major approaches: ethnography, grounded theory, case study, narrative, phenomenological, and participatory action research. Readers will appreciate the book’s ease of use, friendly writing style, and helpful cases/examples that combine attention to methodological rigor with pragmatic concerns for real-world relevance.
