Co-Operative Inquiry

Co-Operative Inquiry

Author: John Heron

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 1996-09-10

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1446225100

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This is the first book to provide a comprehensive account of co-operative inquiry: a way of doing research with people where the roles of researcher and subject are integrated. Co-operative inquiry is a distinctive and wide-ranging form of participative research in which people use the full range of their sensibilities to inquire together into any aspect of the human condition. This book offers both an extensive exploration of its theoretical background and a detailed practical guide to the methods involved. Topics covered include: a critique of established research techniques; the underlying participative paradigm of co-operative inquiry; the epistemological and political aspects of participation; different types of co-operative inquiry and the range of inquiry topics; ways of setting up inquiry groups and enabling their development; four kinds of inquiry outcome and the primacy of the practical; the main stages of the inquiry cycle, highlighting key issues for practice at each stage; and special skills and procedures used for enhancing validity.


Information Systems Research

Information Systems Research

Author: Bonnie Kaplan

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2006-04-11

Total Pages: 745

ISBN-13: 1402080956

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Information Systems Research: Relevant Theory and Informed Practice comprises the edited proceedings of the WG8.2 conference, "Relevant Theory and Informed Practice: Looking Forward from a 20-Year Perspective on IS Research," which was sponsored by IFIP and held in Manchester, England, in July 2004. The conference attracted a record number of high-quality manuscripts, all of which were subjected to a rigorous reviewing process in which four to eight track chairs, associate editors, and reviewers thoughtfully scrutinized papers by the highly regarded as well as the newcomers. No person or idea was considered sacrosanct and no paper made it through this process unscathed. All authors were asked to revise the accepted papers, some more than once; thus, good papers got better. With only 29 percent of the papers accepted, these proceedings are significantly more selective than is typical of many conference proceedings. This volume is organized in 7 sections, with 33 full research papers providing panoramic views and reflections on the Information Systems (IS) discipline followed by papers featuring critical interpretive studies, action research, theoretical perspectives on IS research, and the methods and politics of IS development. Also included are 6 panel descriptions and a new category of "bright idea" position papers, 11 in all, wherein main points are summarized in a pithy and provocative fashion.


Heuristic Inquiry

Heuristic Inquiry

Author: Nevine Sultan

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2018-04-27

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1506355471

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Focused on exploring human experience from an authentic researcher perspective, Heuristic Inquiry: Researching Human Experience Holistically presents heuristic inquiry as a unique phenomenological, experiential, and relational approach to qualitative research that is also rigorous and evidence-based. Nevine Sultan describes a distinguishing perspective of this research that treats participants not as subjects of research but rather as co-researchers in an exploratory process marked by genuineness and intersubjectivity. Through the use of real-life examples illustrating the various processes of heuristic research, the book offers an understanding of heuristic inquiry that is straightforward and informal yet honors its creative, intuitive, and poly-dimensional nature.


Citizen Science

Citizen Science

Author: Janis L. Dickinson

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2012-04-07

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 0801464420

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Citizen science enlists members of the public to make and record useful observations, such as counting birds in their backyards, watching for the first budding leaf in spring, or measuring local snowfall. The large numbers of volunteers who participate in projects such as Project FeederWatch or Project BudBurst collect valuable research data, which, when pooled together, create an enormous body of scientific data on a vast geographic scale. In return, such projects aim to increase participants' connections to science, place, and nature, while supporting science literacy and environmental stewardship. In Citizen Science, experts from a variety of disciplines—including scientists and education specialists working at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, where many large citizen science programs use birds as proxies for biodiversity—share their experiences of creating and implementing successful citizen science projects, primarily those that use massive data sets gathered by citizen scientists to better understand the impact of environmental change. This first and foundational book for this developing field of inquiry addresses basic aspects of how to conduct citizen science projects, including goal-setting, program design, and evaluation, as well as the nuances of creating a robust digital infrastructure and recruiting a large participant base through communications and marketing. An overview of the types of research approaches and techniques demonstrates how to make use of large data sets arising from citizen science projects. A final section focuses on citizen science's impacts and its broad connections to understanding the human dimensions and educational aspects of participation. Citizen Science teaches teams of program developers and researchers how to cross the bridge from success at public engagement to using citizen science data to understand patterns and trends or to test hypotheses about how ecological processes respond to change at large geographic scales. Intended as a resource for a broad audience of experts and practitioners in natural sciences, information science, and social sciences, this book can be used to better understand how to improve existing programs, develop new ones, and make better use of the data resources that have accumulated from citizen science efforts. Its focus on harnessing the impact of "crowdsourcing" for scientific and educational endeavors is applicable to a wide range of fields, especially those that touch on the importance of massive collaboration aimed at understanding and conserving what we can of the natural world.


Participatory Action Research

Participatory Action Research

Author: Jacques M. Chevalier

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-02-12

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 1351033255

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Fully revised and updated, this second edition of Participatory Action Research (PAR) provides new theoretical insights and many robust tools that will guide researchers, professionals and students from all disciplines through the process of conducting action research ‘with’ people rather than ‘for’ them or ‘about’ them. PAR is collective reasoning and evidence-based learning focussed on social action. It has immediate relevance in fields ranging from community development to education, health, public engagement, environmental issues and problem solving in the workplace. This new edition has been extensively revised to create a user-friendly textbook on PAR theory and practice, including: updated references and a comprehensive overview of different approaches to PAR (pragmatic, psychosocial, critical); more emphasis on the art of process design, especially in complex social settings characterized by uncertainty and the unknown; developments in the use of Web2 collaborative tools and digital strategies to support real-time data gathering and processing; updated examples and stories from around the world, in a wide range of fields; critical commentaries on major issues in the social sciences, including stakeholder theory, systems thinking, causal analysis, monitoring and evaluation, research ethics, risk assessment and social innovation. This modular textbook provides novel perspectives and ideas in a longstanding tradition that strives to reconnect science and the inquiry process with life in society. It provides coherent and critical treatment of core issues in the ongoing evolution of PAR, making it suitable for a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. It is intended for use by researchers, students and working professionals seeking to improve or rethink their approach to co-creating knowledge and supporting action for the well-being of all.


Participatory Research in More-than-Human Worlds

Participatory Research in More-than-Human Worlds

Author: Michelle Bastian

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-01

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 1317340876

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Socio-environmental crises are currently transforming the conditions for life on this planet, from climate change, to resource depletion, biodiversity loss and long-term pollutants. The vast scale of these changes, affecting land, sea and air have prompted calls for the ‘ecologicalisation’ of knowledge. This book adopts a much needed ‘more-than-human’ framework to grasp these complexities and challenges. It contains multidisciplinary insights and diverse methodological approaches to question how to revise, reshape and invent methods in order to work with non-humans in participatory ways. The book offers a framework for thinking critically about the promises and potentialities of participation from within a more-than-human paradigm, and opens up trajectories for its future development. It will be of interest to those working in the environmental humanities, animal studies, science and technology studies, ecology, and anthropology.


Community development (second edition)

Community development (second edition)

Author: Ledwith, Margaret

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2011-04-27

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 1447300831

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Community development finds itself in times of unprecedented political, social and economic change, locally and globally, at the same time as divisions between poverty and privilege widen. Building practical approaches to theory and theoretical approaches to practice, this updated and expanded second edition of a bestselling text develops critiques of the changing context and identifies challenges faced by community development both at community level and as a collective force for a more just, equal and sustainable future. Featuring a range of different models of community development and illustrative stories from practitioners in the field, the new edition will be essential reading for practitioners, students and educators involved in community development, youth and community work, social work, health and education.


Resources for Nursing Research

Resources for Nursing Research

Author: Cynthia Clamp

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2005-01-11

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1847877362

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′The 4th edition of this extensive text is an outstanding resource prepared by nurses (and a librarian) for nurses. In a structured and helpful style it presents thousands of items from the literature - published papers, reports, books and electronic resources - as a clear, accessible, and most of all useful collection. The efforts to signpost and lead the reader to the sought-for information are effective and well-conceived, and the "How to use this book" section is remarkably simple...the book should be found in every nursing and health library, every research institute and centre, and close to many career researchers′ desks′ - RCN Research This latest edition of Resources for Nursing Research provides a comprehensive bibliography of sources on nursing research, and includes references for books, journal papers and Internet resources. Designed to act as a ′signpost′ to available literature in the area, this Fourth Edition covers the disciplines of nursing, health care and the social sciences. Entries are concise, informative and accessible, and are arranged under three main sections: · ′Sources of Literature′ covers the process of literature searching, including using libraries and other tools for accessing literature · ′Methods of Inquiry′ includes an introduction to research, how to conceptualize and design nursing and health research, measurement and data collection, and the interpretation and presentation of data · ′The Background to Research in Nursing′ encompasses the development of nursing research; the profession′s responsibilities; the role of government; funding; research roles and careers; and education for research. Fully revised and updated, the Fourth Edition includes just under 3000 entries, of which 90% are new. It has extensive coverage of US, UK literature and other international resources. This new edition will be an essential guide for all those with an interest in nursing research, including students, teachers, librarians, practitioners and researchers.


Handbook of Action Research

Handbook of Action Research

Author: Peter Reason

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2006-01-17

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9781412920308

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With the Handbook of Action Research hailed as a turning point in how action research is framed and understood by scholars, this student edition has been structured to provide an easy inroad into the field for researchers and students. It includes concise chapter summaries and an informative introduction that draws together the different strands of action research and reveals their diverse applications as well as their interrelations. Divided into four parts, there are important themes of thinking and practice running throughout.