How Things Work - Doha Academy of Tertiary Studies

9.1. PaRticiPatORY actiON ReseaRch
action Research and Self- evaluation 159
If you think of research mostly as gathering information or generating
knowledge, you may be deceiving yourself. Research involves information
and knowledge, but most often it is coming together with others in
a social milieu to better understand how something works. To emphasize
the social interdependency, Kemmis and McTaggart (2006) called it
“participatory action research.” Action research is the study of action,
often with the intent to lead to better action, but it is special in that it is
carried out by the people directly responsible for the action. That could
be a social worker or it could be the White House staff. It is self-study,
with emphasis less on philosophizing than on performing. Asking: What
am I doing? What should we be doing differently?
Box 9.1 is Kemmis and McTaggart’s (2006) description of a participatory
action research project in Yirrkala, Australia. Such action
research is a mixture of inquiry, advocacy, and agitation. Different
researchers will proportion the ingredients differently.
Self-study is to be found everywhere. Accreditation of institutions
and programs sometimes includes a form of self-study. Before the
accrediting agency takes up the reapplication and records available, it
sometimes asks the institution staff to do a self-study. All too often, this
responsibility is farmed out to a small committee or consultant with little
all-staff deliberation and inquiry. These deputies too often assemble
self- promoting materials and write a self- congratulatory report intended
to assure good standing. But the philosophy of accreditation is that staff
members will benefit by preparing a report for visiting reviewers as much
as they will benefit from what the visitors have to say. When done in the
spirit of community, accreditation is qualitative research and problem
solving aimed toward corrective action.
Action research is self- evaluation. If initiated by someone else but
carried out by the practitioners or members, it is likely to be called “participatory
evaluation,” still with emphasis on what can be learned and
improved by their studying themselves (Patton, 1997, often included
within his “utilization-based” evaluation; and Jorrín-Abellán, 2006, a
dissertation study). Next we take note of forms of evaluation other than
action research and participant evaluation but still important for understanding
self-study.