Briefing Notes

B: Further Analysis of Research Methods

B8: From action to research ... and back again?

The first of these phenomena is readily explicable: with the current UK government insistence on Best Value Reviews, it is not difficult to see why service managers would like to look beyond traditional performance indicators to see if there are other (and better?) ways of seeing whether their services are working. It is perhaps more or less accidental that when they (or their colleagues who are busy generating initiatives aimed at reader development) start getting to grips with assessing the impact of their services, they come up against a basic precept, that when we are thinking about impact we are usually thinking about impact on people. Once we recognise this focus, to find out about impact it is necessary to engage in variations on observation, asking questions or inferring impact from activities or incidents – in other words, employing the social science research repertoire.

Again, 'evidence-based working' is rapidly becoming fashionable, thanks to promotional efforts in the health service where there is immediate attraction in the notion that it would be better for hospital consultants to be basing their clinical interventions on the best available research evidence on the efficacy of the proposed treatment than on what they learnt years ago at medical school or what operations they get a buzz from performing. The fact that evidence-based working also offers health managers scope for rationing treatments where demand will inevitably outstrip supply (on the basis that if you cannot invoke convincing research evidence to show that the proposed treatment will work you can't do it) may be just coincidence, but ... Whatever the motivation, there is growing interest in evidence-based practice in other public sector areas too, with initiatives up and running in social care and education. So far, evidence-based library and information work is only (or largely) a matter for discussion, but I have recently been asked to prepare a development paper on the theme for Re:source, the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, so watch this space.

Why action research? In this case, a small group of professionals (a school teacher, school librarians, FE lecturers and a college librarian) who had recently completed their MAs in Education were discussing how they could continue to develop their practice. They wanted to keep up the momentum gathered during their Masters studies. The group felt that attending short staff development courses would not do: these tended to be too superficial. Reading might be interesting but would not necessarily galvanise them into activity or provide the links between theory and practice that they wanted. They decided to set up an informal action research group and asked their MA tutor to facilitate termly meetings. A year later, individuals in the group have: enhanced the after-hours support that they provide; developed approaches to extended reading for adults with learning difficulties; collaborated with colleagues to integrate the teaching of 'learning strategies' into subject courses; and enhanced the handling of differentiated group work in the college library. The group meetings are held on Saturdays and attendance levels have always been high. Group members are clear that the improvements in educational practice that they have initiated in their institutions are due to their adoption of action research strategies.

Group members have been enabled to investigate aspects of their practice in a carefully structured and focused way; they have read relevant research but have been supported whilst they question its relevance to their own contexts and develop their own ideas out about what they have read. They have used a variety of data-gathering techniques both in their initial investigations and when evaluating the impact of their changed practices. Group members have openly reported their difficulties and have held up their own development and their emerging ideas to critical scrutiny.

Despite working in difficult contexts, faced with increasing demands on their time and, in some cases, with decreasing budgets, engagement in the action research process had prevented group members from feeling powerless, and de-professionalised. They have been able to enhance the quality of their work in areas that they care about and in ways that accord with their educational values.

Action research provided these practitioners with an effective tool for their own professional development and a way of improving the quality of education within their institutions. But what is action research?

McKernan¹ claimed that "Action research is carried out by practitioners seeking to improve their understanding of events, situations and problems so as to increase the effectiveness of their practice. Such research does not have the writing of research reports and other publications as a primary goal."

"Action research aims at feeding the practical judgement of actors in problematic situations. The validity of the concepts, models and results it generates depends not so much on scientific tests of truth as on their utility in helping practitioners to act more effectively, skilfully and intelligently."

This is only one view of what can vary from cheap research conducted by practitioners dragooned into undertaking fieldwork on behalf of academic colleagues, through to real professional development based on the idea of the reflective practitioner. If any LIS professionals reading this are sufficiently interested in extending the scope of their continuing professional development to consider this approach I would be delighted to hear from them.

1. McKernan, J. (1991) Curriculum action research: a handbook of methods and resources for the reflective practitioner London: Kogan Page. [back]

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