Action research has been modelled in different ways, all of which stress its commitment to reflection on action and its cyclical nature. For example in working with local practitioners we have presented various models (go to our Leading Educational Enquiry site for more on this) model of action research consisting of :

 

 

 

Figure 1: the action research in Warwick leading education enquiry courses

This is an adaption of the original work of Levin and we have found it useful for several reasons. First it reintroduces the idea of reconnaissance (getting a sense of the ‘lie of the land’ in the first phases of a project. Reconnaissance is about making use of what is available. For example an action researcher might carry out interviews or focus group meetings with his or students, might visit other schools or institutions, talk to peers and invite feedback on ideas for change, might seek out 'experts' in the field. Reconnaissance does not begin with a literature review though, of course, literature, and often a mix of professional and academic literature, may well be reviewed. Reconnaissance may include 'trying things out' or test runs, rather than full blown pilot studies, in advance of implementation.

In the above diagram the design and planning are differentiated: planning is a technical problem (what I am I doing when, what resources do I need, whose is collaborating on this and when) while design is a more analytical discussion of what is being addressed and why this project is an appropriate means to do so. The model makes clear that implementation is followed by evaluation leading to another cycle of innovation.

The model is useful as it provides a scaffold for the researcher. However a difficulty with the approach is that is presents a too linear model of action research. Several models have been developed to address this. For example some have preferred to work from the ‘cycle within cycles' approach of Elliot (1991). In this approach the practitioner is engaging in round after round of enquiry and this is its strength. In particular as Elliot observes too often the reconnaissance simply confirms what the practitioners was going to do in the first place, this model leads to experimentation and reflection from the start. However an obvious weakness is that it feels complicated when a model which should reduce the complexity of the approach and focus on what is important.

Figure 2: the action research process in Elliot

Indeed a criticism of action research in general is that it is making something intuitively straightforward into something complicated through modelling and some action researchers suggest the process can be summarised in three easy steps: do, plan and reflect (eg Stringer et al 2010).

References

Stringer, E., McFadyen, L., Baldwin,S. (2010) Integrating teaching, learning and action research: enhancing instruction in the K–12 classroom Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.

Elliott, J. (1991) Action Research for Educational Change, Buckingham: Open University Press.

Reflection

How do these models relate to the inductive / deductive models put forward in other parts of the ARM programme?