Action Research

1. CET7034:
Action Research
Unit 4: Planning and Action Research Project in your Organisation

2. Unit 4: Planning an Action Research
Project in your Organisation
By the end of this unit you will have considered, and begun to answer, the
following questions to inform your Action Research project planning:
• What am I interested in finding out?
• Why am I doing this? For what purpose?
• Who do I need to discuss my project with?
• What will be the focus of my investigation?
• Which specific factors/criteria that I need to investigate?
• What do I intend will be the output/outcome of my research?

3. Planning an Action Research
Project in your Organisation
• Which methods will best suit what I am trying to find out?
• Planning your questions:
 What questions to ask? validity of questions
 Types of questions? open, closed
 Types of responses? quantitative, qualitative, graded , ranked options etc
 Built in checks for reliability?
• Who will be my respondents: populations, sample
• Who will be the audience for my recommendations?
• Ethics of conducting research
• Having the end in mind
 how will you interpret and analyse your responses…..?

4. Action Research
Approaches and Methods
Framework for developing research:
1. Broad topic of interest
2. Research focus: pertinent change requirement; issue/problem;
stakeholders
3. Methods & Ethics
4. Data gathering
5. Analysis & interpretation
6. Presenting your findings – recommendation and
implementation plan

5. Action Research
Stakeholders
• A stakeholder is anyone who has an influence over
your project / change or who is influenced by it.
• There may be many types of stakeholder, including
those within your organisation and those outside it.
• Without the support of your key stakeholders you
might struggle to make the change / project succeed.
• With a powerful stakeholder against you, some form
of failure is almost inevitable.

6. Action Research Identifying
Stakeholders
• Who may be a source of reaction or discontent?
• Who has relevant positional responsibility?
• Who is generally regarded as ‘important’ by others?
• Who participates in activities related to the change project?
• Who shapes or influence opinion about the issues involved?
• Who falls into a demographic group affected by the change
project?
• Who has clear roles in the change project (e.g. team member,
client, supplier, adviser, manager)?

7. Action Research
Power/Interest analysis
Central to an analysis of stakeholders is an estimate of :
• Level of interest of the stakeholder, and
• Level of power the stakeholder can wield
Keep satisfied
Keep informedMinimal effort
Key players
Power
Interest
Source: Mendelow (1991)
Power/Interest Matrix
Where do your stakeholders fit?

8. Action Research
Methodology
Finding the most appropriate way to conduct your research. Consider, will your
research aim to:
• focus on how people (including yourself) feel; what they think and why they make
certain choices or behave in certain ways,
or
• use objective, systematic processes to collect and analyse statistical data, to obtain
information about the world,
or
• Use mixed methods – combining the two approaches.
Quantitative approach Qualitative approach
• Seeking a truth, looking to find a
definitive answer, or test a hypothesis,
needing statistical, measurable data.
• Theory is tested
• Focus on validity, and reliability.
• Trying to make sense of something,
seeking out views, opinions, experiences,
feelings
• More subjective
• Theory is generated
• Focus on credibility and usefulness

9. Action Research
Methodology/method
Quantitative data Qualitative data
• measured
• hard facts
• concrete
• specific
• structured
• static
• detached
• objective
e.g. budgets, case loads, Health & Safety
statistics, sales figures, test scores
• open
• personal
• stories
• experiences
• broad /deep
• involved
• free flowing
• ongoing
• subjective
e.g. opinions, views, feelings, behaviours,
observations

10. Action Research Methods
– Keeping a research journal
– Desk research
– Document collection and analysis
– Participant observation recordings
– Questionnaire surveys
– Structured and unstructured interviews
– Case studies
– Focus groups
– Interviews – structured/semi structured
– Narratives: first person storytelling
– Individual comments

11. Action Research
Quantitative Data
Reliability
• Consistency over time – if the same method were used with
the same sample, data subjects, at a different time, would the
results be the same?
• Question – does this concept work in qualitative research?
What about sample size?
Validity
• The concept of validity seeks to answer the question: “How
do we know the methods we have chosen will measure, test,
reveal what we expect it to measure, test, reveal.
• Question – does this concept work in qualitative research?

12. Action Research
Qualitative Data
Credibility
• What are the issues/inconsistencies?
• What do qualitative data mean to me? Is it the same as the respondents’
meaning?
• How valid and reliable are my data?
• How do I distinguish Facts , Opinions, Truths, Uncertainties..
Usefulness
• What are the common themes, and what do they tell me?
• What does my data tell me about : behaviours, attitudes, values?
• What are interrelationships between organisation/practice and the people
• Can I determine cause and effect?
• What are the overt issues?
• What may be the underlying problems?

13. Action Research
Data Analysis
Process of analysis
• Describing – look at what you have found out – describing
using numbers, comments, pictures, case studies etc.
• Classifying – grouping into categories – patterns, themes,
relationships
• Connecting – how groups of data support (or conflict) with
each other

14. References
• Burke & Litwin, ‘A Causal Model of Organisation Performance and Change’, Journal of
Management, Vol 18, No 3 (1992), pp 523–545.
• Coghlan, D. & Brannick, T. (2001) Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation. London:
Sage Publications, Ltd.
• Coghlan, D. (2001). Insider action research projects: Implications for practising
managers. Management Learning, 32(1), 49-60.
• Kemmis, S.; Mctaggart, R. (1988). The action research planner. Victoria: Deakin University
Press.
• Lewin, K. (1948) Resolving social conflicts; selected papers on group dynamics. Gertrude W.
Lewin (ed.). New York: Harper & Row, 1948.
• McNiff, J. (2010) Action Research for Professional Development: Concise advice for new and
experienced action researchers (2nd edition). Bodmin and King’s Lynn: MPG Books Group.
• Susman, G.I. "Action Research: A Sociotechnical systems perspective," in Beyond Method:
Strategies for Social Science Research, G. Morgan (ed.), Sage Publications, London, 1983