Reading Jean McNiff’s Action Research Booklet
Action research is an open ended form of problem solving research where adaptability and continuous monitoring for any improvements is encouraged. McNiff (n.d.) notes that ‘you should aim to show not only the actions of your research, but also the learning involved’ and how ‘your learning is informed by your reflections on your actions’ indicating that a reflective approach is necessary for this project.
Action reflection necessary for action research is a cycle of the following:
- Identify an area of practice to be investigated
- Imagine a solution
- Implement the solution
- Evaluate the solution
- Change practice in light of the evaluation (and begin at 1 again).
In doing your research you are aiming to make a claim that you have improved practice, so you do need to produce validated evidence to support that claim. This could be done through a discussion with a ‘critical friend’ who can critique your work and help you see it in a different light. ‘Critique is essential for helping us to evaluate the quality of the research.’
In summary, in my Self-initiated Project, I should:
- identify an issue/problem with aim to improve it
- continually evaluate the process (both the research and methods used) and reflect on this, adjusting where necessary
- reflect on the process and own learning throughout
- have a ‘critical friend’ or ‘critical colleague’ examine my research and provide feedback throughout the process.
‘Am I not answering your questions properly?’ Clarification, adequacy and responsiveness in semi-structured telephone and face-to-face interviews.
(Irvine, Drew and Sainsbury, 2013)
As a task, I read the above titled paper in preparation for the session. I didn’t find the reading to be exciting, however, it reassured me that if I were to conduct any telephone interviews instead of doing it face-to-face, it would not be detrimental to my research process. I considered how the paper was lacking in the mid-point interview method between the face-to-face and telephone interviews: the online interview (e.g. via Microsoft Teams or Zoom). Although, it did reflect on that as something it was omitting from the research altogether. Having conducted these previously during the pandemic, I found these to have encouraged more openness as the interviewee was in their own, chosen surroundings, most likely to be more comfortable with sharing their views.
Traditional criticisms of conducting telephone interviews for qualitative interviewing suggests that it is not well suited to the task. Disadvantages include restrictions on developing a rapport and a ‘natural’ encounter with interviewee. However, these criticisms on the impact of the resulting data is not proven therefore underdeveloped. Instead, there are potential advantages of telephone interviews such as savings in time and travel cost, as well as greater anonymity around sensitive topics. This paper by Irvine et al. (2013) reflects on the interactional elements of a telephone and face-to-face interview and how telephone interviews effect the ‘rapport and the ‘naturalness’ of the interaction; comprehension and the transmission or interpretation of meaning; monitoring of responses and emotions; levels of interest and attention; and the duration of interviews’ (p.89).
The following table summarises the paper’s literature review of the positives/shortfalls of both telephone and face-to-face interviews, and it is clear that the shortfalls of telephone interviews have been considered by numerous papers.
| Telephone Interviews + | Telephone Interviews – | Face-to-face Interviews + | Face-to-face Interviews – |
| In many cultures today, people are well-used to communicating by telephone both informally and in more formal settings. (p.90) | Absence of a visual encounter – loss of nonverbal data (body language and facial expressions), loss of contextual data (interviewee’s physical characteristics and interview setting), loss or distortion of verbal (spoken) data. (p.89) | F2F interaction compels more small talk, politeness routines, joking, nonverbal communication, and asides in which people can more fully express their humanity. (p.90) | Cost of time and travel to location as well as any refreshments purchased. |
| The context of the interview may be better delivered somewhat anonymously so verbal only may be beneficial. | Interviewers need very effective communication skills to make the interaction ‘natural’ while […] helping respondents stay on topic. (p.89) | Visual / nonverbal cues to pick up on for researchers to encourage interviewees to elaborate, leading to a more thoughtful response. (p.90) | Can be lengthy in comparison to a telephone interview (p.91) |
| Tends to be shorter than F2F communication as requires more concentration, therefore can be more to-the-point. | Lack of visual and nonverbal cues for the researcher to pick up on. Harder to show your interest and attention verbally without interrupting. (p.90) | Visual / nonverbal cues to show the interviewee as a researcher to show continued interest and attention. (p.91) | |
| Difficult to assess silences or tone of voice (these can be misinterpreted). (p.91) | |||
| More demanding and fatiguing than F2F interview so tends to be shorter. Needs more acute concentration by interviewer. (p.91) |
In summary, the research paper found that the completion of interviewee talk by the researcher was more common in face-to-face interviews; interviewee requests for clarification were slightly more common in telephone interviews; vocalised acknowledgements given by the researcher was less frequent in telephone interviews; interviewee checks on adequacy of their response to the researcher’s questions were more common in telephone in interviews; and telephone interviews tended to be shorter than face-to-face interviews.
Notes from Workshop 1
I found the workshop to be helpful in remembering to consider the different learning outcomes of the unit. We were also reminded to consider action research as a philosophy geared towards making the world a better place, and that our research should be a small enquiry that is relevant to the job that you do where you can make a decent change. This gave me some reassurance that the idea I had of focusing on the Insights student journey for the SiP would definitely be considered action research.
Learning Outcome 1: KNOWLEDGE
What is your rationale for the choice of your topic? Not just your interest, who else says it’s valid? What fields does your topic sit across? How can you bring your knowledge into it?
Learning Outcome 2: PROCESS
About the context of your enquiry, how are you going to research? Break down traditional research methods. Markers are not interested in rigorous devotion to research, rather, in becoming informed by the research processes. It’s good to expand on what went wrong.
Learning Outcome 3: ENQUIRY
Evidence the rigour of your enquiry. Evidence that you have been reading and enquiring into your topic. Read into the methods that you are using. E.g. if you’re doing field notes – read into that and become more knowledgeable about that. Remember to reference, and reflect on what you learnt about the methods/methodology. Why does this research matter? Good to note their discipline when referencing (i.e. note their positionality. Philosopher/researcher/etc). Mapping your field of enquiry.
Learning Outcome 4: COMMUNICATION
You will conclude the unit with a presentation to your peers. Ensure you communicate your learning throughout.
Action research is not quite the same thing as activist research (although some action research is activist in nature). Some PgCert candidates have previously opted to undertake ‘activist’ research of the ‘advocacy’ type for their projects. This is often valuable work that gives individuals a voice and tells an important story, but as it generally highlights an issue rather than addressing it, some may argue that it’s not action research. Having said that, advocacy can be interpreted as a form of action! It’s useful to recognise that research terminology and norms are as fluid as the research itself; this will help you to resist feeling overwhelmed by everything you think you don’t know. This WordPress site is a fantastic resource that includes a glossary of different types of action research (including activist modes like advocacy), and related readings. It’s a good starting point to help you to articulate your project in a way that will be meaningful to other researchers: https://activistresearchmethods.wordpress.com/about/
L Jordan by email to all PgCert students.
The important thing is that you use the SiP to find out something you didn’t know before, and make a contribution—however modest—to the field of practitioner research in educational settings. So, whatever your research aims to achieve, take the opportunity to experiment with interesting and creative research methods.
Some further notes from the session:
- If you change your research enquiry, make sure you note why you changed and what decisions you made to get where you are.
- One of the skills in research is reflecting on what is doable, and creating an enquiry that the students would be interested in participating in.
- Does our personal enquiry have to be generalisable? – no. You are not being asked to make claims of legitimacy or to be peer reviewed for a journal article. Do not need to prove the validity of your results.
- Method is the tool of collecting data (an individual way of eliciting / gathering / collecting research data), where as methodology (for action research) is cyclical, you gather evidence and data in different ways (e.g. focus groups, field notes, etc. It’s a set of methods that together constitute an approach to research). The field notes would be a method, but the action research is methodology. Action research is an approach.
- Different approaches to knowledge making.
References
McNiff, J. (n.d.) Action Research Booklet. Available at: https://www.jeanmcniff.com/ar-booklet.asp (Accessed: 27 September 2021).
Irvine, A., Drew, P. and Sainsbury, R. (2013) ‘”Am I not answering your questions properly?” Clarification, adequacy and responsiveness in semi-structured telephone and face-to-face interviews’, Qualitative Research, 13(1), pp. 87–106. doi:10.1177/1468794112439086. (Accessed: 27 September 2021).