ACTION R

ESEARCH

META-A

NALYSIS

REPORT

FROM F

IRST

100 ART

ICLE

S_NOV 2

011

ARE WE L IV ING UP TO OUR POTENTIAL IN THE WORLD?

B Y E . A L A N A J A M E S , E D . D .

ACTION + RESEARCH

Assumption – that our results must contribute 1) to ourselves & 2) to our fields

THE META-ANALYSIS CONTINUUMS FOR THE FIRST TWO CYCLES: 1-52 AND 53-102 ARTICLES

1. How are we portraying ourselves and our work in our world(s)? Purpose, methodology, analysis, actions

2. Kemmis admonitions (2006) Technique/Life Enhancing Efficiency/Critical View Improving policy /Creating Flexible Democracy Professional / Community vision Lone researchers/ Community of AR

3. Practitioner research/highly reflective in local maybe even personal contexts (1), practitioner or reflective work but looks outwardly to the wider world (2) pragmatic work with visible external outcomes/best practices (3)

BASICS1. Purpose: to investigate 50 years of AR and rank results

2. Scope as of Nov 2011 – 101 articles in two cycles of research

Miscellaneous - 5 Public Admin - 5 Org D - 25 Health 21 Business - 3 Ed - 42

3. Methodology: Meta-analysis/ranking against standards of AR - Kemmis, Schon, & James

4. Limitations: Subjectivity

5. Contributions: AR as a mature methodology can now consider our contribution to the world

Most of today’s presentation are these data so you have the evidence for your own reflection

If time permits I will share what this has meant so far to me and my considerations of my practice

DISCOVERY1. Assurance of action in early writings

2. Bridget Somekh’s comment at CARN

3. Two sets of general purposes in the literature – to develop our practice and or to illuminate and move towards solving the problems we face in our fields

4. Reflective vs Reflexive practitioner – Cunliffe Develop ways and means to question my own behavior. Open to my own fallibility What deeper insights are available? Ask how the deeper part of my nature was/and can be more

apparent? Does my behavior model the norms I want to support?

MEASURABLE ACTION1. Read 300 AR articles in the sub categories of industry,

published in AR and Non AR journals/dissertations, and across methodological difference . Cycles of 50 each

2. Subjectively measure them by placing them on a 3 point scale that mirrored the continuums set up by Kemmis.

3. Reflect on:• An audience response from those who are not interested in

AR but in our outcomes• AR’s potential influence in the world as perceived by

someone just reading our literature.• Process vs Outcome

4. Reporting May, June 2011 on cycle 1 (50) and Nov 2011 on cycle 2 (100)

FIRST

FINDIN

G:

Out of the 21 considered highly personal and reflective, 8 were in AR journals or 38% as compared to an average of 28% overall were in AR journals

In the reverse, out of the 11 that were 2.5 or 3 and therefore outcome oriented on the pragmatic scale only 1 (9%) was published in an AR journal

It appears that AR journals are more likely to publish #1

AR journ

als

may

publish m

ore

“tai

l

chas

ers”

than

journ

als

spec

ializ

ing in

a fi

elds

of s

tudy

SECOND CYC

LE

• 1, 2, and 3 all published in both AR and non AR Journals

• Both publish more of 1 and 2 (together = 75% of our literature)

• Roughly 50/50 AR and non AR journals

Dism

isse

d that

con

cern

NEW C

ONCERNS

1. Are we living up to the potential we were touted to have in the world?

2. If you don’t know AR and you read this diverse literature do you get a confused message?

QUESTIONS/FINDINGS.2

Is there a correlation between best practices and clarity of action?

Yes – an incredibly strong correlation exists all the way through from 0-3

46% first cycle and 41% at 100 articles agree exactly or with a variance of .5 or less

For both cycles only 5 (10% and 5% respectively) varied more than 1 point

Hypothesis – that if we design clear actions we are more likely to achieve outcomes that are meaningful to our fields. The question becomes what do we consider actions?

ARE W

E EMANCIPA

TORY

OR

NOT?Concerns we address• 32% Improving

technique• 33% in the

middle• 35% life

enhancing

REGARDING THE KEMMIS CONTINUUMS…Cycle 1 LoneResearcher/Community/ARCommunity and

Professionalism/Community Vision were close Technique/LifeEnhancing correlates with Improving Efficiency/Critical

View

Cycle 2 –expands my understanding

Life enhancing, goes with a critical view/creating a flexible democracy, and developing a community vision

Technique goes with efficiency, policy, and professional development

1. If we start with life enhancing aims or professional enhancing ones the rest of the continuum falls closely in line

2. I question his rationale that one is necessarily more advanced than another.

CONCLUSIONS: 1ST CYCLE – YIN YANG1. Call for action to AR journals-take these data and the

meta-analysis seriously –• Editorial boards if we advance AR more by publishing clear

actions and measurable results that result in best practices? Or perhaps special issues

• Collaboration over 2011-2012 to discuss it?

2. Call for action to those doing AR to pay attention to these results, place their study consciously on these continuum s and move toward increased evidence of AR's effect on Democracy, Community vision, and building an AR community across silos

3. AR researchers should emancipatory goals –

• Friere, and Kemmis, other writers are widely quoted, but are they widely emulated?

NEXT ROUNDS…

1.Correlations between: 1) aim/outcome? 2) emancipatory vs professional /measurable outcomes?

2.Regarding action – is just doing the research an action? What are our criterion for what is action?

3.Standard of both data and analysis?

4.What exemplars can we point our students to? For example - I find the differentiation between personal practice development and actionable research lacking - for instance see Jewett in EAR 2010 - clearly personal practice - many/most are not clear]-ok/

QUESTIONS FOR FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS

1. How do the various industries compare?

2. What can be said about the reality that emerges when things are seen in relation – 3rd space or non binary/holistic considerations?

3. What about dissertations/other journals not yet represented

4. How will more articles reviewed in public administration /policy change the perspective of that set of literature?

5. How do we help AR mature? Stop needing to take 1/3 – ½ of article to explain Analysis should be clear Establish criterion for credibility, etc so we can just refer to it Harnass the power of research Who benefits from our writing/in what types of publications or media

CALL F

OR COLL

ABORATIO

N

www.ar4everything.comEmail sign up

being passed arouned

PERSONAL LESSONS: CUNLIFFE’S REFLEXIVITY (AUG 2004)

Develop ways and means to question my own behavior, question my emotional intelligence, open to my own fallibility

Accidently did the same article twice – many ranked the same but a couple 1 point off of each other

Lesson in subjectivity and fallability

Ask how the deeper part of my nature was/and can be more apparent?

Self questioning about who am I to call an article a tail chaser/ Yet a deeper part of my nature is to be firm in my judgements

and call for equally firm responses OK with an unpopular ideas and the tension surfaces

improvement

DOUBLE LOOP LEARNING: CUNLIFFE’S REFLEXIVITY

What deeper insights are available? Morin (1977) as discussed in Bataille, M., & Clanet, C. (1981).

“In order to explain a complex phenomenon, it is not enough to associate opposing notions in a concurrent and complementary way, linking them in the abstract by a “master word”:dialectic. It is essential to define the association of opposites within a system of loops such as theory – practice, action – thought, subject – object, etc). Reality emerges in the loop of relations between the edges.” –

Higher ground past the judgment of who did what on what continuum and into a vision of its long term importance

REFLEXION

Ask how the deeper part of my nature was/and can be more apparent?

Since I consider the deepest part of my nature loving and supportive this question reads how can my work on the meta-analysis be used for loving support of the people doing AR and to make AR better in the world? Requires not a muck-raking attitude but one of questioning support.

Does my behavior model the norms I want to create: When I rank my own AR I see that it is strong in action and outcome,

emergent in reflexion and humanity. I also see that I am young in the understanding of paradox and looking

forward to the ah ha moments that point to the reality that emerges in the loop of relations between the edges.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Free e-book on action research for registering at:

http://www.ar4everything.com

Email: alana@ealanajames.com

Sage: http://www.sagepub.com/books/Book235125

REFERENCESArgyris, C. (2002). Double-loop learning, teaching and research. Academy of

Management Learning and Education 1(2), 206.

Argyris, C., & Schön, D. A. (1978). Organizational learning. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.

Cunliffe, A. L. (2004). On becoming a critically reflexive practitioner. Journal of Management Education, 28(4), 407-426.

James, E. A. (2006). A study of PAR for educators developing new practise in areas of educational disadvantage. Educational Action Research, 14(4).

James, E. A., Milenkiewicz, M., & Bucknam, A. (2008). Participatory action research: Data driven decision making for educational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

James, E. A., Slater, T., & Bucknam, A. (2012). Action research for business, non-profits and public administration : A tool for complex times. Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage Publishing.

Kemmis, S. (2006). Participatory action research and the public sphere. Educational Action Research, 14(4), 459-476.

Morin (1977) as discussed in Bataille, M., & Clanet, C. (1981). Elements contributing to a theory and a methodology of action research in education. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 4 (1981), 271-291.