Action Research

by Ernest T. Stringer, Alfredo Ortiz Aragón

Overview

Action Research is an invaluable guide to both novice and experienced researchers from a diversity of disciplines, backgrounds, and levels of study for understanding how action research works in real-life contexts. The Fifth Edition builds on the experiences of the authors by acknowledging the dramatic changes taking place in our everyday lives, including developments of social and digital media that have become central to modern life. Author Ernest T. Stringer and new co-author Alfredo Ortiz Aragón aim to provide a meaningful methodology arising from their extensive field experience for both students and practitioners.  Presenting research that produces practical, effective, and sustainable outcomes to real-world problems, Action Research helps students see the value of their research in a broader context, beyond academia, to effecting change on a larger scale.

Additional resources can be found at the authors’ website  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781544355931
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	08/26/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	408
Sales rank:	427,660
File size:	13 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Ernest T. Stringer

After an early career as a primary teacher and school principal, Ernie was a lecturer in education at Curtin University of Technology, in Western Australia. From the mid-1980s, based at Curtin’s Centre for Aboriginal Studies, he worked collaboratively with Aboriginal staff and community people to develop a wide variety of innovative and highly successful education and community development programs and services. His work with government departments, community-based agencies, business corporations, and local governments assisted them to work more effectively with Aboriginal people. In recent years, as visiting professor at the University of New Mexico and Texas A&M University and as visiting scholar at Cornell University, he taught research methods courses and/or engaged in projects with African American and Hispanic community and neighborhood groups. As a UNICEF consultant, he recently engaged in a major project to increase parent participation in schools in East Timor. He is author of Action Research (Sage, 2007), Action Research in Education (Pearson, 2008), Action Research in Health (with Bill Genat; Pearson, 2004), and Action Research in Human Services (with Rosalie Dwyer; Pearson, 2005). Until recently, he was a member of the editorial board of the Action Research Journal and past president of the Action Learning, Action Research Association (ALARA).

Alfredo Ortiz Aragón

Alfredo is an action researcher who designs and implements change processes to address pressing social and environmental concerns in support of equitable development. In the field he seeks to help organizations and movements that support processes of social change and environmental stewardship in order to be more effective and reflective in their work. In all of his work he uses methods that appeal to diverse learning styles but that also challenge dominant ways of seeing, knowing, and acting in the world that uphold unjust social rules and structures. He encourages all of his collaborators to reflectively “put themselves into the picture” and consciously participate in the changes they seek for others. He is willing to lead but also be vulnerable and open about what he and we know, and how we all might use our leadership and vulnerability to engage in honest conversations that help us support people in need in ways that are culturally relevant and potentially transformative. He is an associate professor at the Dreeben School of Education Graduate Studies Program at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, where he teaches qualitative and action research methods and design. His PhD is from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, in the United Kingdom.

Table of Contents

SECTION I: An Introduction to Action Research
Chapter 1: Understanding Action Research
Chapter 2: Theoretical Foundations of Action Research
SECTION II: Action Research Practices and Processes
Chapter 3: Setting the Stage: Initiating an Action Research Process
Chapter 4: Look: Generating and Gathering Data
Chapter 5: Think: Reflecting and Analyzing
Chapter 6: Act: Implementing Practical Solutions
SECTION III: From Local to Global—Action Research for Social Change
Chapter 7: Reporting: Informing Stakeholders and Other Audiences
Chapter 8: Developmental Approaches to Social and Organizational Change
Chapter 9: Action Research and Digital Media
Appendix: Case Examples of Formal Reports
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

Stringer (education and community development, Curtin U. of Technology, Western Australia) describes interactive research tools by which professionals and non-professionals who provide services to people in community, organizational, or institutional contexts can deal effectively with many of the problems that confront them during their work. Based on his decade in academia since the first edition, he makes his insights from community work more easily digestible by scholars. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

…I very much like the book and its approach/philosophy/guiding principles…

Pamela L. Clark

…[W]ell done and certainly the most readable and authoritative [book] on the topic of action research I have seen…As an educator, I found much useful insight in the text and I would certainly recommend it to doctoral students doing research that would benefit from the broader view…

Louis H. Berry

It is an excellent resource for teaching Action Research to both graduate and undergraduate students.

Hollyce Giles