Abstract
The strength of the practice-oriented research strategy is to develop knowledge about the improvement of practices. Practice oriented research is research in which the research goal is coming from the professional practice and in which the knowledge created in the research contributes directly to this professional practice. The problem does not originate in theory, and the knowledge created in the research is not valued because it contributes to theory. It is not knowledge-for-its-own-sake, but the knowledge is valued because it contributes to the improvement of the practice which is considered (by ministers and lay people) to be a problem. Practice-orientated research is especially relevant to congregational studies because the congregational ministry is conducted within a specific context that is challenging it to be relevant. The major steps or questions in developing a research design of practice oriented research is: what is the problem you are going to study? Why is it interesting to get this new knowledge and for whom is it interesting? How are you going to reach your research objective? How much do you want to know? And what are the conceptual instruments which you are going to use in your research? In following these steps the specific research orientation of practice oriented research is introduced.
Highlights
The strength of the practice-oriented research strategy is to develop knowledge about the improvement of practices
In the article ‘Utility of practical theology’, we coined this type of knowledge as knowledge about the design of interventions
Why? Action research has already been criticized from the beginning of the development of this research strategy
Summary
The strength of the practice-oriented research strategy is to develop knowledge about the improvement of practices. As a result of this knowledge development goal, there is a strong commitment for thorough methodological rules and procedures For this introduction, it suffices to state that practice-oriented or design research as a research strategy is familiar to, but not the same as action research. We present the major steps in developing a research design of practice-oriented research. The major research decisions are made in the conceptual design, so that any researcher can create a technical research design based on this conceptual design In following these steps, the reader will be introduced in the specific research orientation of practice-oriented research. By following the stepwise process of developing a research design, we believe that we make it easier for the reader to understand the specific character of practice-oriented research. We use, as illustration, two researches in which the first author (Hermans) is involved.
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