Abstract
PurposeThis contribution investigates methodological questions concerning Change Laboratory interventions. It contemplates the research questions: To what extent the Change Laboratory can be situated within the panorama of qualitative inquiry? If so, to what extent can the methods and strategies of inquiry help improve a Change Laboratory intervention?Design/methodology/approachTo answer the first question, this paper makes an overview on key terms of qualitative research; subsequently, it presents the characterising features of the Change Laboratory. Then, it takes a historical perspective and compares the Change Laboratory firstly against action research, and secondly with design experiments. To answer the second section, it examines a case study of Change Laboratory with teachers that the first author facilitated. Next, it displays how trustworthiness was ensured through a thick description and member checks.FindingsThe paper argues that the Change Laboratory is a strategy of inquiry; it aligns with the characteristics of qualitative research, and it follows the agenda of a participative paradigm. Furthermore, the methods and strategies of inquiry such as thick descriptions and member checks, not only can improve rigour and validity of the intervention but also strengthen the outcomes of the Change Laboratory itself.Originality/valueThe Change Laboratory is well defined as a formative method, but not fully understood as an investigative method. Although scholars discussed methodological issues of Cultural Historical Activity Theory in diverse articles, the relationship between the Change Laboratory and qualitative inquiry has remained unclear.
Highlights
In the educational sciences there is an increasing interest on Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Sannino and Sutter, 2011)
Using the methods of inquiry to ensure in a Change Laboratory intervention After having located the Change Laboratory within the panorama of qualitative inquiry, this paper shows how the methods and strategies of inquiry can complement an intervention to ensure validity and will use a Change Laboratory intervention conducted in 2016 as a case study that is a contemporary, real-life event bound in space and time (Yin, 2009)
Once the methodological relevance of formative interventions was conceptually qualified, a question was raised as per what type of research methodology is being called for when undertaking a Change Laboratory: it generally leads to educational improvements, it is not always clear to what extent interventive processes can be treated as epistemically sound, and, as such, transferable and qualitatively valid investigative approaches bearing on educational phenomena
Summary
In the educational sciences there is an increasing interest on Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Sannino and Sutter, 2011). CHAT scholars developed formative interventions such as the Fifth Dimension, the Clinic of Activity, as well as the Change Laboratory (Sannino, 2011) to bolster change in work and educational settings. The Change Laboratory, for example, is a “method for developing work practices by the practitioners. It facilitates both intensive, deep transformations and continuous incremental. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
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