Action Researchers Research Articles

Action researchers as “orchestrators” of co-innovation: a theoretical and methodological framework

BackgroundWith the increasing complexity of health care services, more comprehensive and integrated services need to be designed. Action researchers are encouraged to facilitate multiactor participation and user-centered approaches to initiate service development. However, “orchestrating” co-innovation, in which actors have diverse attitudes, agendas, positions of power, and horizons of understanding, is challenging, and a framework that supports action researchers in co-innovation studies lack. The purpose of this article was to explore how action researchers can facilitate multiactor engagement and handle possible challenges and stimulate creativity among diverse stakeholders.MethodsWe have studied and discussed two Scandinavian cases of rehabilitation innovation (for cancer patients and persons with acquired brain injury) where two research teams with action research approaches have acted in an orchestrating role to create co-innovation.ResultsWe identified four themes that are essential for action researchers to facilitate collaborative and creative co-innovation processes: (1) relational power reflexibility, (2) resource integration, (3) joint understanding, and (4) the facilitation of creativity. These mutually dependent themes constitute a theoretical and methodological framework for of co-innovation.ConclusionsThis paper offers a contribution that supports action researchers in orchestrating diverse actors and their contributions in co-innovation processes.

Earth for all: Five policy turnarounds for a sustainable world

The second in the new series of reviews for Action Research Journal is inspired by, and aims to contribute to, this journal’s focus on transformations towards sustainability. How can we, as action researchers, connect our emancipatory, grassroots work with the big global transformations needed to bring forth a just, harmonious and thriving world? When so much needs to transform, where do we start? In 2022, the Club of Rome offered a possible response in a new report called Earth for All, also published as a book and supporting website. Framed as ‘a survival guide for humanity’, Earth for All calls for ‘five extraordinary policy turnarounds’: ending poverty; addressing gross inequality; empowering women; making our food system healthy for people and ecosystems; and transitioning to clean energy. It is ‘an aspirational, stubbornly optimistic guide to the future’ (p. 26). It argues that action on these five big issues could give us the momentum we need to transform the economy in support of sustainability. Action researchers can help to give this agenda momentum by bringing it into our conversations with citizens and facilitating spaces for dialogue and agonism.

A practical guide to EEG hyperscanning in joint action research: from motivation to implementation.

Developments in cognitive neuroscience have led to the emergence of hyperscanning, the simultaneous measurement of brain activity from multiple people. Hyperscanning is useful for investigating social cognition, including joint action, because of its ability to capture neural processes that occur within and between people as they coordinate actions toward a shared goal. Here, we provide a practical guide for researchers considering using hyperscanning to study joint action and seeking to avoid frequently raised concerns from hyperscanning skeptics. We focus specifically on Electroencephalography (EEG) hyperscanning, which is widely available and optimally suited for capturing fine-grained temporal dynamics of action coordination. Our guidelines cover questions that are likely to arise when planning a hyperscanning project, ranging from whether hyperscanning is appropriate for answering one's research questions to considerations for study design, dependent variable selection, data analysis and visualization. By following clear guidelines that facilitate careful consideration of the theoretical implications of research design choices and other methodological decisions, joint action researchers can mitigate interpretability issues and maximize the benefits of hyperscanning paradigms.

Positioning action research as a critical means of understanding coaching: considerations from the field

ABSTRACT This paper shines light upon the methodological value of action research as a critical means of studying coaching practice. Described as an opportunity for bridging the gap between practice and research, the application of action research to sports coaching aims to explicitly and intentionally advance practice. However, far from the enduring depictions of action research as a linear cyclical process, contemporary action research has begun to appreciate its ambiguity; much like the problematic nature of sports coaching itself. Despite this ambiguity, we contend that action research can better harness the messy realities and complexities that coaches encounter within their everyday practice. Through the provision of critical reflections the overarching aim of the paper was not only to make the case for action research as a means of cultivating critical scholarship in sports coaching but to go further, problematising some complex realities of life as an action researcher.

Reflecting on how action research enables theorising in operations management: a provocation to interiority

This reflection on action research in operations management explores some undeveloped themes: the place of meaning in the social science of OM and how quality may be assessed, how knowledge/theory is developed and how action research in OM creates impact. The case is made that action researchers’ interiority as attentiveness to data of consciousness and to data of sense as they enact the cycles of action and reflection through the meta learning cycle is undeveloped in OM research and is central to cogenerating practical knowledge and grounding the impact of their work.

The transformation of sustainable lifestyle practices in ecoclubs

The lifestyle and consumption habits of individuals are crucial in the question of ecological sustainability. Current consumption patterns need to be changed, requiring societies to shift cultural norms and create new consumer habits which are within planetary boundaries. In the practices of teaching sustainable consumption in higher education participatory and action-oriented research and teaching methods can facilitate the transition towards a more sustainable lifestyle for students. In this paper, we present a method operating at the boundary of education and research, the so-called ecoclubs, based on the characteristics of cooperative inquiry and transformative learning. Ecoclubs enable systematic and democratic knowledge creation to achieve concrete social change. In this paper, we explore how the method can promote transformation in the knowledge, attitude and everyday practices of the participating students regarding a sustainable lifestyle. To analyse the transformative potential of ecoclubs we used qualitative content analysis on 38 semi-structured interviews and reflection diaries of co-researchers of ecoclubs. The results show that according to the members of the ecoclubs, the most important characteristics of this non-formal education are the community, autonomy of decision-making, knowledge sharing and experience-based format. From the students' point of view, these characteristics can contribute to their higher level of engagement with sustainability and additional changes in their lifestyle.

A Feminist Activist Research to mainstream awareness of gender-related violence in universities through photovoice

ABSTRACT Sexual and gender-related violences (SeGReV) is more normalised in the university community than we might expect, even though there have been important changes in HEI politics and policies in this sense. Therefore, sensitisation is essential. In this paper, we present multidisciplinary international research that, implicating around 40 university teachers and 300 students, aimed to approach this necessity through the design and evaluation of an innovative pedagogical protocol. Our text serves two purposes: to reflect on the effectiveness of photovoice to increase the student’s awareness of SeGReV; and to introduce and exemplify the specificity of Feminist Activist Research (FAR), a methodological approach that rises from the intersection of Action Research, Activist Research and Feminist epistemology. We will show how the applied approach of our project, the production of training materials, and other disseminative actions, proved to be a valuable practice for increasing the SeGReV awareness of university students. In this sense, becomes clear that photovoice can be an important ally, as it is an extremely useful technique both on a pedagogical level and as a research instrument. Last but not least, we exemplify the adequacy and peculiarity of FAR as a research approach.

Monitoring the growth of social and emotional competence to guide practice decisions

To facilitate social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools, assessments must be suitable for progress monitoring, which includes being sensitive to short-term changes in students’ social and emotional competence (SEC) and providing useful and timely information to educators. This paper discusses evidence criteria to help determine whether an instrument is suitable for progress monitoring of student SEC. To illustrate how action-oriented research can help further guide the development of evidence standards and inform SEL practice in schools, the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment-mini (DESSA-mini) is highlighted through two empirical case studies. Data for both case studies are derived from a district-wide implementation of an evidence-based SEL program, Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies (PATHS), that used the DESSA-mini to assess the SEC of 7681 students in Grades K-5 at three time points over a school year. Multilevel models estimated the growth in student SEC under different implementation conditions and by different student characteristics (i.e., grade, gender, SEC at baseline). Findings suggest significant growth in SEC with some meaningful variation. Results are interpreted to illustrate how routine-practice studies can be used to infer how much growth is typical, among which students, and under what conditions, to facilitate real-time practice decisions.Impact Statement: To facilitate social and emotional learning in schools, educators need to monitor progress in students’ acquisition of social and emotional competence. Two case studies are presented to illustrate how studies can be used to infer how much growth is typical, among which students, and under what conditions, to facilitate real-time decisions by educators to adjust instruction.

Equity in prenatal healthcare services globally: an umbrella review

BackgroundTimely, appropriate, and equitable access to quality healthcare during pregnancy is proven to contribute to better health outcomes of birthing individuals and infants following birth. Equity is conceptualized as the absence of differences in healthcare access and quality among population groups. Healthcare policies are guides for front-line practices, and despite merits of contemporary policies striving to foster equitable healthcare, inequities persist. The purpose of this umbrella review is to identify prenatal healthcare practices, summarize how equities/inequities are reported in relation to patient experiences or health outcomes when accessing or using services, and collate equity reporting characteristics.MethodsFor this umbrella review, six electronic databases were searched (Medline, EMBASE, APA PsychInfo, CINAHL, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, and Cochrane Library). Included studies were extracted for publication and study characteristics, equity reporting, primary outcomes (prenatal care influenced by equity/inequity) and secondary outcomes (infant health influenced by equity/inequity during pregnancy). Data was analyzed deductively using the PROGRESS-Plus equity framework and by summative content analysis for equity reporting characteristics. The included articles were assessed for quality using the Risk of Bias Assessment Tool for Systematic Reviews.ResultsThe search identified 8065 articles and 236 underwent full-text screening. Of the 236, 68 systematic reviews were included with first authors representing 20 different countries. The population focus of included studies ranged across prenatal only (n = 14), perinatal (n = 25), maternal (n = 2), maternal and child (n = 19), and a general population (n = 8). Barriers to equity in prenatal care included travel and financial burden, culturally insensitive practices that deterred care engagement and continuity, and discriminatory behaviour that reduced care access and satisfaction. Facilitators to achieve equity included innovations such as community health workers, home visitation programs, conditional cash transfer programs, virtual care, and cross-cultural training, to enhance patient experiences and increase their access to, and use of health services. There was overlap across PROGRESS-Plus factors.ConclusionsThis umbrella review collated inequities present in prenatal healthcare services, globally. Further, this synthesis contributes to future solution and action-oriented research and practice by assembling evidence-informed opportunities, innovations, and approaches that may foster equitable prenatal health services to all members of diverse communities.

Middle-range theorising supporting and supported by action research: focusing on practitioner preparedness

Increased demand for actionable knowledge in operations- and supply chain management has fuelled the interest in collaborative, action-oriented research design as well as modes of theorising that generate adaptable and actionable frameworks. Whilst action research (AR) design as well as middle-range theories (MRT) offer guiding principles herein, they are researcher centric in nature. It is taken for granted that practitioners that enter such an endeavour have a certain level of knowledge or experience prior to the initial stages of formalising the research problem. Practitioners in non-academic, operations management-intensive industries or craftsmanship-based industries, such as construction or carpeting (often in the SME range) are often neither prepared nor equipped with the principles necessary to convey their managerial challenges into collaborative research design. This risk limiting or even hindering altogether such participation. This paper elaborates on combining the logic of AR and MRT. By conceptualising a preparatory phase for initiating practitioner engagement, complementing the conventional AR cycle, a four-step approach is presented: (1) Identifying a joint interest; (2) Teaching – Awakening interest in the topic through MRT frameworks; (3) Accepting buy-in to the AR cycle and determining the problem; and (4) Proposing MRT frameworks for analysis and entering the traditional AR cycle.

Ethical challenges in contemporary social research (editorial)

The importance of ethics in social research has increased in recent years, something reflected, among other things, in the progressive codification and institutionalization of research ethics and the growing literature on this topic. We argue that despite increasing ethical regulation and ethical reflection in social research, ethical challenges also arise, i.e., difficult situations connected with selecting ethically appropriate behavior. The aim of this special issue is to invite social researchers to reflect upon and discuss ethical challenges in contemporary social research. The contributions in this issue concern vulnerability (one critically analyzing it, and another adapting the vulnerability concept to conducting research with people after a laryngectomy), the researcher and participant relationship, research ethics in multilingual world, and the ethicality of data representation where language plays a particular role in creating a form of activist research.

Implementing action research to improve L2 classroom communication patterns: a grounded theory analysis approach

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is two-fold: it begins by exploring communication patterns in Iranian second language (L2) classrooms, then describes the implementation of action research in two different cycles to enable teachers to identify possible problems in their L2 classrooms and find ways to improve them. Through qualitative analysis of interviews, audio-records, observations, field notes and reflective journals, three main themes were identified, namely, communication patterns in L2 classroom, problems in these patterns, and action research and communication patterns. Two theoretical models for improving communication patterns in L2 classrooms were also established based on the key themes and patterns extracted from the data. The implications of the findings are likely to be of interest to teaching practitioners, teacher trainers, syllabus designers, materials developers, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, as well as action researchers. However, the findings of the present study should be interpreted within certain limitations, as set out in the article.

Urban Theory by and for Whom? Engaged Research, Authorship and Transformation Beyond the Academy

This paper engages with Loretta Lees‘ suggestion that this journal include research collaborators beyond the academy as commentators in its urban dialogues. In it, I highlight the contortions and contradictions involved in extracting individual scholarly outputs from collaborative research, drawing on my experiences as a doctoral researcher in the UK. These challenges are intimately entangled with key questions posed by Loretta about who counts as an urban scholar or theorist, and what urban theor(ies) are – or might be – for. The difficulties involved in publishing engaged and collaborative research in academic formats contribute to its marginalision within critical urban studies, robbing the discipline of the particular understandings and possibilities it can open up. Making space for engaged dialogue beyond the academy within this journal can help to open up the production and circulation of urban knowledge to a greater diversity of perspectives and interests, creating a more hospitable environment for engaged, collaborative and activist research within the academy. Such a shift invites authors to bring their multiple subjectivities and identities into urban dialogues – as modelled by Loretta – challenging conventions designed to separate and elevate academic knowledge from the diverse others it depends upon. Extending urban dialogue to non-academic collaborators can therefore help to connect critical urban research with the communities and interests in whose name it claims to operate.

Industrial Process Management Model to Improve Productivity and Reduce Waste

One of the challenges facing operations management is the design, choice, and implementation of action plans adapted to the magnitude of the deviations from the variables of an industrial process. Making conscious and quick decisions is crucial to achieving improvements in productivity. This will be achieved if the organization’s internal and external communication model is strategically designed, considering specific cultural factors and the symmetry or asymmetry required in the communication model. However, how do we organize ourselves and through what channels do we communicate within a production process to generate Big Data that combines data from technologies and the perception, comprehension, and projection of experienced humans? Our hypothesis suggests that the implementation of our model generates a continuous improvement system that could provide significant benefits to the company by connecting management with the place where the work happens (Gemba), streamlining multiple processes, thereby fostering sustainability. The developed model, “Group Situational Awareness Model”, was implemented in an operations management team, following the guidelines of an action researcher methodology. This resulted in the design of an operations management model and a detailed methodology for its implementation, achieving significant improvements in the metrics of the current process, making it a success story.

A quiver full of arrows: An examination of tactics employed by CEO activists in Ghana

CEO activism is rising in popularity around the world due to growing social injustices, the inability of governments to address key concerns of their constituents (e.g., global warming, health, and safety), and abuses of power. Many people are simply fed up with the current state of affairs and want to see people in power held accountable. As a result, CEOs are taking public stances on timely issues. They are doing so not only because they want to win favor with their employees and customers but also because they feel an obligation—and pressure—to speak up and pursue greater good on behalf of others since they have platforms and visibility that are not shared by those whose lack similar status or vehicles to for their voices to be heard. This is a qualitative study that involved in-depth interviews with 24 CEO activists. Data analysis followed the hermeneutic phenomenological approach. The findings advance the CEO activism literature by focusing on the tactical repertoire of activist CEOs within the non-Western context of Ghana. Activist CEOs in Ghana use a broader portfolio of tactics than previously thought, offer a typology of CEO activism tactics, and help to internationalize CEO activism research. This study also expands upon nascent research streams such as responsible management, Africapitalism, Afrocentric philosophies of sustainability, and public relations for social responsibility.

Organized abandonment under racial capitalism: Measuring accountable actors of structural racism for public health research and action

Understanding the shifting nature of structural racism historically and across institutions is vital for effective action towards racial health equity. While public health research on structural racism is rapidly increasing, most studies are missing the interdependence of policies and institutional practices over time that shape power imbalances and lead to entrenched health inequities. Here, we discuss Ruth Wilson Gilmore's concept of organized abandonment — the intentional disinvestment in communities which, in turn, creates opportunities for extraction, revenue generation, and carceral enforcement to fill the cracks of a compromised social infrastructure — to encourage action-oriented public health research that is grounded in history and an understanding of racial capitalism. We present a case example using publicly-available data on redlining, gentrification and policing in Seattle, Washington. We mapped the intersections of redlining and gentrification and estimated their neighborhood-level association with police activity using Bayesian spatial Poisson regression models. We found that histories of racist housing policies like redlining and processes of gentrification are interdependent and shape contemporary neighborhood racial and economic segregation and police activity. Compared to structurally advantaged neighborhoods, police stops were higher in neighborhoods that were 1) historically disinvested (i.e. redlined) and remain low-income and structurally disadvantaged and 2) formerly industrial and business districts that were not redlined and are now gentrified. Notably, we found that policing practices were significantly more intensive in neighborhoods that were both high redlined and gentrified. Together, these findings illustrate how the place-based racialized processes of dispossession, displacement and policing are deeply intertwined to maintain racial capitalism. Our findings also highlight the importance of examining multiple racialized processes simultaneously to fill critical gaps in the existing literature that are necessary for sustainable solutions to address structural racism.

Ethics as a minor form of politics and theory in activist research

To do minor activist research is to create and make use of critical neologistic vocabularies hopefully balancing the ascetic impoverishment of direction and syntax in majority vocabularies when conceptualized as universals. To do minor activist research is therefore to unsettle received discourses, narratives, and material social practices of power to develop means of resistance in new and different registers. To do minor activist research is to train the imagination for a collaboratively accomplished re/presentation of data through creating points of encounters, thus engendering an affirmative perspectivist’s ethos. Re/presenting data as a space in which one’s own thinking is challenged, hence providing a perspective of the storying practices across participants and across different disciplinary, ideological, or personal boundaries within the researcher’s and the researched specific positioning. This requires getting everyone to participate in the “analysis” of data, and then getting everyone “inside” the text: situating data-inquiries in immanence. It therefore demands a liberation from old scripts, and challenges how everyone is transformed into text, with perspectivism being simultaneously means and objective for avoiding the reproduction of both old scripts and ethics. Our goal is to enhance (self)reflexivity regarding knowledge production and research methodologies, to influence actual research practices through fostering a more inclusive, open, and collaborative approach to research that transcends traditional boundaries and embraces the fluid and hybrid nature of knowledge production. Ultimately, turning the concept of ethics through minoring into a thinking hub and pedagogy for change. The first and theoretical section is on how to ethically represent data in a new-empiricist and post qualitative environment. We call it data-philosophy. Our ontological approach brings its own concepts, which reflect the perspectives from which we argue. In the three next sections, we follow up by looking more closely into these ideas in re/presenting empirical qualitative research to invite hybrid and fluid configurations. Here, activist research refers to bringing actors into our thinking about the data, to accentuate the collaborative, open to thinking differently through staying close to the data. We then bring it all together in a section on the rebirth of language, to open for what we refer to as a storying personifying, thereby storying data together as a process of becoming, of mutuality and affect as a source of agency. We argue that this creates a theory of science and ethics in data analysis, and in re/presenting data, which are closely entangled.

Learning from feminist participatory action research: A framework for responsive and generative research practices with young people

Feminist participatory action researchers (FPAR) recognize transformative praxis as a political, relational, deeply felt and embodied experience that centers issues of power, participation, and relationality. This paper offers an in-depth exploration of FPAR praxis from a study conducted with young people who were learning to be activists in a youth-led organization in British Columbia. This work highlights the generative potential of creativity and art for embodied, affective, intellectual research practices. Specifically, I describe and analyze three research practices designed to generate meaning making: 1) critical reflexivity and interviewing as relational practice, 2) a loving creative embodied analytical practice, and 3) reflective and dialogical analytical practice. Findings provide insights for designing transformative research praxis that can catalyze a greater sense of personal and collective power. Implications of creative participatory methods for documenting and deepening the diverse meanings of experiences of activism, resistance, and community are addressed. I argue for demonstrate the value of FPAR praxis for sustaining social justice work through practices designed to generate spaces for people who are becoming activists to share about their experiences, grow their relationships, and make meaning together.

“Ignoring” to “Autonomous” Participation: Narratives of a Participatory Action Researcher

This paper examines different layers of participation while conducting Participatory Action Research (PAR). In the journey of three years of fieldwork with teachers, many realizations were made about becoming co-researchers and engaging in a collaborative knowledge-building process for developing an engaged pedagogical approach. The paper had two purposes: a) exploring the different layers of participation in PAR, and b) documenting the lead researcher’s continuous professional learning in understanding PAR. The lead researcher proposed “ignoring” to “autonomous” participation as levels. The lead researcher also changed from overly influencing roles on PAR to accepting co-researchers' voices and respecting their efforts for sustainable change.

Building Cross-sectoral Collaborations to Address Perinatal Health Inequities: Insights From the Dutch Healthy Pregnancy 4 All-3 Program.

Addressing perinatal health inequities is the joint responsibility of professionals working for local governments, the medical, social, and public health sector. Cross-sectoral collaboration between these professionals is challenging. For such collaborations to succeed, a transition, ie, a fundamental shift in the dominant structure, culture, and practices at the systems level, is necessary. We investigated facilitators and barriers for cross-sectoral collaborations, when addressing perinatal health inequities in the Netherlands. Additionally, we studied how cross-sectoral collaborations can be facilitated by action research. We used interview and questionnaire data of the Healthy Pregnancy 4 All-3 (HP4All-3) program, which resulted from action research in six Dutch municipalities. All interviews were coded using open codes related to facilitators and barriers for cross-sectoral collaboration and categorized into three subgroups: structural, cultural, or practical. The answers to the questionnaire were analyzed and summarized quantitatively. We conducted 53 interviews with a total of 81 professionals. The most important ingredients for cross-sectoral collaborations mentioned by the interviewees were: (1) structural: having a solid network with a clear overview of professionals working in the different sectors, (2) cultural: having a joint vision/goal, and (3) practical: short lines of communication and timely sharing of information. A total of 85 professionals filled in (parts of) the questionnaire. Two-thirds to over 80 percent replied that the HP4All-3 program had an added value in building cross-sectoral collaborations. Our research shows that cross-sectoral collaborations in the context of perinatal health are hampered by structural, cultural, and practical barriers. Analyzing facilitators and barriers at these three levels helps to identify bottlenecks in cross-sectoral collaboration. Action researchers can be of great advantage in facilitating collaboration, as they can offer an open setting for reflection and instigate a sense of urgency for building collaborations.