Experienced Action Research Articles

Mindsets of experienced action learning coaches and their impact on the practice of coaching action learning groups

ABSTRACT Team coaching has become more utilized in organizations as they realize the importance of developing highly effective teams. There has been some research done on the skills needed by those who coach teams. However, very little has been done on the mindset needed for effectively coaching teams, and no research on the mindset for coaching action learning teams. This qualitative research is the study of 19 highly experienced master action learning coaches who have been certified by the World Institute for Action Learning (WIAL) and have over 500 h of action learning coaching experiences over a 10-year-plus time period. The Master Action Learning Coaches (MALCs) were asked to (a) confirm if the 5 key mindsets identified by the researcher for coaching action learning teams were valid and (b) provide examples and questions that accrued from incorporating these mindsets in their coaching of action learning teams. The MALCs concurred on the 5 mindsets, and also provided a rich array of examples of how these mindsets affected their coaching. Two additional mindsets were offered as well. Implications for research and as well as the practice of action learning coaching are presented.

Developing skills of action learning facilitators

ABSTRACT This Account of Practice concerns a short training programme for action learning facilitators, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The programme is run on action learning principles and it involves participants working as an action learning set, taking turns to act as facilitators, set members, and issue holders, and reflecting on the processes they experience and the learning they are gaining. They are supported by two experienced action learning facilitators. The paper explains how these learning processes are structured and enabled, and also shares examples of the models that are used to help participants understand how best to learn through engaging in new experiences and to support the development of the fundamental facilitation skills of listening and asking questions.

Q-Learning: Applications and Convergence Rate Optimization

As an important algorithm of artificial intelligence technology, Q-learning algorithm plays a significant part in a number of fields, such as driverless technology, industrial automation, health care, intelligent search, game, etc. As a classical learning algorithm in reinforcement learning, with the help of an experienced action sequence in a Markov environment, an agent can learn to select the best course of action using the model-free learning technique known as Q-learning. This paper mainly discusses the addition of received signal strength (RSS) to the Q-learning algorithm to navigate unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), summarizes the main content and results of the neural Q-learning algorithm helping UAV avoid obstacles, adaptive and random exploration (ARE) method is proposed to address the issue in UAV planning a route tasks, summarizes the content and results of route designing of moving robot using obstacle characteristics as Q-learning states and actions, the Q-learning algorithm employs a novel exploration technique that combines ε-rapacious exploring with Boltzmann theory. to help mobile robot to plan its path, and analyzes the convergence speed of the algorithm for planning a route of stage Q-learning and the path planning algorithm of traditional Q-learning. When there are many states and actions, the operation efficiency of the Q-learning algorithm will be greatly reduced, so it is necessary to study in depth how to reduce the operation time of the algorithm for Q-learning and increase the convergence velocity of algorithm for Q-learning.

An Action Research Teacher’s Journey while Integrating Green Chemistry into the High School Chemistry Curriculum

In recent years, a growing number of publications have emerged discussing how to integrate education for sustainable development (ESD) and systems thinking into science education in general, and chemistry education in particular. However, when it comes to more specific fields of chemistry education, most studies focus almost exclusively on higher education. Examples of ESD units in secondary chemistry teaching are mostly limited to single topics. They often do not explicitly deal with the theoretical concepts behind green or sustainable chemistry. This paper reports on a long-term initiative to develop secondary chemistry education. This effort attempts to thoroughly integrate ESD based on the concept of green chemistry into high school programs. The project is based on teacher-centered action research, a cyclical development and research approach within authentic classroom practice. The process was supported by an academic chemistry education research group and a network of experienced action research teachers. The current paper describes the development of a teaching sequence for first-year upper secondary chemistry education. Elements of the development and selected findings from the accompanying feedback processes are reported.

Editorial: Special Issue: Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences 2022

Editorial: Special Issue: Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences 2022

Editorial message from Guest Editor

Editorial message from Guest Editor

Neurological and behavioral features of locomotor imagery in the blind

In people with normal sight, mental simulation (motor imagery) of an experienced action involves a multisensory (especially kinesthetic and visual) emulation process associated with the action. Here, we examined how long-term blindness influences sensory experience during motor imagery and its neuronal correlates by comparing data obtained from blind and sighted people. We scanned brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while 16 sighted and 14 blind male volunteers imagined either walking or jogging around a circle of 2 m radius. In the training before fMRI, they performed these actions with their eyes closed. During scanning, we explicitly instructed the blindfolded participants to generate kinesthetic motor imagery. After the experimental run, they rated the degree to which their motor imagery became kinesthetic or spatio-visual. The imagery of blind people was more kinesthetic as per instructions, while that of the sighted group became more spatio-visual. The imagery of both groups commonly activated bilateral frontoparietal cortices including supplementary motor areas (SMA). Despite the lack of group differences in degree of brain activation, we observed stronger functional connectivity between the SMA and cerebellum in the blind group compared to that in the sighted group. To conclude, long-term blindness likely changes sensory emulation during motor imagery to a more kinesthetic mode, which may be associated with stronger functional coupling in kinesthetic brain networks compared with that in sighted people. This study adds valuable knowledge on motor cognition and mental imagery processes in the blind.

Athletes versus video game players: A predictive contextual processing study

We investigated the effect of abstract and real life meaningful images from sports on predictive contextual processing in professional athletes and video gamers. EEG was recorded in three groups: professional basketball players (BP), professional athletes of individual sports (IA) and experienced action video game players (VG). Two recording sessions, each with a different set of visual stimuli was presented: either triangles facing left, up, right or down or four images of a basketball player throwing a ball. Recording blocks consisted of targets preceded by randomized sequences of standards and by sequences including a predictive sequence signaling the occurrence of a subsequent target event. The gradual increase of P3b amplitudes across the predictive sequence was greater in BP compared with VG, when stimuli consisted of real life images of a basketball player. For the basketball session, we observed increased local modularity and stronger functional connectivity within frontal attentional networks in BP and VG compared with IA, during the processing of the predictive sequence. Our findings suggest increased top-down attentional allocation, during the processing of predictive visual stimuli, in basketball players compared with video gamers and individual sports athletes.

Learning Temporal Intervals in Neural Dynamics

Storing and reproducing temporal intervals is an important component of perception, action generation, and learning. How temporal intervals can be represented in neuronal networks is thus an important research question both in study of biological organisms and artificial neuromorphic systems. Here, we introduce a neural-dynamic computing architecture for learning temporal durations of actions. The architecture uses a dynamic neural fields (DNFs) representation of the elapsed time and a memory trace dynamics to store the experienced action duration. Interconnected dynamical nodes signal beginning of an action, its successful accomplishment, or failure, and activate formation of the memory trace that corresponds to the action’s duration. The accumulated memory trace influences the competition between the dynamical nodes in such a way that the failure node gains a competitive advantage earlier if the stored duration is shorter. The model uses neurally based DNF dynamics and is a process model of how temporal durations may be stored in neural systems, both biological and artificial ones. The focus of this paper is on the mechanism to store and use duration in artificial neuronal systems. The model is validated in closed-loop experiments with a simulated robot.

Action video gaming and the brain: fMRI effects without behavioral effects in visual and verbal cognitive tasks.

IntroductionIn this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we compared task performance together with brain activation in a visuospatial task (VST) and a letter detection task (LDT) between longtime action video gamers (N = 14) and nongamers (N = 14) in order to investigate possible effects of gaming on cognitive and brain abilities.MethodsBased on previous research, we expected advantages in performance for experienced action video gamers accompanied by less activation (due to higher efficiency) as measured by fMRI in the frontoparietal attention network.ResultsContrary to these expectations, we did not find differences in overall task performance, nor in brain activation during the VST. We identified, however, a significantly different increase in the BOLD signal from a baseline task to the LDT in action video gamers compared with nongamers. This increased activation was evident in a number of frontoparietal regions including the left middle paracingulate cortex, the left superior frontal sulcus, the opercular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus, and the left and right posterior parietal cortex. Furthermore, we found increased activation in the triangular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus in gamers relative to nongamers when activation during the LDT was compared with activation during the VST.ConclusionsIn sum, the expected positive relation between action video game experience and cognitive performance could not be confirmed. Despite their comparable task performance, however, gamers and nongamers exhibited clear‐cut differences in brain activation patterns presumably reflecting differences in neural engagement, especially during verbal cognitive tasks.

Cycles within cycles: instilling structure into a mentoring self-study action research project

The creation of action research cycles is a fundamental part of action research projects. The aim of this article is to present the methodological challenge that is inherent in designing action research cycles. The article reports on my lived experience as I conceptualised and implemented a structured and systematic way of ordering and reporting the cycles within cycles in a mentoring self-study action research project. The paper discusses the journey that led to structure, and recognises the messiness that preluded this achievement within the action research process. I suggest that messiness is an inherent part of creating action research cycles. The path towards ordered structure is assisted through critical reflective practice and structured mentoring conversations. Of value to both emerging and more experienced action researchers, this article contributes to the practice of doing action research.

The influence of action video game playing on eye movement behaviour during visual search in abstract, in-game and natural scenes.

Action game playing has been associated with several improvements in visual attention tasks. However, it is not clear how such changes might influence the way we overtly select information from our visual world (i.e. eye movements). We examined whether action-video-game training changed eye movement behaviour in a series of visual search tasks including conjunctive search (relatively abstracted from natural behaviour), game-related search, and more naturalistic scene search. Forty nongamers were trained in either an action first-person shooter game or a card game (control) for 10hours. As a further control, we recorded eye movements of 20 experienced action gamers on the same tasks. The results did not show any change in duration of fixations or saccade amplitude either from before to after the training or between all nongamers (pretraining) and experienced action gamers. However, we observed a change in search strategy, reflected by a reduction in the vertical distribution of fixations for the game-related search task in the action-game-trained group. This might suggest learning the likely distribution of targets. In other words, game training only skilled participants to search game images for targets important to the game, with no indication of transfer to the more natural scene search. Taken together, these results suggest no modification in overt allocation of attention. Either the skills that can be trained with action gaming are not powerful enough to influence information selection through eye movements, or action-game-learned skills are not used when deciding where to move the eyes.

Reinforcement-Learning-Based Intelligent Maximum Power Point Tracking Control for Wind Energy Conversion Systems

This paper proposes an intelligent maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm for variable-speed wind energy conversion systems (WECSs) based on the reinforcement learning (RL) method. The model-free Q-learning algorithm is used by the controller of the WECS to learn a map from states to optimal control actions online by updating the action values according to the received rewards. The experienced action values are stored in a Q-table, based on which the maximum power points (MPPs) are obtained after a certain period of online learning. The learned MPPs are then used to generate an optimum speed–power curve for fast MPPT control of the WECS. Since RL enables the WECS to learn by directly interacting with the environment, knowledge of wind turbine parameters or wind speed information is not required. The proposed MPPT control algorithm is validated by simulation studies for a 1.5-MW doubly-fed induction generator-based WECS and experimental results for a 200-W permanent-magnet synchronous generator-based WECS emulator.

Goal disengagement in emerging adulthood

In emerging adulthood, being committed to and making progress on important personal goals constitutes a source of identity and well-being. Goal striving, however, does not always go without problems. Even though highly committed to a goal, individuals may experience recurring setbacks and, consequently, increasing doubts about the goal that might culminate in an action crisis, that is, an intra-psychic decisional conflict about whether to disengage from or to continue on their way. Action crises have been shown to lead to negative consequences on well-being and performance. Besides these negative consequences, however, an action crisis is hypothesized to have an adaptive side that is addressed in the present paper. Actively questioning the pursuit of a goal should allow for weighing up the focal goal against alternative and possibly more desirable goals. This open-minded re-evaluation, in the event of goal disengagement, is assumed to avoid the emergence of action crises in subsequently formed goals. As expected, in a longitudinal study over one and a half years with n = 207 freshman students, the degree of experienced action crisis prior to goal disengagement predicted the desirability and decisional certainty of the subsequently formed alternative goal. Theoretical implications of the results for research on self-regulation and identity formation in emerging adulthood are discussed.

Examining the Relationship Between Action Video Game Experience and Performance in a Distracted Driving Task

We conducted two experiments to assess the hypothesis that experienced action video game players will exhibit superior performance in a distracted driving task. In the first experiment, experienced gamers and controls drove in a driving simulator, with and without distraction. Experienced AVG players exhibited fewer lane deviations during driving as compared to non-gamers; however, video game experience was not associated with fewer lane deviations while distracted. These results showed evidence for the video game experience effect however, no evidence of improved cognitive ability was found. In the second experiment, we informed participants of the hypothesis to replicate the methods of studies that do not mask the purpose of the research. We found video game experience again was associated with fewer driving errors, but was still not associated with better driving performance while distracted; however, gamers recalled more details of the distracting conversation and reported lower workload while driving than non-gamers. We use these results to argue for caution in interpreting research with experienced gamers and increased replication with attention paid to recruitment methodology within this research domain. Finally, our results indicate that understanding the nature of AVG experience on task performance requires careful attention to motivational factors.

The precision of experienced action video-game players: line bisection reveals reduced leftward response bias.

Twenty-two experienced action video-game players (AVGPs) and 18 non-VGPs were tested on a pen-and-paper line bisection task that was untimed. Typically, right-handers bisect lines 2 % to the left of true centre, a bias thought to reflect the dominance of the right-hemisphere for visuospatial attention. Expertise may affect this bias, with expert musicians showing no bias in line bisection performance. Our results show that experienced-AVGPs also bisect lines with no bias with their right hand and a significantly reduced bias with their left hand compared to non-AVGPs. Bisections by experienced-AVGPs were also more precise than those of non-AVGPs. These findings show the cognitive proficiencies of experienced-AVGPs can generalize beyond computer based tasks, which resemble their training environment.

Being in two minds: The neural basis of experiencing action crises in personal long-term goals

Although the successful pursuit of long-term goals constitutes an essential prerequisite to personal development, health, and well-being, little research has been devoted to the understanding of its underlying neural processes. A critical phase in the pursuit of long-term goals is defined as an action crisis, conceptualized as the intra-psychic conflict between further goal pursuit and disengagement from the goal. In the present research, we applied an interdisciplinary (cognitive and neural) approach to the analysis of processes underlying the experience of an action crisis. In Study 1, a longitudinal field study, action crises in personal goals gave rise to an increased and unbiased (re)evaluation of the costs and benefits (i.e., rewards) of the goal. Study 2 was a magnetic resonance imaging study examining resting-state functional connectivity. The extent of experienced action crises was associated with enhanced fronto-accumbal connectivity signifying increased reward-related impact on prefrontal action control. Action crises, furthermore, mediated the relationship between a dispositional measure of effective goal pursuit (action orientation) and fronto-accumbal connectivity. The converging and complementary results from two methodologically different approaches advance the understanding of the neurobiology of personal long-term goals, especially with respect to the role of rewards in the context of goal-related conflicts.

The pre-hospital coping trajectory of patients with ischemic stroke: a qualitative study

Objective To clear the coping process of ischemic stroke patients and their families before the onset, explain its response rules and the influence factors, and provide scientific basis for the construction of comprehensive stroke pre-hospital intervention program. Methods A semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 cases. Data were analyzed using the grounded theory. Results Ischemic stroke patients and their families at the onset process experienced recognition, reaction, alert and action stage. Conclusion Health education should be combined with the whole process of ischemic stroke patients and their families before hospital, building a comprehensive intervention program. Key words: Ischemic stroke; Pre-hospital delay; Coping; Trajectory; Qualitative research

Book review: Action Research for Professional Development: Concise advice for new and experienced action researchers

Book review: Action Research for Professional Development: Concise advice for new and experienced action researchers

The pivotal and powerful role of the action learning coach

Action Learning is a group process design that was developed for the purpose of solving intractable human problems in organisations. Organisations large and small have successfully used action learning for a variety of purposes: to solve problems, to develop the organisation’s learning capacity, to build teams, to promote personal development and to develop leadership skills (Marquardt, 1999). This article describes a qualitative study that used interviews with experienced action learning coaches to answer the research question: How do action-learning coaches create a climate conducive to learning? The findings indicate that action-learning coaches use themselves as instruments to help unfreeze participants’ behaviour, introduce important changes and then refreeze behaviour at a higher and more effective level of functioning.