Article 7: The Cyclical Process in Action Research

October 25-31: The lead blogger is Molly, who will post her blog by Sunday midnight. Follow-up blogs are due Wednesday midnight.

5 Responses to "Article 7: The Cyclical Process in Action Research"

Molly Hulihan says:

October 28, 2018 at 8:56 pm

This article The Cyclical Process of Action Research was a bit of a difficult read for me. The article discusses the action research process by looking at the work of Deleuze and the aspects of Deleuzian philosophy. Personally I thought that at times the article was dense and had trouble comprehending certain aspects of the article.

I think that Lewin’s definition of action research is a great way to look at action research. He said that action research is “a way of generating knowledge about a social system while, at the same time, attempting to change it” (Drummond & Themessl-Huber, 2007,432). The authors of this article discuss the process to action research such as: coming up with an idea, think about that idea, decide if you have the means to carry out the idea, review previous literature, plan the project, and carry it out. It can often times be difficult to apply the cyclical cycle.

Deleuze developed the idea of the interactive dimensions of reality: the actual and the virtual. This showed me that no two people think about something the same way and that people do not have the exact same thought two times. The article also discussed the four aspects of the Deleuzian philosophy, which are: majoritarian and minoritorian, the relation between problems and solutions, an apprenticeship to signs, and a reciprocal dialectic of continuous becoming.

Majoritarian is a more fixed identity where as minoritorian is open-ended and more creative. The authors suggest that regular research is majoritarian as it usually follows strict processes and methods. Action research’s cyclical process can be perceived more as minoritorian because there is “no fixed standard or norm” (Drummond & Themessl-Huber, 2007,438). The cyclical process does not adhere to specific steps and can be adjusted as necessary and as the process is happening.

The second aspect, relation between problems and solutions, shows that the process starts with an idea. All ideas are virtual, but as the action research process plays out the idea/problem will become actual and the cyclical process will kick in and researchers will look for a solution.

Apprenticeship to signs is the third Deleuzian aspect. Here the signs are referring to “elements of the unfolding of events, both virtual and actual, with which the participants engage as part of their learning in the cyclical process of an action research project” (Drummond & Themessl-Huber, 2007, 441). The apprenticeship refers to the learning that occurs throughout action research.

The fourth aspect is reciprocal dialectic of continuous becoming. This aspect refers to being directly engaged with the research project. In action research the project continues to progress and as they do things become connected to one another. Figure one helped me to see and understand how all of the Deleuzian aspects connect with the cyclical process of action research. Although it was a bit confusing I think that the visual definitely helped me to see how the processes are all connected.

I think that it was a good idea for the authors to use a hypothetical scenario so they did not step on any toes by using a previous study. I do wish that the scenario was more applicable to educational action research, because I think that might have given me a better picture of how the cycle can be applied. Overall, the article was an interesting read and definitely got me thinking about action research and how the cyclical process can be applied.
Timothy Corallo says:

October 29, 2018 at 10:30 pm

Molly,
Thank you for writing a great, concise summary of this article. I also found this article extremely dense and, at times, beyond my comprehension. Your synopsis really helped me to put the information from this article in a clearer perspective. While I had trouble grasping some of the Deulizian philosophical concepts, this article did help to gain a better understanding of the creative and cyclical nature of action research. Deulizian philosophy seems to tell us that there are a multitude of possibilities for any given moment or event. Given this dynamic conceptualization of reality, action researchers must always be engaged in creative interpretations, explanations, or solutions to the problems they encounter/research rather than being confined by the majoritarian views of traditional research or knowledge. These creative responses must then be evaluated based on their outcomes and the entire process reflected upon in order to build knowledge and guide future practice. These reflections should then guide the ideas which begin the next cycle of the action research process.

In addition to gaining a better perspective of the creativity and reflection involved in action research, I had one other major takeaway from reading this article: the importance of producing writing that is accessible to the audience. While I did learn something from this article, I think a lot of the important information the authors intended to convey was lost on me. In the future, I will work to make my writing more concise in order to better explain the concepts I am presenting to my audience.
Casey Vanderpool says:

October 31, 2018 at 7:21 pm

Molly,
Thank you for your excellent blog post. As both you and Tim stated, this article was extremely dense and hard to follow. Your post really helped me clarify much of the article. I think the definition proposed by these authors is similar to other definitions of action research in that it is cyclical and geared towards stimulating social change. The idea of the cyclical process is a good contract between action research and traditional research. This process helps stimulate social change while at the same time making it less respected by “true” research. I also really connected with the idea of apprenticeship as a way to view this type of researcher. I think this allows the researcher to maintain the perspective of a learner as well as a teacher. With that viewpoint, the researcher can maintain a spirit of learning and be more willing to accept change and the perspective of the community participants and any changes they think are important to make.

Tim, your major takeaway both made me chuckle and gave me pause. It is so true that while academic writing should hold itself to a higher standard, if it is too dense to understand, then it pretty much defeats the purpose of the article in the first place.
Justin Bartlett says:

October 31, 2018 at 11:12 pm

Molly, I would agree with the others that you did a great job breaking down a tough read. This article really helped me to see the different dimensions that Action Research has as well as how it relates to what we are doing with our projects.

The idea of interactive dimensions of reality was very interesting to me in the sense that our thoughts and feelings truly only happen once. I felt as though this idea from the article was important for us to understand because it helps us to see beyond our own thoughts. Because we don’t all think the same way or have the exact same thoughts, when doing out research we have to go beyond our own mind. It’s about the bigger picture.

Tim and Casey also brought up the point that based on the Deleuze theory, we as researchers must always be flexible and fluid in our actions. Restricting ourselves to one idea or one way of solving and interpreting a problem does not help us to influence social change.

Again, great job on interpreting this article!
Samantha Muse says:

December 9, 2018 at 9:56 pm

Molly, thank you for pulling out key information and re-organizing so that it was easier to understand. The cyclical design was something I remember we talked about in research 1 but some of the other aspects from this article were new to me. For example, I hadn’t read about the ideas of “actual and virtual” and “minotorian vs majotorian” before this.

The idea of actual and virtual were interesting to me because action research flows from virtual to reality as you move further into the process. The planning process is more virutal because it is not something you are doing but something you are thinking and researching.

I love the idea of “cyclical” research. To me, it means that research is never ending. As an educator I think this is important to remember because we need to pay close attention to everything were doing, collecting data (like grades) from everything were doing and adapting what were doing to best help all of our students. This cyclical design is something I want to remember because there should never be a point where I am like “That’s it, it’s perfect, I’m done” because there is no perfect practice in teaching.

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