Collaborative action research

A topic in research methodology

Action research (AR) is often a collaborative activity. This usually means groups of colleagues, working together towards professionally shared goals:

“Often, action research is a collaborative activity among colleagues searching for solutions to everyday, real problems experienced in schools, or looking for ways to improve instruction and increase student achievement.” (Ferrance, 2000: 0)

Ferrance, E. (2000). Action Research Themes in Education Retrieved from http://www.alliance.brown.edu/pubs/themes_ed/act_research.pdf

Frost argued that in collaborative enquiry

“we need to explore the dynamic of the collaboration [and] the degree to which aims are shared” (Frost, 1995: 314)

Frost, D. (1995). Integrating systematic enquiry into everyday professional practice: towards some principles of procedure. British Educational Research Journal, 21(3), 307-321.

This (the degree to which aims are shared with research participants) is sometimes referred to as ‘catalytic validity’.

Sometimes research collaborations include both professionals from the research context and external researchers. However, this is only action research when it meets the usual purposes of AR in terms of the motivation for change deriving form the professionals working in the research setting. Collaborations that meet these requirements are sometimes labelled as participatory action research.

In practice, reports of research may make it difficult to tease out the input of academic researchers and practitioners, as when Capobianco (2007: 6) characterises a study considered as collaborative AR:

“In this study, collaborative action research is characterized by the following elements:
(a) Research problems are mutually defined by the teachers and the university researcher;
(b) the university researcher and teachers collaborate in seeking solutions to classroom-based problems;
(c) the teachers develop research competencies associated with data collection, analysis, and interpretation, and the university researcher reeducates herself or himself in research methodologies;
(d) the university researcher and teachers share and shape their ongoing, personal, and critical reflections as an integral part of the research process; and
(e) results from action research contribute to a collective knowledge about teaching and learning and are shared with others to improve science education.”

Capobianco, B. M. (2007). Science teachers' attempts at integrating feminist pedagogy through collaborative action research. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 44(1), 1-32. doi: 10.1002/tea.20120