Action Research for PhD thesis - some guides

Action research in a PhD thesis
(Source: http://www.ee.nus.edu.sg/stfpage/eleamk/phd/phdth3.html, accessed on 08/24/2007. However access to the article not possible now.)

Action research as a methodology for management PhD research is relatively rare (Perry 1991). Moreover, although action research has the potential to overcome many deficiencies in social science research, its results are generally viewed as not generalisable (Heller 1986). This
appendix reviews a number of issues which candidates using action research might consider when writing their PhD thesis. The appendix attempts to ensure that action research is no longer a marginal backwater depending sometimes on very carefully selected examiners, but becomes a part of the river of PhD research. Action research is outlined in Kemmis and McTaggart (1988a), and Zuber-Skerritt (1991).

Firstly, it is wise to consider the thesis as something distinctly separated from the action research project, that is, the candidate will have two projects - the action research project and the thesis project which uses data from the action research project (Perry & Zuber-Skerritt 1992). The philosophy and processes of action research are broader and more complex than those implicit in most PhDs. In particular, the action research project is relatively unfocused, emphasises practice and has outcomes of reflections which include propositional, practical and experiential (group and personal) knowledge. In contrast to action research, a PhD thesis project usually emphasises an individual candidate's additions to propositional knowledge published in the literature of a discipline. In brief, in the action research project, action research may be an ideology, but in a PhD thesis it is merely a methodology. Writing a PhD thesis about an action research project without acknowledging differences between the thesis and the action research project is difficult.

Provided these differences are acknowledged, the structure of a five chapter PhD thesis can be adapted to PhD research using the action research methodology. For a start, the 'research problem' in chapter 1 of the thesis could be different to the 'thematic concern' (Kemmis & McTaggart 1988b, p. 9) of the action research project; the research problem necessarily refers to practices of a workgroup and is written in terms of the literature of a discipline, but the thematic concern is less restricted. For example, a research problem could be 'How can the senior management team at an open-cut coal mine integrate marketing, operations and financial subsystems in the planning of inventories of mined coal?', and the thematic concern of the senior management group at Pacific Coal could be 'How can our inventory management procedures be improved?' The action research project will probably require multidisciplinary solutions, but it is advised that the thesis should concentrate on only one or two disciplines, to facilitate its examination.

Chapter 2 of the thesis written about an action research project would refer to some unresearched areas of propositional knowledge which are the foci of the data collected from the action research project. However, to be true to the spirit of action research, these propositions should not have been finalised before the action research project began - unlike PhD research using some quantitative methodologies, when the hypotheses should be crystallised before the data collection project begins. Furthermore, chapter 2 could outline the boundaries of practical and experiential knowledge which existed at the start of the action research project. Alternatively, the discussion of practical and experiential knowledge might be restricted to an appendix, if likely examiners are not expected to be familiar with action research methodology.

Chapter 3 could be used to describe the action research project - not to allow replication of the experiment, but to demonstrate the researcher's competence in the action research methodology. The chapter could have sections or refer to appendices which contain the following details of the action research project (Kemmis & McTaggart 1988b):

• the names of group members;
• the group's thematic concern;
• details of the multiple sources of data, for example, dates of meetings and their attendees and matters discussed, reports and letters;
• the distinctions between the stages of the project through its one or more cycles of plan-act-observe-reflect;
• the group's published report of the project - which is written before the thesis is completed and for a different audience from the thesis, for example, this could be a short narrative or a management report;
• the evidence that the group has reflected on processes as well as content, which might be recorded in the group's published report noted above but does not have to be;
• and the nature of the action research, that is, technical, practical or emancipatory (Carr & Kemmis 1986).

As noted above, an appendix might also reflect on the practical and experiential knowledge gained in the action research project, but it would be more usual to include that reflection in the body of the thesis.

Chapter 4 could be used to categorise the data collected in the action research project (not all of which needs to be included in the appendices referred to in chapter 3). This chapter organises the data from the action research project into patterns. Chapter 4 begins the candidate's own
preliminary reflection on the action research project and could be divided into sections according to the propositions of propositional knowledge, and into sections for practical and experiential (personal) knowledge if they are to be included in chapters of the thesis rather than in appendices. So the chapter should be written with the ideas to be developed in chapter 5, in the candidate's mind.

Finally, chapter 5 makes conclusions about the full PhD research, linking the data of chapter 4 to the boundaries of the body or bodies of knowledge outlined in chapter 2. A section in chapter 5 entitled `Reflections on methodology' should be included in a PhD thesis which refers to an
action research project . Then sections `Conclusions about the research problem', `Policy implications' and `Further research' will conclude the thesis. In PhDs using other methodologies, a chapter 5 section of reflections on the methodology is not required, because those reflections are incorporated into the `Limitations' and `Further research' sections.
In conclusion, an action research methodology can be used in PhD research, but action researchers should be concerned that their thesis may be messy, inconclusive and be unrelated to propositional knowledge published in the literature of a discipline. Use of the adjusted five chapter format for a PhD thesis which has been outlined in this appendix may allay that concern.


References
Carr, W. & Kemmis, S. 1986, Becoming Critical: Education, Knowledge and Action Research, Falmer, London.
Heller, F. (ed) 1986, The Use and Abuse of Social Science, Sage, London.
Kemmis, S. & McTaggart, R. (ed), 1988a, The Action Research Reader, (third edition), Deakin University, Geelong.
Kemmis, S. & McTaggart, R. (ed), 1988b, The Action Research Planner, (third edition), Deakin University, Geelong.
Perry, C. 1991, 'Action research in management education and research', Symposium on Action research at the Annual National Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education, Gold Coast, November 1991.
Perry, C. & Zuber-Skerritt, O., 1992, `Action research in graduate management research programs', Higher Education, vol. 23, pp. 195-208.
Zuber-Skerritt, O. (ed) 1991, Action Research for Change and
Development, Gower, Aldershot.

Acknowledgment: Discussions with Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt, Bruce Frank and Helen Samujh helped clarify some issues in this appendix. However, the views expressed are the writer's.

(Writers unknown)