Glossary

 © Ian Hughes, 2001

This list is incomplete. In a spirit of co-operative learning, you are invited to send quotations from original sources that can improve these definitions. Please e-mail suggested improvement with full bibliographic details to

Action Inquiry

'Action Inquiry is an umbrella term for the deliberate use of any kind of a plan, act, describe, review cycle for inquiry into action in a field of practice. Reflective practice, diagnostic practice, action learning, action research and researched action are all kinds of action inquiry' (Tripp 2003). 'Action inquiry' is useful super-ordinate term, as a loose category that includes action learning, action research, and other related ways of acting, learning and reflecting.

 

Action Learning

 

Action learning is a strategy by which people learn with and from each other as they attempt to identify and then implement solutions to their problems or developmental issues. There are three essential features that must be present: 

 

1. There must be action in the real world rather than in some simulation.

2. The activity must be conducted in a way that involves participants who are working on the same or quite different projects in a learning set. 

3. The emphasis must be upon learning not just the taking of action. This is what distinguishes action learning from project team membership (see Revans 1982).

 

Action Research

There are several good definitions of action research.  Janet Masters (2000) describes  four types of action research: technical action research, practical action research and emancipatory action research, and most definitions fit one type of action research better than others.

 

Technical:  Action research is a scientific method for solving practical problems. The action researcher test an intervention using a  pre-specified theoretical framework. (Lewin 1947) Action research is one of many research approaches. It results in the accumulation of predictive knowledge and the refinement of existing theories. 

Practical: Action research is research into current and ongoing practice by practitioners for practitioners. Action and research are combined in a single process that involves repeated cycles of planning, acting, observing reflecting, re-planning and so on (Kemmis & McTaggart 1981).

 

Emancipatory: Action research is a participatory, democratic process concerned with developing practical knowing in pursuit of worthwhile human purposes grounded in a participatory worldview [see below]... It seeks to bring together action and reflection, theory and practice, in participation with others, in pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concern to people, and more generally, the flourishing of persons and their communities.  (Reason & Bradbury 2001: 1).

 

All definitions have some elements in common, including emphasis on human values and worthwhile pursuits, seeking practical solutions to pressing human concerns, and processes that are cyclical and  reflective.
 

Action Oriented Research

 

Is research to increase knowledge in order to improve professional performance or some other field of action.

 

Action Science

 

To be completed ( see Argyris & Schon 1974).

 

Cooperative Inquiry

Cooperative inquiry is a form of participative, person-centered inquiry which does research with people not on them or about them (Heron 1996: 19). Inquiry uses a range of methods, employing the full range of human sensibilities to investigate the human condition. Cooperative inquiry is both reflexive (the participants are the object of their own inquiry) and reflective (there is an interplay between reflection and making sense on the one hand and experience and action on the other). 

 

Cooperative Inquiry Group

 

The idea of cooperative inquiry is simple: fundamentally it is that people work together as co-researchers in exploring and changing their world (Reason 1988: 18). All the members of an inquiry group are subjects and co-investigators of an aspect of their human condition that they have in common. They work together on a single project.

 

Critical Evaluation

 

To be defined.

Critical Theory

 

To be defined.

 

Debate

 

Debate in communication in which different points of view are presented in a combative way, to see which one is more robust, or preferred in some way. Success in debate leads to victory (win - lose).

 

Dialogue

 

Dialogue is communication where people suspend their views and enter into deep listening, in the sense that the listener visits and explores mental models of the speaker (see Senge, 1990). Successful dialogue leads to understanding in which winning and losing is irrelevant. 

 

Discussion

 

Discussion is communication where different views are presented and defended in a search for a best view (see Senge,  1990). Successful discussion leads to common acceptance of a view (win-win).

 

Human Inquiry

Human inquiry is not a specific research technique or method, but inquiry guided by human values and an atmosphere of mutual respect. Visit  John heron's beautiful web site at http://www.human-inquiry.com for more information.
 

Inquiry

 

Inquiry is a broad term for the act or process of seeking information. It includes any systematic investigation or questioning, including finding out, active learning, and research. Inquiry may make use of naturalistic, scientific, philosophical, humanistic, spiritual or other ways of knowing.

 

Learning Set

 

A learning set is a group of people who volunteer to come together to support each other in working though the cycles of action learning. Each member has an action learning project. The learning set is distinguished from a project team.

 

Participant

 

Participant is used with two distinct referents. In the phrase ‘participant observation’ it refers to participation by a researcher in a social situation. In ‘participant action research’ it refers to participation by members of a social situation in a research project.

 

Participant Observation

 

The method of data collection and analysis ethnographers use. It involves a researcher joining, and becoming immersed in a social situation. This participation in everyday life provides an opportunity to observe, experience and describe actions, interactions and cultural patterns.

 

Participation

 

Participation means the degree to which various stakeholders in research or inquiry (including those who provide information and those who may be affected by the outcomes) are involved in decision making at different stages of the research or inquiry process. Participation can (in principle) be measured along two dimensions. Political participation concerns the relation between people in the inquiry and the decisions that directly or potentially affect their lives. Epistemic participation has to do with the relation between the knower and the known; the degree to which the subjects of inquiry participate in the construction of knowledge as knowing subjects (see : Heron 1996: 20-25).

 

Participatory Action Research

 

PAR is an emancipatory type of action research that involves the participation of those who may be affected by the outcomes of research in decision-making in all stages of the research process. It is often used for liberationist inquiry or development research with disadvantaged communities (see Fals-Border & Rahman 1991).
 

Participatory worldview

An emergent paradigm that has been described by various authors as systemic, holistic, relational, feminine, or experiential, but its defining characteristic is that it is participatory. "Our world does not consist of separate things but of relationships which we co-author. We participate in our world, so that the 'reality' we experience is a co-creation that involves the primal givenness of the cosmos and human feeling and construing" (Reason & Bradbury: 7). A participatory worldview placed people and communities as part of their world. 

 

Praxis

A term used by Freire (1972) and others to refer to a way of thinking, learning and acting in which the duality of theory and practice is dissolved. Praxis may be thought of as practice knowledge, theory grounded in action, or reflection in action, where the distinction between knowing and doing is dissolved.

 

Project Team

 

To be defined.

 

Quality Circle

 

A quality circle is a small group of people who perform the same job or tasks in a workplace. They meet voluntarily on a regular basis to discuss problems, seek solutions and cooperate with management on the implementation of solutions.

 

Research

 

Scientific research is a rigorous, systematic inquiry or investigation, and its purpose is to validate and/or refine existing knowledge and to generate new knowledge (Axford et al 1999: 3). Scientific research findings are made available for scrutiny in publicly available media. 

 

Research is used with a narrow meaning of empirical, scientific research, and also in a broader sense covering almost ant systematic inquiry. I prefer to use the term inquiry for the broad meaning and limit the term research to rigorous empirical observation that leads to published findings (Ian Hughes).

 

Research Team

 

To be defined.

 

Reflective

 

Looking at oneself, analogous to looking in a mirror. Observing one’s own actions or practices, including looking back at what one did in an earlier part of a process.

 

Reflective Inquiry

 

Reflective inquiry is a process of finding out that includes reflection as an essential part of the process of learning or finding out.

 

Reflexive

 

Self-referential. A reflexive inquiry includes itself as an object of inquiry (for example, action research into action research, or learning about learning). (For a reflexive discussion of reflexivity, (see Ashmore, 1989). 

 

Supported Inquiry Set

 

This is a set of people who come together to support each other in their individual learning or inquiry projects. Each member for the set works on their own individual inquiry, using set meetings as an opportunity for reflection and support.

References

Ashmore, M. (1989). The Reflexive Thesis: Wrighting the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Axford, R., V. Minichiello, I. Coulson & A. O’Brien ‘Research in health: an overview’ in V. Minichiello, G. Sullivan, K. Greenwood & R. Axford Handbook for Research Methods in Health Sciences’ Sydney: Addison-Wesley

Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmonsdworth: Penguin.  

Heron, J. (1996). Co-operative Inquiry: Research into the human condition. London: Sage.

Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics II: Channels of group life social planning and action research. Human Relations, 1, 143-154.

Masters, J. (2000). The History of Action Research. Action Research e-Reports, 3, Available from  http://www.fhs.usyd.edu.au/arow/arer/003.htm.

Reason, P. (1988) Human Inquiry in Action: Developments in New Paradigm Research London: Sage.

Senge P (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation, London: Century.

Tripp, D. (2003). Action Inquiry. Action Research e-Reports(17), Available from http://www.fhs.usyd.edu.au/arow//arer/017.htm .

Revans, R. (1982). The Origins and Growth of Action Learning. Bikley: Chartwewll-Bratt.