Practical Inquiry as Action Research and Beyond

Action research is now a well established research approach within information systems. Action research is defined as having dual purposes; contributing to changes in a local practice and to the scientific body of knowledge. It is often seen as way to ensure practical relevance in the research. However, in the definitions of action research nothing is explicitly said about the need to develop general knowledge of practical relevance and usefulness. As an alternative and a complement to action research, another research approach is elaborated: practical inquiry. This approach relies on pragmatic philosophy. Practical inquiry shares many similarities with action research, but there are some important differences. The purpose of a practical inquiry is, through empirical study on practical matters in local practices, to contribute to general practical knowledge. This practical knowledge will be part of the scientific body of knowledge and it aims to be useful for practical affairs. In many situations, practical inquiry will also include intervention, of varying degrees, into the studied local practices. The general practical knowledge is often formulated as practical theories. Purposes and constituents of practical theories are described. An illustration of a combined practical inquiry and action research study is described in the paper

BIOCULTURAL PLACES FOR TRANSFORMATIVE COMMUNITIES AND PROTECTED AREAS: CRITICAL PLACE INQUIRY AND YOUTH PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH IN COLOMBIA

This dissertation affirms the importance of explicitly and politically attending to place in research. Taking up such a critical inquiry of place, I facilitate a participatory and action-oriented approach through Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) and methods of photovoice and participatory mapping. This approach engaged six youth living in Isla Grande, Colombia, to co-investigate the significance of biocultural place relationships to their lives. This focus supports their community’s efforts toward sustainable development and self-determination of ancestral territories alongside a National Park and Marine Protected Area. Emphasizing place in research conceptualization, orientation, approach, design, and practice, we achieved the following objectives: (1) to explore youths’ relationships with place through critical place inquiry by supporting their role as co-researchers using a YPAR approach; (2) to encourage youth-led inquiry with place related to their experiences and understandings of well-being and sustainability in ancestral territory places; and (3) to assess and mobilize youth perspectives on place significance, based on biocultural interdependence. Through analysis, this dissertation offers practical insight on the relevance of a biocultural framework to discern interdependent and evolving place relationships. Resultant findings illustrate youths’ biocultural relations using a UNESCO-sCBD framework in terms of how language; material culture; knowledge, technology, innovations, and improvisations; social and economic relations; beliefs; and values are interconnected with biodiversity. These relations are discussed in connection with youths’ understandings of well-being and sustainability. Local implications of this research include applying a biocultural framework to support formal education and livelihood diversification, and encouraging youth participation in community efforts toward sustainable development. Broad implications for protected areas include how a biocultural framework can inform governance decisions based on the knowledge, values, and interests of local communities to protect both nature and culture. Implications for future research include: going "beyond the research" to capture the daily lives of youth through mobile approaches; building on participatory approaches to facilitate intergenerational learning and exchange; expanding on economic relations to support biocultural heritage innovations; and supporting collaborative processes among diverse place actors through the development of biocultural indicator

Research ethics and participatory research in an interdisciplinary technology-enhanced learning project

This account identifies some of the tensions that became apparent in a large interdisciplinary technology-enhanced learning project as its members attempted to maintain their commitment to responsive, participatory research and development in naturalistic research settings while also ‘enacting’ these commitments in formal research review processes. It discusses how these review processes were accompanied by a commitment to continuing discussion and elaboration across an extended research team and to a view of ethical practice as an aspect of phronesis or ‘practical wisdom’ which demands understanding of specific situations and reference to prior experience. In this respect the interdisciplinary nature of the project allows the diverse experience of the project team to be brought into play, with ethical issues a joint point of focus for continuing interdisciplinary discours

From pattern appraisal to unitary appreciative inquiry - a critical reflection on the development of the unitary appreciative inquiry method

Summative Assessment of the Core Module „Theoretical Developments in the Science and Art of Nursing“. The purpose of this article is to place Cowling’s unitary appreciative inquiry method in the context of nursing science and the development of unique nursing research methods. Unitary appreciative inquiry is one of a few nursing research and practice methodologies based on Martha Rogers’ theory, the Science of Unitary Human Beings. This article is reflecting the development of the unitary appreciative inquiry method in analyzing articles and literature published by Cowling and other authors that are related to Cowling’s ideas and approaches. A brief overview of the basic concepts, assumptions and principles of Rogers’ theory is given as well as some insights on other major influences on Cowling’s work. The changes that have been made over the past seventeen years from pattern appraisal to pattern appreciation and unitary appreciative inquiry in its current use are mapped and its contribution to current nursing knowledge and practice is critically reviewed. The author of this article strongly beliefs that nursing needs to develop its own research methods based on nursing theories for further development and improvement of nursing science as an independent and accepted discipline in human health care. It is from that perspective that Cowling’s work is reviewed

The Oxford Handbook of Dewey [Intro available free from OUP]

The Oxford Handbook of Dewey, ed. Steven Fesmire Volume Abstract: John Dewey was the foremost figure and public intellectual in early to mid-twentieth century American philosophy. He is the most academically cited Anglophone philosopher of the past century, and he is among the most cited Americans of any century. In this comprehensive volume spanning thirty-five chapters, leading scholars help researchers access particular aspects of Dewey’s thought, navigate the enormous and rapidly developing literature, and participate in current scholarship in light of prospects in key topical areas. Beginning with a framing essay by Philip Kitcher calling for a transformation of philosophical research, contributors interpret, appraise, and critique Dewey’s philosophy under the following headings: Metaphysics; Epistemology, Science, Language, and Mind; Ethics, Law, and the Starting Point; Social and Political Philosophy, Race, and Feminist Philosophy; Philosophy of Education; Aesthetics; Instrumental Logic, Philosophy of Technology, and the Unfinished Project of Modernity; Dewey in Cross-Cultural Dialogue; The American Philosophical Tradition, the Social Sciences, and Religion; and Public Philosophy and Practical Ethics. [The downloadable sample is Fesmire's Introduction to the volume.

Theorising and practitioners in HRD: the role of abductive reasoning

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that abductive reasoning is a typical but usually unrecognised process used by HRD scholars and practitioners alike. Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper that explores recent criticism of traditional views of theory-building, based on the privileging of scientific theorising, which has led to a relevance gap between scholars and practitioners. The work of Charles Sanders Peirce and the varieties of an abductive reasoning process are considered. Findings – Abductive reasoning, which precedes induction and deduction, provide a potential connection with HRD practitioners who face difficult problems. Two types of abductive reasoning are explored – existential and analogic. Both offer possibilities for theorising with HRD practitioners. A range of methods for allowing abduction to become more evident with practitioners are presented. The authors consider how abduction can be used in engaged and participative research strategies. Research limitations/implications – While this is a conceptual paper, it does suggest implications for engagement and participation in theorising with HRD practitioners. Practical implications – Abductive reasoning adds to the repertoire of HRD scholars and practitioners. Originality/value – The paper elucidates the value of abductive reasoning and points to how it can become an integral element of theory building in HRD

Beyond Moral Fundamentalism: Dewey’s Pragmatic Pluralism in Ethics and Politics [preprint]

Drawing on unpublished and published sources from 1926-1932, this chapter builds on John Dewey’s naturalistic pragmatic pluralism in ethical theory. A primary focus is “Three Independent Factors in Morals,” which analyzes good, duty, and virtue as distinct categories that in many cases express different experiential origins. The chapter suggests that a vital role for contemporary theorizing is to lay bare and analyze the sorts of conflicts that constantly underlie moral and political action. Instead of reinforcing moral fundamentalism via an outdated quest for the central and basic source of normative justification, we should foster theories with a range of idioms and emphases which, while accommodating monistic insights, better inform decision-making by opening communication across diverse elements of moral and political life, placing these elements in a wider context in which norms gain practical traction in non-ideal conditions, and expanding prospects for social inquiry and convergence on policy and action

Participatory action research, sacred existential epistemology, the eighth moment of qualitative research and beyond…

[Abstract]: This paper discusses how, in a doctoral study, a collaborative methodology employing Participatory Action Research was embraced, upholding respectful relationships and partnerships that generated co-construction of change in two preschool settings. Participatory Action Research signifies an epistemology that underpins the belief that knowledge is embedded in social relationships and is most influential when produced collaboratively through action. This paper also explains how the research group moved away from the label of feminist poststructuralist researchers towards a feminist communitarian ethic. Such an ethic is underpinned by a sacred existential epistemology that values empowerment, morally involved observers, shared governance, love, care, community, solidarity and civic transformation. This epistemology is based on a philosophical anthropology that affirms all human beings, without exception, are worthy of dignity and ‘sacred status’. The paper concludes by locating the research firmly in what Denzin and Lincoln (2005) refer to as the eighth moment of qualitative research. This moment is marked by researchers concerned with social justice, liberation methodology and moral purpose