Action Research: Applied Research, Intervention Research, Collaborative Research, Practitioner Research, or Praxis Research?

This article relates common ways of conceptualising action research as “intervention”, “collaboration”, “interactive research”, “applied research”, and “practitioner research” to a number of different ways of knowing, extracted from the works of Aristotle. The purpose is not to disavow any of these practices but to expand the philosophical, methodological, and theoretical horizon to contain the Aristotelian concept of praxis. It is claimed that praxis knowing needs to be comprehended in order to realize the full, radical potential in action research providing real “added value” in relation to more conventional social research approaches. Praxis knowing radically challenges the divisions of labour between knower-researchers and the known-researched. Thereby it also challenges both the epistemologies and institutionalisations dominating both conventional research and conventional ways of conceptualising action research

Symbiotic Learning Systems: Reorganizing and Integrating Learning Efforts and Responsibilities Between Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) and Work Places

This article presents the idea of “symbiotic learning systems” as a possible strategy for dealing with institutional knowledge and learning challenges posed by an emerging transition from “socially monopolized” to “socially distributed” knowledge generation and distribution. As knowledge production and learning become increasingly relocated from segregated and specialized institutions for research and education and socially distributed to and within “ordinary” work life, corresponding changes are required in the basic institutionalized relationships between research, higher education, and practical knowledge application. The concept of “symbiotic learning” addresses these problems by deconstructing age-old divisions between vocational and liberal education. In order to build foundations for a changed and improved relationship between advanced organizations in work life and institutions of higher education and research (HEIs), the general preconditions for learning in the work places themselves need to be addressed. In modeling general preconditions for learning, and even in transcending the division of labor between manual and intellectual work, inspiration is found in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, and in their search for intellectual “commons” (tà koiná) as constituting public spheres and community among individuals

Phrónêsis, Aristotle, and action research

"This article presents an interpretation of Aristotelian phrónêsis and its relevance for action research. After pointing out some insufficiencies in how phrónêsis is applied by other interpreters with relevance for action research, I present my own interpretation of Aristotle’s concept in the wider context of his thinking on intellectual and ethical virtues. The article’s conclusion is that phrónêsis is very important for both action researchers and others. But at the same time, phrónêsis is not a concept that can be adopted by itself, alone, and in isolation from other intellectual and ethical virtues or ways of knowing. Phrónêsis is necessary, but at the same time insufficient. Phrónêsis is not a concept primarily concerned with learning, inquiry, and research. Its primary focus is “application”, performance, or enactment. Action research has a lot to learn from Aristotle, and phrónêsis is definitely among the things to be learned. Aristotle’s praxis-orientation sticks even deeper, however. This more profound praxis-orientation becomes quite invisible by operating with simplified and mutually exclusive divisions between phrónêsis, tékhnê, and epistêmê, and by conflating other distinctions that were important to maintain for Aristotle. Aristotle’s profound praxis-orientation is even more central to action research. It has to do with dialogue or dialectics whose tasks really are fundamentally concerned with learning, inquiry, and research." (author's abstract

Why Should Mainstream Social Researchers Be Interested in Action Research?

"The essay tries to argue why conventional researchers are obliged as researchers to be interested in certain forms of action research. The 60 years of ignorance have been illegitimate. The essay starts by listing two commonly encountered arguments paraphrasing Karl Marx and Francis Bacon via Kurt Lewin. It tries to show why a certain simplified reading of Marx cannot provide the necessary arguments. It then presents different variants of action research in order to single out approaches that according to this author require attention from mainstream social researchers. The action research approach emerging as central, by demonstrating its presence and effectiveness within mainstream research as well, is immanent critique. The method of research methodology is immanent critique. Immanent critique has to be demystified, however. When it is brought down to earth, immanent critique is really the kind of dialogical and experiential learning approach associated with apprenticeship learning and with organisational learning. This conclusion, making self-reflective practitioner-research the “hard-core” of action research, even internal to mainstream research, also requires a revision of the experimentalist-as-interventionist credo of action research." (author's abstract

Six versus 2 weeks treatment with doxycycline in European Lyme neuroborreliosis: a multicentre, noninferiority, double-blinded, randomised and placebocontrolled trial

Background There is limited evidence regarding optimal duration of antibiotic treatment in neuroborreliosis. We aimed to compare efficacy and safety of oral doxycycline for 2 and 6 weeks in European Lyme neuroborreliosis (LNB). Methods The trial had a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, non-inferiority design. Patients with LNB were recruited from eight Norwegian hospitals and randomised to doxycycline 200 mg once daily for 2 weeks, followed by 4 weeks of placebo, or doxycycline 200 mg once daily for 6 weeks. The primary endpoint was clinical improvement as measured by difference in a Composite Clinical Score (0–64 points) from baseline to 6 months. The non-inferiority margin was predetermined to 0.5 points. Results One hundred and twenty-one patients were included. Fifty-two treated for 2 weeks and 53 for 6 weeks were included in the intention-to-treat analyses, and 52 and 51 in per-protocol analysis. Mean difference in clinical improvement between the groups was 0.06, 95% CI −1.2 to 1.2, p=0.99 in the intention-to-treat population, and −0.4, 95% CI −1.4 to 0.7, p=0.51 in the per-protocol population and non-inferiority could not be established. There were no treatment failures and no serious adverse events. The groups did not differ in secondary outcomes including clinical scores at 10 weeks and 12 months, cerebrospinal fluid data and patient-reported outcome measures. Patients receiving 6 weeks doxycycline reported slightly more side effects in week 5. Conclusion Our results strongly indicate that there are no benefits of doxycycline treatment beyond 2 weeks in European LNB.publishedVersio

Turning practically : broadening the horizon

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue, positioning the articles in relation to the current "turn to practice" within organisation and management studies. Design/methodology/approach The paper introduces a schematic classification of ways of putting practice at the centre of the concern of social scientists depending on the interest of the researcher and his/her position with regard to the object of the research. Findings The paper finds that turning to practice does not necessarily, or simply, equate with becoming more engaged, or with making social science relevant, or with moving social science closer to the practical concerns of separate practitioners. It is argued that the effort should be concentrated on developing a type of theory that helps practitioners articulate what they already do, and therefore somehow know. The model for this way of theorising would therefore be not physics or astronomy but rather grammar a discipline that although just as old, has been based traditionally on a very different relationship between knower and known. Practical implications The paper argues that when conceived after a grammatical model, "theory" may become a resource to be used in action and for action to produce emancipatory awareness and trigger change through critical reflection. Originality/value The papers in this special issue constitute an initial contribution in this direction as they indicate different ways in which theory, when developed "with" and "amid" and not "for" or even "about" practitioners, may become a powerful trigger of change and transformation

Action Research: Applied Research, Intervention Research, Collaborative Research, Practitioner Research, or Praxis Research?

This article relates common ways of conceptualising action research as “intervention”, “collaboration”, “interactive research”, “applied research”, and “practitioner research” to a number of different ways of knowing, extracted from the works of Aristotle. The purpose is not to disavow any of these practices but to expand the philosophical, methodological, and theoretical horizon to contain the Aristotelian concept of praxis. It is claimed that praxis knowing needs to be comprehended in order to realize the full, radical potential in action research providing real “added value” in relation to more conventional social research approaches. Praxis knowing radically challenges the divisions of labour between knower-researchers and the known-researched. Thereby it also challenges both the epistemologies and institutionalisations dominating both conventional research and conventional ways of conceptualising action research