Section archive - Research Methods

This article is a reflexive account of the use of critical social theory within the author's practice as an action researcher. The author discusses how a selective deployment of key constructs from the work of Jurgen Habermas has supported my work as a second-order action researcher. The author demonstrates how these constructs can help deal with the practical and theoretical tensions faced when supporting groups of action researchers. The author focuses on one of the key issues faced by any external agent trying to work within such groups: how to avoid imposing their own agendas and interpretations.

The authors reconsider five principles: historical continuity; reflexivity; dialectics; workability; and evocativeness. These five principles are critically examined from two viewpoints. First, the authors discuss comments on the quality of the principles, referring to contemporary discussion within the philosophy of science. Second, they review some empirical action research reports in which these principles have been applied.

The author asks What do we consider ‘useful’ as research on education – as researchers? This is asking for a self-evaluation by educational research(ers).

This article brings together two sources previously cut off from one another, the narrative inquiry research method and the digital storytelling approach, to inform how the live research projects became represented. This meta-level ‘inquiry into inquiry’ traversed all four narrative inquiries and the digital exemplars produced for each to show how digital narrative inquiries attend to eight considerations: relationship, perspective, authorial voice, cultural/contextual considerations, relevance, negotiation, audience and technology were learned.