human resource management 6200

1 RESEARCH IN PROFESSIONAL

AND PUBLIC LIFE1 THE PURPOSES AND APPLICATIONS OF ACTION RESEARCH: WHO DOES ACTION RESEARCH, AND WHY DO THEY DO IT? Action research is a systematic approach to investigation that enables people to find effective solutions to problems they confront in their everyday lives. Unlike experimental or quantitative research that looks for generalizable explanations related to a small number of variables, action research seeks to engage the complex dynamics involved in any social context. It uses continuing cycles of investigation designed to reveal effective solutions to issues and problems experienced in specific situations and localized settings, providing the means by which people in schools, businesses, community agencies and organizations, and health and human services may increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their work. In doing so it also seeks to build a body of knowledge that enhances professional and community practices and works to increase the well-being of the people involved.

For many people, professional and service occupations—teaching, social work, health care, psychology, youth work, and so on—provide appealing avenues of employment. These occupations have the potential to provide meaningful and fulfilling work that is intrinsically rewarding. Increasingly, however, people in these sectors find their work to be more demanding and less satisfying. They often struggle to balance growing demands on their time and energy as their workloads continue to expand, and they are routinely confronted by problems rarely encountered 20 or 30 years ago.

The pressures experienced in professional practice reflect tensions in contemporary society. The complex influences that impinge on people’s everyday social lives provide a fertile seedbed for a proliferating host of family, community, and institutional problems. Professional practitioners and agency workers are increasingly held accountable for solutions to problems that have their roots in the deeply complex interaction between the experiences of people and the realities of their social lives: stress, unemployment, family breakdown, alienation, behavioral problems, violence, poverty, discrimination, conflict, and so forth.

Although adequately prepared to deal with the technical requirements of their daily work, practitioners often face recurrent crises outside the scope of their professional expertise. Teachers face children disturbed by conflict in their homes and communities, youth workers encounter resentful and alienated teenagers, health workers confront people apparently unconcerned about life-threatening lifestyles and social habits, and social and welfare workers are strained past their capacity to deal with the impossible caseloads spawned by increasing poverty and alienation.

There is an expectation in social life that trained professionals, applying scientifically derived expertise, will provide answers to the proliferating problems that confront people in their personal and public lives. Community responses to crises that arise from drug abuse, crime, violence, school absenteeism, and so on invariably revolve around the use of a social worker, youth worker, counselor, or similar type of service provider whose task it is to eradicate the problem by applying some intervention at an individual or programmatic level. These responses have failed to diminish growing social problems that have multiplied much faster than human and financial resources available to deal with them. Moreover, evidence suggests that centralized policies and programs generated by “experts” have limited success in resolving these problems. The billions of dollars invested in social programs have failed to stem the tide of alienation and disaffection that characterize

many areas of social life in modern industrial nations.

If there are answers to these proliferating social problems, it is likely that centralized policies will need to be complemented by the creative action of those closest to their sources—the service professionals, agency workers, students, clients, communities, and families who face the issues on a daily basis. Centralized policies, programs, and services, I suggest, should allow practitioners to engage the human potential of all people who contribute to the complex dynamics of the contexts in which they work. Policies and programs should not dictate specific actions and procedures but instead should provide the resources to enable effective action appropriate to particular places. The daily work of practitioners often provides many opportunities for them to acquire valuable insights into people’s social worlds and to assist them in formulating effective solutions to problems that permeate their lives.

We therefore need to change our vision of service professionals and administrators from mechanic or technician to facilitator and creative investigator. This new vision rejects the mindless application of standardized practices across all settings and contexts and instead advocates the use of contextually relevant procedures formulated by inquiring and resourceful practitioners. The pages that follow describe some of the ways professional and community workers can hone their investigative skills, engage in systematic approaches to inquiry, and formulate effective and sustainable solutions to the deep-rooted problems that diminish the quality of professional life. This volume presents an approach to inquiry that seeks not only to enrich professional practice but also to enhance the lives of those involved.

As a young teacher, I had the rare experience of being transferred from the relative security of a suburban classroom to a primary school in a remote desert region of Western Australia. My task was to provide education for the children of the Aboriginal people who, at this time, still lived as they had for millennia, moving through the land in small family groups, hunting for their food, and sleeping in leaf shelters. On my first day in class, I was confronted by a wall of

silence that effectively prevented any possibility of teaching. The children refused to respond verbally to any of my queries or comments, hanging their heads, averting their eyes, and sometimes responding so softly that I was unable to hear what they said. In these discomfiting circumstances, I was unable to work through any of the customary routines and activities that had constituted my professional repertoire in the city. Lessons were abbreviated, disjointed, and seemingly pointless, and my professional pride took a distinct jolt as an ineffective reading lesson followed an inarticulate math period, preceding the monotony of my singular voice through social studies.

The silence of the children in the classroom was in marked contrast to their happy chatter as we walked through the surrounding bush that afternoon, my failing spirits leading me to present an impromptu natural science “lesson.” In this and following lessons, the children taught me a great deal about the living bushland that was their natural home—the small animals and birds that, though unseen by my city-bred eyes, were everywhere; the plants, fruits, roots, and berries that were edible; the places where water could be found (precious commodity in this desert environment); and how to survive when the weather was very hot. My “teachers” were a mine of information, and they revelled in the opportunities to demonstrate to me their knowledge about the environment and their skill in being able to move so easily in what I saw as a hostile setting.

I discovered that I was able to make use of this knowledge and interest in the classroom, fashioning a range of learning activities related to literacy, mathematics, social science, and natural science. In small ways I was thus able to accommodate my approach to teaching in this unique educational environment, but the experience endowed me with an understanding that the regular routines of teaching were unsuited to my current circumstances. All the taken- for-granted assumptions of my professional life rang hollow as I struggled to understand the nature of the problems that confronted

me and to formulate appropriate educational experiences for this vibrant, independent, and sometimes fractious group of students. Texts, curricula, teaching materials, learning activities, classroom organization, speech, interactional styles, and all other facets of classroom life became subjects of inquiry and investigation as I sought to resolve the constant stream of issues and problems that emerged in this environment. To be an effective teacher, I discovered that it was necessary to modify and adapt my regular professional routines and practices to fit the lives of the children.

The legacy of that experience has remained with me. Although I have long since left school classrooms behind, the lessons I learned there still pervade all my work. I engage all professional, organizational, and community contexts with a deep sense of my need to explore and understand the situation. An attitude of inquiry enables me to engage, examine, explore, formulate answers, and devise responses to deal more effectively with each context I engage—and the diverse experiences and perspectives of the people within it.

In these situations, I now cast myself as a research facilitator, working with and supporting people to engage in systematic investigation that leads to clarity and understanding for us all and to provide the basis for effective action. In many places in the United States, Canada, Australia, East Timor, and Singapore I use techniques and procedures that can be fruitfully applied to the day- to-day work of people in schools, organizations, and community settings. I am now a practitioner–researcher.2

As becomes evident in the following sections, action research is not merely a tool for applying a standardized set of procedures to professional, organizational, or community life, nor a “job” intended as the provenance of trained researchers. Neither is it a superficial set of routines that legitimate any set of social or professional practices. Far

from providing a set of fixed prescriptions to be applied in any context, action research provides a flexible and practical set of procedures that are systematic, cyclical, solutions oriented, and participatory, providing the means to devise sustainable improvements in practice that enhance the lives and well-being of all participants.