Action Research: Trends and Variations

Action research continues to grow as a research tradition, yet misconceptions about what it is and is not remains, even among scholars. For example, some mistakenly believe action research is only about professional development and is not a scholarly research approach. Some assume action research must be accomplished through a collaborative process with representative stakeholders, and others believe it can be done alone as an independent process. Some believe action research is about problem solving while others avoid discourse about problems altogether and prefer to focus on the positive aspects of a setting. And, some begin the research process with defined assumptions about the core issues while others have no presuppositions and follow a discovery process. The goal of this article is to point to the various ways action research is defined and applied and position it as a growing research tradition.