Action Research
- Ernest T. Stringer - Curtin University, Australia
Community is not a place. It is a state of mind.
The Fourth Edition of Ernest T. Stringer’s best-selling Action Research offers easy-to-follow, clear guidelines that enable novice practitioner researchers to move comfortably through a process of inquiry and applied research. Featuring real-life examples and providing effective solutions that foster understanding of research procedures in real-life contexts, the book offers a simple but highly effective model for approaching action research:
- Look: building a picture and gathering information,
- Think: interpreting and explaining, and
- Act: resolving issues and problems.
Using his own experience as a guide, Stringer encourages readers to grapple with the broader political and ethical challenges that frame each inquiry. The author’s engaging style makes the book especially relevant to those working with children, young adults, or people in community contexts, and is particularly relevant to those dealing with issues of diversity or with marginalized and disenfranchised groups. Clear, concise, and practical, Stringer’s accessible and engaging book is a must for students and professionals in educational, business, health, counseling, and social work settings.
“It is an excellent resource for teaching Action Research to both graduate and undergraduate students.”
“…I very much like the book and its approach/philosophy/guiding principles…”
“…[W]ell done and certainly the most readable and authoritative [book] on the topic of action research I have seen…As an educator, I found much useful insight in the text and I would certainly recommend it to doctoral students doing research that would benefit from the broader view…”
This text provides a clear overview of the applications for Action Research. It also provides useful points to consider when students are questioned about the legitimacy of this type of research as research. For students who are newly engaging with research through practice, this text provides some very useful tips about which skills they are engaging with and applying as well as questions to consider when planning research. Because this text captures how action research can be conducted through systematic inquiry, students are able to also begin to understand how their own emerging practice and reflection upon it can situate within a research paradigm in a clear and strategic manner.
Good book provided a great understanding of AR for the learners and great read!
It contributes the field of action research in an easy way. It presents knowledge in real life contexts. It provides simple guidelines how to solve problems in three stages: Look, Think, and Act. These steps make the action research process easier to do.
A very good book. Library will order.
Great book that will assist our students with the background necessary to pursue a career in pacticioner based research
This is an excellent text for those students wishing to undertake an action research project for their dissertation. As many of our students are doing research in their own work place or Trade Union, this is a good opportunity for them to learn about how research can be immediately relevant and important, and part of a broader process of change and renewal in the Labour Movement.
The text takes the student through the process of research, and then has sections on case studies to illustrate how this can be done. This is useful as it allows some insight into what an action research project might look like. The examples are, however, relatively limited, and it might be good to have a web-link with examples of other (perhaps more political) research? It is written accessibly and the layout is also easy to follow. The addition of internet resources is also very good - although I imagine this will quickly go out of date and will need regular review.
Didn't fit the content of my online course very well. For the course, I did adopt a Sage Interactive eBook, "Introduction to Criminology" by Pamela J. Schram and Stephen G. Tibbetts. (ISBN 978-1-4833-0020-7)