How will I ensure quality and validity of my research?

“One of the prime tenets of action research as a participatory approach is the acknowledgement that the researcher plays a key role within an inquiry (Reason and Bradbury 2001). How will I achieve the quality and validity of my research which will be mainly an outcome of my own experience? The quality in turning my experience into an inquiry is about avoiding bias through critical thinking and a deeper sense of awareness. It is about achieving "critical subjectivity" which will be one of the main pillars of the quality of my research.

“Critical subjectivity is a state of consciousness different from the naive subjectivity of "primary process" awareness, and the attempted objectivity of egoic "secondary process" awareness. Critical subjectivity means that we do not suppress our primary subjective experience, that we accept our knowing is from a perspective; it also means that we are aware of that perspective, and of its bias, and we articulate it in our communications. This notion of critical subjectivity means that there will be many versions of "reality" to which people may hold with a self-reflexive passion. It also means that the method is open to all the ways in which human beings fool themselves and each other in their perceptions of the world, through faulty epistemology, cultural bias, character defense, political partisanship, spiritual impoverishment, and so on.”(Reason and Rowan, 1981)

Action research is defined as “an emergent process of engagement with worthwhile practice purposes, through many ways of knowing, in participative and democratic relationships” (Reason, 2006). In this context, it is suggested to apply a research cycling process to ensure critical subjectivity (Heron and Reason, 1997). Research cycling is about a “democratic dialogue as co-researchers and as co-subjects which is called “co-operative inquiry”. In research cycling, “people collaborate to define the questions they wish to explore and the methodology for that exploration (propositional knowing); together or separately they apply this methodology in the world of their practice (practical knowing); which leads to new forms of encounter with their world (experiential knowing); and they find ways to represent this experience in significant patterns (presentational knowing) which feeds into a revised propositional understanding of the originating questions” (Reason and Heron, 1995). In this regard, critical subjectivity of my research will be ensured from the participative nature of the ADOC and our ongoing collaborative work. We will be able to “engage together in cycling several times through the four forms of knowing in order to enrich their congruence, that is, to refine the way they elevate and consummate each other, and to deepen the complementary way they are grounded in each other” (Heron and Reason, 1997). I have already enjoyed the outcome of this process in Module 1 which helped to improve the quality of my engagement with my inquiry.

Another focus for the quality of the research is about choice and transparency. “Quality in action research will rest internally on our ability to see the choices we are making and understand their consequences; and externally on whether we articulate our standpoint and the choices we have made transparently to a wider public” (Reason, 2006). This about me being aware of different choices and making these choices clear and transparent for myself, my ADOC group and community of practice.

My thinking leads me to the conclusion that asking right questions in every stage will strengthen my quality focus in every aspect. What should I expect as an outcome of my research? How will this outcome be life enhancing and human flourishing? (Heron and Reason 1997) How can I use multiple ways of knowing to in my quest for reality? (Torbert, 1991) How can I improve the quality of my interactions with my second-person and third-person contacts? (Heron and Reason, 2001). Finally how I can I bring meaning and purpose to make it even worthwhile?