Given the inherently interactive nature of participatory action research, the researcher is necessarily intrusive. They work with participants to frame questions, to create
provocations and gather data important to the questions being explored in the broader research inquiry (Marshall & Rossman, 1999). However, as R. E. Cole (1991) observes,
when the researcher undertakes this form of research within a broader organisational development role, they necessarily adopt an even greater interventionist persona. This has the effect of further blurring the demarcations between these researcher and developmental roles. This means that the nature of data collection is also inevitably subject to heightened personal subjectivities and more difficult to isolate from existing understandings of the situational context in which such data is collected. In this research, this is further complicated by the objectifying of the theoretical model use in this study within the design of the CHAT-based, action research approach used in the case studies themselves. For these range of reasons, the data collection process needed to be carefully conceived and managed to ensure trustworthiness and limit potential imposed subjectivities that could hinder its reliability. Consequently, aside from establishing the protocols for the role of the researcher and action research teams outlined earlier, a series of other strategies were put in place including the:
collection of data from multiple perspectives, including from the participants working as an action research team as well as individually, from students and from artefacts generated before, during and after the action research process (providing triangulation)
testing and modification of key data with action research participants, such as the outcomes of action research, analysis of student feedback and individual interview responses (providing verification)
recording and/or systematic collection of ‘thick data’ from student feedback, action research workshops and interviews to ensure a depth and breadth of analysis (providing complexity).
The range of empirical data collected in this study (and common to both case studies) is summarised in Table 5.1 below.
Table 5.1: Sources of data for the empirical stage of the research
Data form Source Form of capture
Preliminary orientating interviews Program leaders (Program Directors and Subject Convenors)
Field notes
Proceedings and reflections on initial orientation workshops
Action research teams Field notes, session recording, written respondent feedback Qualitative student feedback (over
three semesters)
Student responses to qualitative questionnaires/semi-structure interviews (over three semesters)4
Online qualitative
questionnaires or interview records
Proceedings and reflections on end-of-semester and pre-semester workshops of action research teams (over three semesters)
Action research teams Field notes, session recording, written respondent feedback
Individual interviews for action research teams members at conclusion of the three semesters
Action research team members Field notes and recordings
Key program artefacts
Program documentation, minutes, reports and related actions generated during the action research
Collection of relevant artefacts for analysis
The nature of the CHAT-informed, action research model used in multi-dimensional form in this study had important implications for what and how data was to be collected. Firstly, it meant an emphasis in framing appropriate data collection methods to ensure the accurate mapping of the ‘structure of the transformations made (so they) can be retraced and critically reflected’ (Langemeyer & Nissen, 2006, p. 190). Essential to this was the collection of data that was sufficiently broad to consider what evidence of learning and change emerged with the aggravation of the tensions and contradictions
4
generated by the expansive learning evaluation cycle described earlier in this chapter. Engeström (2007b) suggests evidence of what he defines as expansive learningis where an activity system resolves ‘pressing internal contradictions by constructing and
implementing a qualitative new way of functioning for itself’ (p. 24). Such expansive learning is reflected most acutely in:
a) the broadening of the shared objects of professional work to seek to identify and respond to problems
b) the development of new forms of knowledge and tools to engage with identified problems
c) lived, yet invisible, cognitive trails of reformed work
(Daniels, 2008; Engeström, 2007a)
Hence, in order to understand the potential expansive learning in these case studies, the framing of data collection was around these three key points of potential reformulation in pedagogical activity: reformed approaches to teaching, generation of new or modified shared objects and the ‘invisible’ experiences of participants in the action research.
There are clear strengths in an immersive form of research engagement for enhanced data collection as a result of proximity, access and subsequently, deepened analysis. However, there are also inevitably weaknesses that need to be recognised and managed. The proximity and access of the researcher to the object of study means that it was consistently difficult to clearly demarcate the academic developer versus researcher role. This resulted in a series of limitations that will be further explored in later chapters. However, it is reasonable to conclude that the organisational and positional power held the researcher demonstrably distorted some outcomes. Further, as is not uncommon in qualitative study, the effect of being studied in-depth in action (the so- called Hawthorne effect) inevitably changed how participants acted and responded, despite the longitudinal nature of the study. Finally, the case studies represented the reality of a specific spatial and temporal reality, which inevitably shaped and contextualised the data generated in the study. The effect of these limitations will be explored further in the conclusion to this study.