How far does the use of visual methods within action research challenge traditional conceptualisations of action research processes?

To investigate:

(1) how far the visual used in action research supports and promotes a re-framing and/or re-conceptualising of ideas, thinking and understandings.

(2) In so far as it does so, how far the processes involved in the use of visual methods fit with orthodox representations of action research cycles.

Action research is often taken to be a methodology for problem solving (Carr and Kemmis 1986; Kemmis 1981; Somekh 2006). In this presentation we argue that such a view is overly narrow and can lead to a mechanistic approach to evidence and analysis. Most theorists argue against a mechanistic approach and in spite of other differences, would agree that action research always includes elements of all of the personal, professional and political (Griffiths 2009; Noffke 1997; 2009). However, in spite of these influential theoretical interventions, and against the intentions of their authors, accounts of action research could be – and have been – used as methodological recipes for local problem solving of technical issues of practical effectiveness or efficiency, rather than a way to grapple with deeper issues of the questioning of contextual assumptions and an engagement with political and structural power and/or self transformation. A number of studies identify the continued prevalence of technical, problem-solving tendencies within action research: a focus on problem solving rather than on problem finding (Carr 1994; 2006; Leitch and Day 2000).

In this paper we claim that a tendency toward technical problem solving is encouraged by the ubiquity of cyclical models found in much action research literature. Against this we argue that the methodological significance of action research should more properly be focused on the use of evidence and analysis to enable practitioners to re-frame and re-conceptualise their practice. Only sometimes could this be expressed as a cycle, and even more rarely would these cycles form a tidy spiral. We outline the epistemological basis of this claim, focusing on knowledge as represented in different modes of expression and on validity as productive. Drawing on Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009) we argue that changed understanding, new interpretations and re-formed frameworks are at least as significant as any specific interventions which generate them, or as any specific action strategies which result from them. Further, we foreground understandings and knowledges emerging from action research as multidimensional, multimodal, partial, active and evolving.  This argument draws on a philosophical distinction which can be usefully drawn between actions (what is done) and conduct (observable behaviour) (Murdoch, 1970).

In keeping with the visual, creative approach, we intend to present the research visually, using poster representations of research processes and outcomes and also a ‘prezi’ summary displayed on a screen. The audience will be encouraged to walk around and examine the visual artifacts for 10 minutes, and then to participate in a question and answer session, which will be facilitated by interactive use of the ‘prezi’. 

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