Like Steve I've been influenced by Pat D'Arcy's ideas on how to make appreciative
and engaged responses to the texts of others and tend to use Pat's ideas from her
thesis at:
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/pat.shtml when working to improve my reviews of the
writings of others. If you click on this url, I think you will enjoy Pat's Abstract. I also
like Pete's emphasis on respect for evidence. When Sarah says:
"The stimulus to challenge Jack's writings came from my viva voce examination in
November 2003 (wrong criteria used by examiners - appeal - thesis still unexamined
in 2005!) The examiners asked why I was so accepting of what Jack said about that
self study action research IS the only form of action research. I started thinking!"
I would have seen such a question as a wonderful opportunity to engage with the
evidential base of the examiners' understandings. Given my belief that the claim that
sefl-study action research IS the only form of action research would be a very silly
claim to make, (and I have never said or written it) my own response would be:
But Jack doesn't believe that self-study action research IS the only form of action
research. What he has done is to advocate the development of a living educational
theory approach to action research (see http://www.actionresearch.net) in which
individuals create and test the validity of their explanations for their own learning as
they ask, research and answer questions of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am
doing?'
I'm hoping that nobody will attribute to me the belief that self-study action research
IS the only form of action research. What I'm hoping is that practitioner-researchers
find some of my ideas about the nature of educational theory helpful as they
construct their own, just as I draw on the ideas of others. It would be helpful for me to
know who asked the question so that I could write to them to correct their mistake.
Love Jack.
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