Dear Jack, Dianne, Alan and All,

Thank you for your recent postings - they certainly stimulated brain matter!

On Sun, 7 Oct 2007 22:12:43 +0100, Jack Whitehead wrote:

In his 1989 book on Learning from Experience, Richard Winter distinguished 6
principles of rigour for action research. One of these was 'reflexive
critique' ... people reflect on issues and processes and make explicit the
interpretations, biases, assumptions and concerns upon which judgments are
made.  
>
This raises a number of exciting and challenging questions for practitioner
researchers who are undertaking reflexive enquiry into their own practice...

First, should come as any surprise that one needs to make explicit the
context and interpretations being made in research? One would expect a bench
scientist to make explicit those aspects within a context of undertaking an
experiment that would reasonably be expected to influence process & outcome.

Second, making explicit carries its own biases too, since one necessarily
talks about interpretations of social action, especially when viewed through
the lens of one's own experience. How possible is it to make explcit 

Third, making 'explicit' may/not be enabled by a public validation process
to ensure accounts of the interpretations and biases perceived are clearly
expressed and seem appropriate and sufficient as context bound explanations

Fourth, (I'm thinking about social groupings' constructions of knowledge),
such a process of making publicly explicit through public validation would
need to be exercised not only within the immediate social grouping i.e.
where the study is taking place but also between social groupings and thus 
with other research communities in different areas of practice.  Reflexive
accounts need to be explicated in a way that, potentially at least, enables   
intra research group communication but also inter research group engagement

Fifth, a public explication and validation process needs to ensure that the
biases and interpretations are couched in a manner and form so that they can
be understood and engaged within well beyond the proximal social grouping. 

Sixth, 'rigour' as I form my understanding, means not only making explicit
'issues and processes ... interpretations, biases, assumptions and concerns
upon which judgments are made' so one's immediate social group can (if they
wish) understand the context but carries with it a responsibility to ensure
the words chosen can be understood between our social (research) groupings. 

Seventh, there is no obligation attached to 'publishing' papers and books in
satisfying Winter's call for making explicit a research process, issues etc.
 but as researchers we are choosing to use the conduit of writing papers and
seeking their publication for public review and endorsement of our research.  

Eighth, a creative commons for making explicit and sharing our work using
the internet (ref. http://www.cfkeep.org ) offers us an alternative conduit
to the present queuing system to get papers and books published.  (I wonder
how many research accounts, rigorously researched in Winter's terms never
reach publication for a plethora of reasons... Are we in danger of losing
knowledge in a process of seeking to publish papers in journals and books..?

Ninth, how might one ensure that research contributed to such the creative
commons as the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (website
 cited above) offers us is undertaken rigorously?  Where is the element of
peer review that might ensure rigour 'will out' to borrow from Macbeth..!

Tenth, is there a case for actively encouraging practitioner researchers to
seek an alternative conduit for publishing their research and its embedded
explicit manifestation of processes and issues etc that Winter refers to?

Should we as researchers, holding our communal value that sharing research 
can lead to a better social order, combine publishing to a creative commons
such as that offered by the Carnegie Foundation with seeking its publication
 through peer reviewed journals - which, it has to be said, provide for many
of us an explicit foundation for our continued employment as practitioners! 


Sarah

http://www.TeacherResearch.net
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/BERA-TEACHER-RESEARCHER.html