Research and Professional Practice
The ordinary view of research and professional improvement comes from the world of traditional study designs in which experiments or other positivist forms of investigation conducted by experts are used to arrive at solutions. This perspective operates on the premise that principles or techniques that work in one place can be packaged or made into guidelines and applied elsewhere. It is an enduring aim of such experimental and correlation studies to influence the everyday practice of professionals from physicians in their treatment of patients to those who counsel and teach. The application of this idea of traditional research, sometimes called technical or instrumental transfer (which involves using findings from one setting in other venues), has worked reasonably well in such physically based professions as medicine, although even in medicine individual differences in susceptibility to various drugs, for example, often make medical research findings less than trustworthy. A prescription may effectively reduce one patient's blood pressure but could cause an adverse reaction in another.
As a general pattern, there has been what Berliner (2009) calls a “great disconnect” (p. 295) when it comes to any real influence of traditional research on most professional practice, particularly on the daily professional behavior of most practitioners. Many professionals report a lack of access to these research findings, but most describe them as neither relevant nor closely linked to what they need to know for solving real-life work-related issues.
Many contend that positivist research has not effectively influenced practitioners to improve the quality of their efforts. Atkin (1991), for example, explains that traditional research as a source for supporting change and improvement is problematic. Research conducted at universities, he explains,
has its own purposes and values … but its guiding purpose is not necessarily to alter what people do. When university-based science does have practical impact, that influence is frequently incidental … in physical or biological science—and forced in the social and behavioral sciences. (p. 2)
Berliner (2009), who was trained in traditional research approaches, summarizes the issue in this way:
I eventually learned that research data do not provide the surety that I believed such data possessed. I learned that practice is amazingly more complex than I first understood it to be, filled with variables not easily captured … [and] all of which are interacting with each other simultaneously. (p. 298)
Atkin, Berliner, and many others now advise that one more effective way of influencing professional practice is practitioner action research conducted by professionals in their own work environment. Such an approach has a longer history in education, but holds real promise in other fields as well. Applications of practitioner action research have ranged from the use of traditional positivist designs to the use of plans driven by a qualitative orientation—but in either case implemented by professionals themselves.
There are detractors as well, of course. Some professionals report that conducting these investigations is time-consuming and makes it even more difficult to keep up with the demands of their normal workload. And even those who consider practitioner action research a reasonable approach are not convinced that practitioners will use it. As Scriven reported in 1991, it is “an excellent idea, but one with a very poor track record” (p. 48).
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
- What are some advantages and disadvantages of outside experts' conducting research on practice?
- As a practitioner in your future career, what influence might most research have on your work?
Traditions That Shape Practitioner Research
Although there are still recommended uses of positivist experimental and correlational applications in some research contexts (see, for example, Johnson, 2008), practitioner action research finds its origins in what is known as interpretive or critical traditions. These traditions or worldviews stem from a distinct set of assumptions about where truth can be found and how research questions are formulated to discover meaning. Interpretive or critical researchers study real-life settings, focusing primarily on rich qualitative observations that recount multiple experiences and perspectives obtained from those who live in the studied settings. Unlike traditional researchers, interpretive or critical investigators expect findings that are primarily qualitative, complex, and dynamically dependent on time, location, and participant.
There are important distinctions even within the interpretive or critical perspectives. The critical side is identified by Kemmis (2009) as critical social action whereby individuals work collectively toward shared research topics using a practitioner research approach to resolve vital social concerns, such as local poverty or discrimination. Mills (2003) further explains critical social action as representing a “shared interest in liberating individuals from the dictates of tradition, habit, and bureaucracy” (p. 6).
By contrast, the interpretive approach to practitioner research directs professionals to research everyday practical issues associated with their own work-related efforts by designing studies for self-reflection and improvement. Kemmis (1993) calls this interpretive perspective practical reasoning, tracing it to Aristotle as a form of investigation that lone individuals or small study groups of like professionals employ to inspect and improve practice in the workplace. In the latter case, a practitioner action research group might design studies of interest to all members, or members might research their own individual topics with group assistance.
Reflection Question
- In your own words, what are the essential differences between critical social action and practical reasoning as approaches to practitioner action research?
Practitioner Research as Practical Reasoning
It can be argued that the technical or instrumental form of practitioner action research has an important advantage of being field based and thus more likely to represent current practices, unlike research conducted under artificial laboratory conditions. And without question the critical social action approach has its strength in galvanizing social or educational change, especially where those with the least power work toward gaining greater deserved equity. The theme of this chapter, however, is that of practitioner action research in the framework of Aristotle's practical reasoning that can be pursued by lone individuals or a community of professionals. This conception has the advantage of focusing on authentic, concrete, and relevant professional issues related to everyday practice. Local professionals are able to recognize and study those elements of practice that match the real-life pace and temporal flow of their professional setting. An additional characteristic of practitioner action research is that of professional autonomy, the control of the research by practitioners themselves without management or direction from outsiders. Practical reasoning and critical social action share this ingredient.
Practitioner action research as practical reasoning is designed by first identifying an issue, concern, or area of interest—it does not have to be a problem or serious event, but a topic that has the potential to influence the quality of professional work. A counselor may ask his patients to offer anonymous written comments about the effectiveness of a new role-playing technique, or a classroom teacher could study a video of a recent lesson to observe the clarity of her directions.
What follows are two very concrete examples of professionals engaging in practitioner action research as a form of practical reasoning, hereafter referred to as practitioner research. In these two scenarios, emphasis is given to practitioner self-reflection, an important characteristic of practitioner research. The primary focus is on one's own professional practice, not on audiences or others in the workplace.