This book gives you all you need to know about action research, why you need to know it and how it can help you become a self-reflective practitioner-researcher. It provides the ideas and frameworks to understand action research, combined with a practical workbook to guide you through the practicalities and complexities of doing action research in your own context.

Inside you will find:

• An action plan to help you embark on your project
• Guidance and advice on learning to ask the right questions as you progress
• A full resource on writing up and communicating your results
• Inspiration to explain the significance of what you have achieved, so that other people can learn with and from you.

Accessible and insightful, this is the complete start to finish guide to doing influential action research. It is the ideal companion for students and researcher-practitioners in any research setting, from education and health to business.

About the Author
Jean McNiff is Professor of Educational Research at York St John University, UK. She is also a Visiting Professor at UiT the Arctic University of Norway, and at the Beijing Normal University and Ningxia Teachers' University, People's Republic of China. Jean took early retirement from her position as deputy head teacher of a large secondary school in Dorset, UK. She went into business for herself, and developed her writing. Her textbooks on action research and professional education are now used internationally on workplace-based professional education courses and on higher degree courses. Jean provides interdisciplinary consultancy work to institutions around the world where she gives lectures and conducts workshops on planning, doing and writing action research. Jean aims to contribute to personal and social betterment through educational research. She encourages everyone to make their stories public in the form of their personal and collaborative theories of practice; and she firmly believes that each individual is able to contribute to social and planetary wellbeing by explaining how they hold themselves accountable for what they do. In this way she links education with moral accountability. She tries to bring the university to everyday contexts, and everyday contexts into the university, for it is only by involving everyone, she feels, that the world will become a better place for us all.

Reviews

Well structured, clearly written and accessible. I highly recommend it for anyone who plans to enhance their professional practice through action research.

-- Valsa Koshy

This is an empowering, practical, accessible book, embedded in a deeply humane understanding of research. It shows how and why practice is integral to a healthy, thinking world. It opens doors and enables you to turn lived experience into liberating professional enquiry.

-- Welby Ings

For anyone interested in action research, irrespective of experience and expertise, this text, explaining the origins, forms, process, problems and functions of action research, and how these relate to position and role of action researcher, should be essential reading.

-- Andrew Townsend

At a time when academic 'experts' are increasingly setting practice agendas, this scholarly but deeply practical book helps practitioners to reclaim ownership of their professions.

-- Gary Rolfe

Jean McNiff is an inspiration. Imbued by her values, she takes the 'mystique' out of action research and provides an accessible, practical and useful step by step guide to doing action research for novices and experts alike. This book will support action researchers to live by their values and produce robust accounts of their research. I look forward to recommending it as a 'must read' to my fellow action researchers.

-- Josephine Bleach
"The whole text is a wonderful read and the final section is inspirational and empowering." -- Belle Wallace



Book Information
ISBN 9781473967472
Author Jean McNiff
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Sage Publications Ltd
Publisher Sage Publications Ltd
Weight(grams) 500g