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Systemic Action Research

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Systems Practice: How to Act

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Abstract

Systemic action research, the focus in this chapter, can be understood as an antidote to non-reflexive research practice. The chapter begins by reflecting on research practice because it is the practice most associated with the production of new knowledge. A critique is provided from the normative position that any practice that only concerns itself with the so-called ‘discovery of new knowledge’ falls short of responsible practice. It does so, whether implicitly or explicitly, through the failure to recognise that any research practice is first and foremost a socially embedded practice. Action research is transformed into systemic action research whenever those involved act, or strive to act, with epistemological awareness. The motivation for distinguishing systemic action research from action research is to draw attention to the need for the researcher to take responsibility for their epistemological commitments. Examples of systemic action research are provided.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I could at this point have provided a critique of evidence-based decision making from a systemic perspective but space does not allow – for some of the elements of such a critique see Mitchell (1999) who argues for nursing ‘that the notion of evidence-based practice is not only a barren possibility but also that evidence-based practice obstructs nursing process, human care, and professional accountability .’

  2. 2.

    In establishing the Open Systems Research Group and later the Applied Systems Thinking in Practice (ASTiP) Group at the Open University we explicitly recognised that research was pursued for a social purpose, in our case the pursuit of social justice.

  3. 3.

    Kinesthetic learning is when someone learns things from doing or being part of them. It is claimed that learners have different learning styles which include visual learners, kinesthetic learners, and auditory learners (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinesthetic_learning, Accessed 20 May 2017).

  4. 4.

    The material in this section and the following is edited and extracted from Russell and Ison (2000a) and Ison and Russell (2011).

  5. 5.

    We use R&D as a noun to break out of the trap of the linear conception of research … and then development.

  6. 6.

    See Understanding computers and cognition : a new foundation for design by Winograd and Flores (1987).

  7. 7.

    In expressing it in this way it is not my intention to exclude the ‘ecological’ but to recognise that what we regard as ecological is always brought forth in specific instances and contexts.

  8. 8.

    Maturana notes that while quantification is not essential to this process it may be useful in the deductive phase.

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  1. The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Ray Ison

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Ison, R. (2017). Systemic Action Research. In: Systems Practice: How to Act. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7351-9_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7351-9_11

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