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Designing your action research project

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Designing your action research project – Prof. Louise Vincent presented a workshop on action research to students and academics at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) 9 March 2016

At a workshop on action research in Port Elizabeth Prof. Louise Vincent took delegates back to the roots of action research in experiments during the Second World War designed to see whether American housewives could be persuaded to cook tripe for dinner to preserve scarce stocks of beef for the troops. Participants were able to design their own action research project and were introduced to Jack Whitehead’s concept of ‘living theory’. Vincent spoke about the multiple roles that critical friends can play in an action research project as well as discussing questions of validity and reliability in action research.

Delegates found the workshop ‘eye opening’, ‘interactive’ and engaging’ and said that it had allayed their fears about doing action research.