What is action research in development?

Many governments, donors, UN agencies and NGOs engage in development activity. The purpose of development is usually to improve the quality of life of the population.

But how do we know if these activities are working?

One way to find out is through action research.

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Action research is different from traditional research because unlike traditional research which aims to contribute to knowledge in a specific narrow field, action research seeks to improve professional practice.

For traditional research, we rely on the literature review to identify our research question. In contrast, for action research, we formulate a research question based on a real-life problem in our field. We then use the literature review to gain a deeper understanding of the problem.

Let’s take an example: imagine you are a development worker in Sierra Leone. You have identified that many young girls in the district where you work are dropping out of school. After carrying out a literature review and discussion with key stakeholders, you hypothesize that the reason for this is because the teaching in schools is not girl-friendly.

You plan an intervention and work with the Government to deliver girl-friendly teaching training to 20 schools. You monitor the situation for a specified period to see if there is any change. You find that there is some change, but some girls still dropped out, so you use the data collected to understand why. You develop another hypothesis and repeat the cycle.

Action research dissolves the barrier between the researcher and participants as you as the development worker participates in the intervention and also conducts the investigation.





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