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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Action Research in Education

Introduction.

Chapters and Articles
Theory and Ethics
Practical Texts for Individual Teachers
Collaborative Inquiry and School-Wide Teams for Administrators and School Leaders
Action Research in Teacher Education
Action Research in Graduate Education
PAR Inquiry Processes
Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR)
Critical Participatory Action Research
Critical Youth Participatory Action Research
International Perspectives
Exemplary Case Studies
Practitioner Journals for Action Researchers across All Disciplines
Research Journals for Action Researchers across All Disciplines
Journals Primarily for English/Language Arts/Literacy Educators, Teacher Educators, and Researchers
Action Research Organizations

Other Subject Areas

Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

Gender, Power, and Politics in the Academy
Girls' Education in the Developing World
Non-Formal & Informal Environmental Education
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Action Research in Education by Mary Beth Hines , Kerry Armbruster , Adam Henze , Maria Lisak , Christina Romero-Ivanova , Leslie Rowland , Lottie Waggoner LAST REVIEWED: 02 May 2019 LAST MODIFIED: 15 January 2020 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0140

Educational action research involves participants conducting inquiry into their own practices in order to improve teaching and learning, practices and programs. This means that the researcher is a participant in the activity being investigated, be it in schools or community centers—wherever teaching and learning occur. In Guiding School Improvement with Action Research ( Sagor 2000 , cited under Collaborative Inquiry and School-Wide Teams for Administrators and School Leaders ), Richard Sagor describes action research as “a disciplined process of inquiry conducted by and for those taking the action . . .[in order to] assist the “actor” in improving and/or refining his or her actions” (p. 3). The term “educational action research” encompasses a variety of approaches with different goals (see Historical Overviews of Educational Action Research ). While no consensus exists on a taxonomy that best describes its variations (modes, goals, epistemologies, politics, processes), most analyses identify the following types: (1) “Teacher research” signifies P-16 teacher-conducted inquiry designed to explore research questions related to educational improvement. It is often used interchangeably with “practitioner research/participant inquiry,” although this is a broader term that also refers to projects initiated by others in the educational experience (e.g., administrators, staff, community members). (2) “Participatory action research” (PAR) emphasizes equal, collaborative participation among university and/or school personnel and/or others with vested interests in education, working toward the shared goal of producing educational change. (3) “Youth participatory action research” (YPAR) includes young people as research partners and agents of change. (4) “Critical action research” refers to investigations of underlying power relations present in one’s situated educational practices. All educational action research is designed to impact local policy and practice. Critiques of action research object to this focus on the micro level, claiming that it does not impact education beyond the immediate audience. However, this viewpoint obscures the fact that qualitative action research case studies and cross-case analyses are generalizable to theory, thus carrying the potential to create widespread change. Another critique centers on the limited effectiveness of connecting action research with social justice. However, others argue that social justice is inextricably woven into action research because the inquiry stems from grassroots movements that emphasize social change ( Cochran-Smith and Lytle 2009 , cited under Books ) and privileges the educator’s “insider” knowledge alongside the outside researcher’s formal academic training. The following criteria were used for selecting the texts cited in this article: (1) texts that were peer-reviewed, (2) texts explicitly described as action research (or a synonymous term) by the writer or other scholars, (3) texts cited more frequently than other texts on the same issue, (4) texts originally written in English. These criteria guidelines eliminated the use of dissertations, conference papers, blogs, or pedagogical narratives that were not described as action research (or a comparable term), or reports written in other languages.

Historical Overviews of Educational Action Research

This section contains key texts in defining and outlining the history of educational action research. The scholars whose works are included are among the most cited, recognized, and respected in this field. These articles and books will aid in understanding the spectrum of issues that led to action research’s inception as well as its implementations, changes, and ideologies. This section is broken into shorter works ( Chapters and Articles ) and longer works ( Books ) that will guide the reader in gaining a better understanding of action research’s past and its growth as an area of study.

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[66.249.64.20|81.177.182.136]
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Implementing Action Research in EFL/ESL Classrooms: a Systematic Review of Literature 2010–2019

Published: 09 March 2020
Volume 33 , pages 341–362, ( 2020 )

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Amira Desouky Ali ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4175-4194 1

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Action research studies in education often address learners’ needs and empower practitioners to effectively change instructional practices and school communities. A systematic review of action research (AR) studies undertaken in EFL/ESL setting was conducted in this paper to systematically analyze empirical studies on action research published within a ten-year period (between 2010 and 2019). The review also aimed at investigating the focal themes in teaching the language skills at school level and evaluating the overall quality of AR studies concerning purpose, participants, and methodology. Inclusion criteria were established and 40 studies that fit were finally selected for the systematic review. Garrard’s ( 2007 ) Matrix Method was used to structure and synthesize the literature. Results showed a significant diversity in teaching the language skills and implementation of the AR model. Moreover, findings revealed that (50%) of the studies used a mixed-method approach followed by a qualitative method (37.5%); whereas only (12.5%) employed quantitative methodology. Research gaps for future action research in developing language skills were highlighted and recommendations were offered.

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action research journal articles in education

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Ali, A.D. Implementing Action Research in EFL/ESL Classrooms: a Systematic Review of Literature 2010–2019. Syst Pract Action Res 33 , 341–362 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-020-09523-y

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1 Department of Humanities, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy
2 Non-profit Association Maestri di Strada, Naples, Italy

If teaching is a stressful job, it can be even more so in schools in disadvantaged areas, such as the metropolitan suburbs, where the rates of educational wastage are high. Here, teachers often feel ineffective: as a result, there is a reduced sense of well-being at work, which triggers a negative cycle that damages their educational performance. From the literature, it is known that teachers need social support, which has a positive effect on well-being and resilience. For these reasons, the Association “Maestri di Strada” (MdS) has chosen to offer teachers professional social support and to actively involve them through Teacher Participatory Action Research (T-PAR): the “Crossing Educational Boundaries” project. These are the research questions that gave life to the project: do the teachers have resources to analyze the problematic situations they are immersed in and to build improvement strategies? Would a professional social support reinforce their resilience? The objective was the following: to actively engage the teachers in order to generate hypotheses concerning the causes of educational wastage in their schools, and to work with them to plan new methods to lessen the problem. The project was carried out in 12 suburban secondary schools in six Italian cities. This paper illustrates the activities of three cities. All phases of the T-PAR were completed. The teachers organized discussion groups and started workshops in the classes considered at risk. The activities were subject to non-participant observation, and the observation reports underwent semantic-structural analysis. Four clusters emerged the analysis. The results show that the teachers are aware of the importance of a good educational relationship as a way to oppose educational wastage, and, at the same time, they are aware of the difficulties of building it, which they attribute to the mistrust and passiveness of the pupils, and to the demands of the institution. The moments of discouragement shown by the teachers, and their strong emotional engagement in the pupils’ difficulties are significant. At the end of the project, a small group of teachers planned and implemented a reflective space in some of the schools.

Introduction

Teaching is a stressful and tiring job for a complex variety of reasons linked to multiple factors, including: the nature of the work, which implies a high degree of relationality; personal characteristics, on both a social and emotional level; and school organization, which is influenced by the historical and geographical context ( Kyriacou, 2001 ; Hastings and Bham, 2003 ; Hakanen et al., 2006 ; Bizumic et al., 2009 ; Chang, 2009 ; Day and Gu, 2009 ; Zurlo et al., 2016 ; Steffens et al., 2017 ; Capone et al., 2019 ; Parrello et al., 2019a ). To this end, an extensive array of literature testifies to the importance of cultivating well-being and resilience in teachers, and identifies protection factors and intervention strategies.

In particular, resilience in teachers is defined as a quality that enables teachers to maintain their commitment to teaching and to their teaching practices, despite challenging conditions and recurring setbacks ( Brunetti, 2006 ). Resilient teachers have been described as those who have the capacity to thrive in difficult circumstances, are skilled in behavior management, are able to empathize with difficult students as well as restrain negative emotions and focus on the positive, and who experience a sense of pride, fulfilment, and increased commitment to their school and profession ( Howard and Johnson, 2004 ). Resilience involves the capacity of an individual teacher to harness personal and contextual resources to navigate through educational challenges and to facilitate the outcome of professional engagement, growth, commitment, enthusiasm, satisfaction, and wellbeing ( Beltman, 2015 ). In recent years, researchers have begun to conceptualize resilience from a social-ecological perspective, wherein resilience is defined as a set of behaviors over time that reflect the interactions between individuals and their environments, in particular the opportunities for personal growth that are available and accessible ( Ungar, 2012 ). Some authors speak of relational resilience ( Le Cornu, 2013 ; Gu, 2014 ): in particular, reciprocal and mutually supportive personal, professional and peer relationships are important in this process ( Sammons et al., 2007 ). The outcome is that teachers maintain job satisfaction and commitment to their profession ( Brunetti, 2006 ). Many authors do not explicitly examine resilience, but do address the question of what sustains teachers and what enables them to thrive rather than just survive. These papers could be grouped into three categories, each with a different focus: those emphasizing individual factors; contextual factors; and individual perceptions of, and responses to, the specific contexts of teacher work ( Beltman et al., 2011 ).

The urban suburbs are among the contexts considered at risk. If teaching is always difficult, it can be even more so in schools in these disadvantaged areas. In suburban schools, teachers have to deal with adolescents of lower socio-economic status who often experience distress in their personal lives as well as at school ( Sommantico et al., 2015 ; Pellerone et al., 2018 ; Lavy and Ayuob, 2019 ), and who have an internalized marginality which becomes a learned sense of powerlessness ( David, 2014 ). Teaching in these environments therefore means: interacting and connecting daily with young people who are struggling with problems and pain, as well as working to decrease educational wastage. In these environments, we find both material and educational poverty: the material poverty of one generation often causes the deprivation of educational opportunities for the next ( Jones, 2003 ; Lott, 2012 ; OCSE, 2015 ). In order to break this vicious circle, schools in deprived areas will need more funds and investments. In Italy, on the contrary, schools populated by disadvantaged students tend to have fewer resources ( OCSE-PISA, 2012 ). Consequently, we can identify a socio-economic map showing the distribution of young people with a serious deficiency in the fundamental skills needed to grow and work in the world, to which we can also add a map of early school leavers.

According to UNESCO (1972) , educational wastage is the combination of repeated grades and early school leaving. In Italy, this phenomenon reaches alarming levels: in 2014, the “Educational Wastage” Dossier complied by Ministry of Education, University and Research [MIUR] (2014) observed the presence of almost three million young people who did not complete upper secondary education. In 2015, Italy reduced the rate of early school leavers, although the percentage was still higher than the EU average ( Istat, 2015 ). Over time, experts have highlighted different causes for educational wastage. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, they focused especially on its socio-economic factors . In the ‘80s, they additionally considered some of the students’ subjective dimensions . Over the same period, researchers began studying the relational dimension concerning students and teachers: increased attention was paid to classroom management styles, to the active or passive role of the students, and to the language used in the educational environment ( Batini and Bartolucci, 2016 ). If we take this relational standpoint, we cannot speak of “wastage” in the singular, but rather of “wastages,” plural ( Perone, 2006 ), or of a wasteful system: the situation does not concern only those who leave school entirely, but also those who attend without learning, as in the case of in-school drop-outs ( Solomon, 1989 ). The waste is not limited to the potential of students: it also extends to the work of teachers and to school equipment ( Brimer and Pauli, 1971 ). Contributions from psychoanalysis, which study affective/emotional dynamics, processes of symbolization in inter-generational relationships, and relationships with institutions, belong to the same perspective ( Blandino and Granieri, 1995 ). Depending on the different theoretical approaches, a succession of interventions aimed at strengthening teaching have been employed over the years, for example through the repetition and simplification of the material being taught, as well as interventions aimed at motivating and re-motivating students. There have also been interventions aimed at improving the quality of the educational relationship , which encompassed a variety of the teacher’s relational skills, e.g., their emotional skills ( Nouwen et al., 2016 ; Molloy Elreda et al., 2019 ). Fewer studies have focused on the importance of developing resilience in teachers if they are, in turn, to foster this trait in students ( Bobek, 2002 ; Henderson and Milstein, 2003 ), even though resilience as a personal characteristic has been studied extensively in at-risk students ( McMillan and Reed, 1994 ; Johnson, 1997 ; Aronson, 2001 ). Day and Gu (2014) have cogently argued that “efforts to increase the quality of teaching and raise standards of learning and achievement for all pupils must focus on efforts to build, sustain and renew teacher resilience, and that these efforts must take place in initial teacher training” (p. 22).

The Work of the Association MdS to Contain Educational Wastage

The non-profit Association Maestri di Strada (MdS) was born in Naples in 2003 with the Chance Project, a second chance school for drop-outs, recognized as an “activity of excellence” by the European Union: MdS carries out complex socio-educational interventions inside and outside suburban schools, in order to prevent educational wastage and to promote social inclusion ( De Rosa et al., 2017 ). In the last 10 years, in line with several European approaches to reduce early school leaving ( Nouwen et al., 2016 ), MdS has chosen to work especially in schools in the eastern suburbs of Naples: they support teachers in the classroom and share different methods with them.

The environment of the eastern suburbs of Naples is characterized by social and economic marginality, unemployment, environmental neglect, a lack of public services, the widespread presence of organized crime, and educational wastage. In this context, teachers feel ineffective or powerless, and as if their job has lost meaning. It is not easy to work in these environments for MdS, either. The relationships with children, teenagers, families and teachers, all charged with problems and distress, are trying. It is just as stressful to connect with educational or political institutions, because it entails facing different forms of inflexibility. MdS takes care of the well-being of its partners and encourages their professional reflection , communication and cooperation through observations, narrations, and group meetings. Observation ( McMahon and Farnfield, 2010 ) is employed both for on-field educational activities and for reflective group meetings. All partners are also asked to write narrations about their work throughout the year. The multi-vision group ( Parrello et al., 2019b ) is the method chosen to support professional reflection: it was inspired by the Balint group ( Van Roy et al., 2015 ). The results of the Association’s efforts are encouraging: at the end of each school year, 90% of the kids they care for stay in school and succeed in moving on to the next school year ( Parrello, 2018 ).

Spending considerable time inside of schools, MdS partners become witnesses of the hardships of many teachers and suggest activities to support their work. For these reasons, MdS has chosen to offer teachers professional social support, to support their resilience, and to actively engage them through T-PAR methodology.

From the literature, it is known that teachers need social support, both internal and external to the school system. In fact, good professional relationships have a positive effect on well-being, sense of engagement, empowerment, self-efficacy and the resilience of teachers in their work ( Betoret, 2006 ; Halbesleben, 2006 ; Skaalvik and Skaalvik, 2009 ; Soini et al., 2010 ; Brouwers et al., 2011 ; Avanzi et al., 2018 ). The resilience of teachers is linked to the social support that they receive from colleagues, family and other professionals ( Stanford, 2001 ), as well as to a “relevant, rigorous and responsive” education ( Cefai and Cavioni, 2014 , p. 144). The T-PAR methodology is a form of teachers’ education via Action Research.

Action Research (AR), as it is known, is an investigation model whose main aim is to improve the future skills and activities of the researcher, rather than produce theoretical knowledge ( Lewin, 1948 ). In the ‘50s, Corey (1953) promoted AR in the United States in the field of education, gaining great cooperation from school districts and teachers: his method was later called Cooperative Action Research . At the end of the ‘60s, an international network of researchers created Participatory Action Research (PAR) in order to tackle various problems with disadvantaged members of society ( Susman and Evered, 1978 ; Hall, 1992 ; Fals-Borda, 2001 ; Kidd and Kral, 2005 ; Arcidiacono et al., 2016 ). McTaggart (1997) explains that the dual objective of PAR is, on the one hand, to intervene in the situation being researched, and, on the other, to change the researchers themselves, activating in them a process of transformation that will make them agents of their own changes. From then on, PAR has been applied to many fields and disciplines, and it has assumed a much more critical position with respect to the broader field of AR, given its specific objective of dealing with power imbalances that generate social and personal distress ( Arcidiacono et al., 2017 ; Stapleton, 2018 ). For this reason, the PAR method is thought to be particularly suited to the educational field (T-PAR), where power issues are a constant influence ( Jacobs, 2016 ). Hooks (1984) discusses the power issue found in traditional educational environments: there are power discrepancies between teacher and pupil that start with teachers grading their pupils; however, this power can be used in non-coercive ways to improve the learning process.

Teachers often perceive a divide between theory and practice, between being able to think and having to do, whereas in PAR, knowledge is built by the people involved in the research process, in a non-hierarchical, democratic environment which ultimately constitutes “a social enterprise” ( Savin-Baden and Wimpenny, 2007 ) that produces “a contextual knowledge” ( Pine, 2009 , p. 31). PAR can change both teachers and students, and also their mutual perception ( Brydon-Miller and Maguire, 2009 ) and the emotions dominating the classroom ( Hooks, 1994 ). Moreover, according to multiple authors, in-classroom research is in itself a way to promote self-reflection ( Schön, 1983 ; Alber and Nelson, 2002 ), improving the teachers’ self-awareness, their control over their emotions and actions and over their own power, thereby reducing the pressure created by the context and finding resources where they previously only saw limits. More specifically, reflection – as part of the PAR cycle – is a meta-cognitive process that consists of exploring personal beliefs, thoughts and actions in a deliberate, autobiographical, and critical way ( Marcosa et al., 2009 ). Thus, PAR is considered to be a powerful form of professional development for teachers ( Johnson and Button, 2000 ), who are nevertheless usually reluctant to participate in action research: they do not comprehend how research could improve their work, because they lack the knowledge and training to see the connection between theory and practice ( Bondy, 2001 ).

The PAR cycle is composed of the following phases: planning, action, reflection and evaluation. Some common characteristics of PARs are active participation, open-ended objectives and high levels of commitment ( Greenwood et al., 1993 ; Morales, 2016 ). Multiple authors report the following various benefits of action research, which often go beyond the goal of the research project: improved teaching practice; enhanced collegiality; feelings of closeness to one another after working on a group research project; and becoming more reflective about the improvement of student performance ( Glanz, 2003 ).

Materials and Methods

In the academic year 2017–2018, MdS carried out the T-PAR project “Crossing Educational Boundaries”: the title is a reference to the importance of making education “cross the boundary” and leave the outskirts of society’s interests; it also alludes to the necessity of going beyond physical and mental limits, thus letting professionals, disciplines and methods meet in a free and creative way.

These are the research questions that gave life to the project: do the teachers have resources to analyze the problematic situations they are immersed in and to build improvement strategies? Would a professional social support reinforce their resilience?

The objective was the following: to actively engage the teachers in order to generate hypotheses concerning the causes of educational wastage in their schools, and to work with them to plan new methods to lessen the problem.

Participants

The schools that participated are all located in the suburbs and have a high rate of educational wastage. 12 suburban schools participated, with about 200 teachers and 20 classes from different Italian cities: two metropolises (Rome, Naples), two medium-sized cities (Bologna, Florence), and two smaller provincial towns from the North and South (Rozzano, Sciacca). This paper will describe the first phase of the PAR project carried out in the first three participating schools – Rome, Bologna, Naples.

The School in Rome

Rome is a metropolis (population of city and provinces: almost four and a half million) in central Italy. The school that participated in the project is a Higher Technical Institute in a suburban area. The students are between 14 and 18 years old, and many do not obtain a high school diploma. Here, 15 teachers participated in the PAR.

The School in Bologna

Bologna is a medium-sized city (population of city and province: about 1 million) of Northern Italy. The school that participated in the project is a Lower Secondary School (students between 12 and 14 years old) located in a suburban area, where the teenagers attending are mostly children of immigrants. A few years ago, some Italian students also returned to the school, because the principal added a class with a curriculum using high-technology teaching. However, the result was a clear-cut separation between Italians and foreigners. Here, 14 teachers participated in the PAR.

The School in Naples

Naples is a metropolis (population of city and province: about 3 million) in Southern Italy. Its suburbs are known for the high rate of educational wastage, unemployment and organized crime. In this Lower Secondary School, teachers have been cooperating with MdS for some time, putting on workshops and accepting the help of its partners. This school’s biggest problem is educational wastage in its many forms. Here, 10 teachers participated in the PAR.

The project was presented to the school principals and teachers. MdS offered a preliminary time schedule, a team of the Association’s partners (pedagogues, psychologists, educators, workshop teachers, observers) and a “menu” of possible tools. The five phases of PAR have been planned and implemented, albeit in a specific way, in each school:

1. Planning: construction of a space – guided by a conductor of MdS – in which the teachers can meet to share experiences, think and plan freely.

2. Action: realization of educational actions (for example laboratories) guided by teachers with the support of MdS.

3. Reflection: construction of a space – guided by a conductor of MdS – to reflect together on the actions carried out.

4. Assessment: collection and analysis of materials useful for evaluating the path of PAR (for example observation reports); common discussion of the results.

5. New planning: formation of a group of teachers that, in collaboration with MdS, proposes prototypes of intervention.

In agreement with the teachers, all activities were observed by psychologists from the MdS Association, in the non-participant role ( Ahola and Lucas, 1981 ). Observation is used regularly by researchers to collect data in classrooms ( Kawulich, 2012 ). However, observing is not a natural ability, but rather the result of precise training: for this reason trained psychologists who belong to the association have been involved.

Observers were presented to teachers and students, explaining their role. They took notes during the observation. They had the task of observing freely, with particular regard to the activities and interactions that occurred in the setting: the non-verbal and verbal behaviors, and the conversations between participants.

However, the observer, whether he is aware of it or not, is a deformed and deforming mirror: some consider subjectivity as a risk to be avoided if possible because it is a source of error, while others see it as a resource, as a further component of cognition and therefore they consider subjectivity a main path to knowledge ( McMahon and Farnfield, 2010 ). To limit the threshold of subjectivity inherent in observation, they were asked to use denotative and descriptive language, referring to precise (not generic) situations. They were also asked to include direct speech in the written notes. They were asked to insert their own comments and report them as such.

Observation reports were read out to research participants after the activities. They were then analyzed in a descriptive and content-oriented way in order to report processes and outcomes resulting from phase 1–3 in each school. Then, the reports related to phases 1–3 were analyzed in a lexical-oriented perspective in order to be used as an input for discussion in phase 4.

In particular, the corpus composed of all reports from the three schools was subjected to textual analysis by ALCESTE software (Analyse des Lexèmes Co-occurrents dans les Énoncés d’un TExte) ( Reinert, 1990 , 1993 ). The adoption of computerized textual analysis software enables researchers to overcome several limitations that are likely to occur in the manual coding of text: the time-consuming nature of manual coding, the potential for rater bias, the reliability and accuracy of coding as a result of researcher fatigue, and the practical difficulties of coding large data sets ( Illia et al., 2012 ). It is noted that, on the other hand, this type of analysis reduces the complexity of the meaning making: the data obtained therefore only represent some aspects of this complexity. In particular, we chose the software ALCESTE (Analyse des Lexèmes Co-occurrents dans les Énoncés d’un TExte) ( Reinert, 1990 , 1993 ): it is an instrument of statistical analysis that explores the inner organization of a text through the concurrent presence or co-occurrence of several content words . The “positioning text analysis” makes it possible to make sense of a word based on its natural context. It is based on the fundamental assumption that “since the meaning of words is learned through reading and hearing them used in particular combinations, word co-occurrence is a suitable basis for representing meaning” ( Ocasio and Joseph, 2005 , p. 165). Discourse is conceived as a semantic space, and a word is considered based on the position it takes in this space. The use of ALCESTE is advisable for analyzing a set of data using a non-predefined dictionary which scans the entire text so as to include idiomatic language.

ALCESTE develops a spreadsheet with the list of words in the columns, and pieces of text or extracts in the rows (a typical extract – not necessarily corresponding to a set of sentences – is between 16 and 19 words long) and, based on this, produces a two-by-two matrix to identify classes of discourse which are very different. In technical terms this procedure is called “ hierarchical downward classification of words .” The software compares how words co-occur or do not co-occur in each extract and develops a classification tree that is descendant, since the whole text is divided first into two large classes of discourse, each with the most differentiated use of words. Then, for each of these two parts, the software again divides the text into two further parts, which are differentiated, certainly, but less so than the first ones. The software continues this classification until the differences among classes of discourse become too small to be significant. At this third step, the researcher does not yet interpret the results. Instead, next, ALCESTE begins co-occurrence analysis by benchmarking different parts of the text. This benchmark is developed two times, which provides a measure of stability for the comparison (stability index). Thus, here one gets a measure of stability for the descending hierarchical classification. A good measure of stability is said to have been obtained when about 70% 1 of the text is classified in the same way twice ( Illia et al., 2012 ). Only in the second phase of its process does ALCESTE analyze each part of the text separately. This has the added value of managing the potential for human bias in the interpretation of the results: ALCESTE does not impose an interpretation according to which one part of the text is considered different from or similar to others. The researcher analyses quotations only once they have been identified as being either typical or atypical of a specific co-use of words. To put it another way, when the researcher analyses the quotations, s/he does so based on a report of how the language in each quotation is different from or similar to the language used in other quotations. Thus, the human coding is guided by an informative report, and human bias is controlled ( Illia et al., 2012 ). The researcher receives a number of written or visual descriptions of the results. All of the elements listed below have been analyzed by the refinement process described above, until the meaning of each class is clear and the researcher gains a comprehensive understanding of how and why each cluster is distinct. This is the phase in which human interpretation takes place. In the classification tree or dendrogram, composed of macro-areas divided into stable clusters which correspond to lexical universes or “mental rooms” which the authors of the texts “enter” ( Reinert, 1993 ), the distance trees visually represent the descending hierarchical classification. Each cluster is characterized by a specific vocabulary , composed of words which recur significantly more frequently inside the corpus, and by a set of elementary context units ( ECUs ), obtained through the analysis of punctuation and length (fundamental statistical units for the software). In each cluster, the frequency of words is only a secondary parameter, as frequency is relevant only when it reveals that there is a more frequent use of certain words in a specific part of the text, compared with another part of the text. This is indicated by the Chi 2 for words in a class. The value of Chi 2 is not absolute; it can only be computed within each class. All words listed in the report are relevant for interpretation, even considering that a high positive Chi 2 indicates words that co-occur the most in a cluster ( Illia et al., 2012 ).

We will describe the phases of the PAR cycle carried out in each school: planning, action, and reflection. The fourth phase (evaluation) is common to all three schools.

Phase 1: Planning

The teachers decided to form discussion groups about educational wastage that also included the students, followed by workshops and, finally, new discussion groups to discuss the workshops. During the first meeting, the teachers started by describing the negative characteristics of their pupils: unenthusiastic, passive, inept, uninterested, lazy, dull, distracted, flat. The students were also described in the following terms: they have no passion, they don’t care about politics, they have no interests; they don’t know how to communicate with each other; they are atomized, isolated, and divided; they don’t form a group; they don’t know how to communicate with teachers; they have no perception of their limits and resources; they have an inaccurate perception of (the institution’s) space and time; they are often compliant with the teachers, but not genuine; they do not follow the rules. It is not clear whether the characteristics the teachers discussed are subjective or context-bound. Only one teacher said: “it’s weird; they shouldn’t be bored at that age.” Teachers also formulated some interesting theories on the learning/teaching process, along the lines of the following: there is no learning without relationships, but it’s difficult here; if a student has specific learning difficulties, the family has to be involved, although they don’t usually cooperate; the clever ones have to leave, or they’ll waste away. The desire/goal of the teachers is to create an environment of trust and an alliance with the pupils. They listed the educational strategies employed thus far, to no avail, and the obstacles they met. Then they recounted a fragment of daily life in the classroom: “During an hour of substitution, someone in class throws a shoe in the air. The teacher asks who’s to blame for this violent and irresponsible gesture. The class joins forces to keep the secret.” In the follow-up discussion, the teachers said they fear the aggressiveness of their students, and for this reason they try to avoid any possible conflict. But one teacher said, “In my opinion, there is no education without conflict.” Then, they discussed the chance offered by the project to become equipped with a tool for observation and reflection in order to understand why the strategies used thus far do not work.

Later on, the teachers introduced the project to their students. The first meeting with the students followed, where students described themselves as suburban teenagers: as suburban teenagers, different from city center teens. As they said, in the suburbs, you become autonomous early and you start working early; if you leave the suburbs, you’re in trouble; the suburbs are freedom and the center is a cage, but it’s also true that the suburbs have no rules and are out of control, while the center is protected and follows the rules. They also illustrated theories explaining what is wrong with school, according to them: they want privacy, while adults ask questions and then judge and punish them. Because of this, they hide from the adults; sometimes they pretend to be interested, but it’s difficult to have a real dialogue between students and teachers, because the distance is too great. They discussed at length the fact that the teachers address the students with “tu” (informal language) while demanding to be addressed with “lei” (formal language). The teachers actively underline their institutional role. One of the teachers does so aggressively, sarcastically making fun of the student who is talking. The students’ desire to not be treated like children and to have more independence and be less controlled emerged. Then came the recounting of a moment of daily school life: “the other day, two girls beat each other up in the hallway. The teachers decided to add more controlling rules applying to all students”; and “all field trips have been cancelled for lack of trust in the students, who are all considered irresponsible.” During the discussion, the students said that the teachers forget what it means to be teenagers and don’t give second chances, and that it would be good to have teachers who really care about the students and give second chances.

The next meeting began in the midst of many organizational hindrances. The atmosphere was chaotic. Nevertheless, the teachers managed to discuss the issues raised by the students; some teachers critiqued the lack of strictness of present-day schooling, by now “reduced to a playroom.” Afterward, they started planning some experimental educational approaches, trying to answer the question: why is it that not even workshop-based pedagogy is successful with students?

Teachers then decided to come up with the following: a workshop on aggressiveness and rules of conduct during law classes; a workshop on the use of technology during English classes; and a lesson “that allows the students to take time to make mistakes and correct them” during maths classes.

During the first meeting, the teachers started by describing the negative characteristics of their pupils: they are difficult, suburban kids who are left out, disowned and different. They communicate through physical violence, speak a different language, and have no self-awareness, nor awareness of time and space, but are receptive, sometimes accepting the teachers’ assistance, letting themselves be guided. Additionally, they immediately pointed out the school’s strengths: open and democratic management, good relationships between colleagues, the school’s participation in supply requests, funding, and services, new teachers being seen as a resource, and the welcoming and protective environment. The school’s problems then followed: too many students drop out of school in the transition to high school, there is aggressiveness in the classroom, and some teachers are insulted. Afterward, they recounted an educational experience carried out the previous year: the teachers offered the students a workshop about Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies . The goal was to make the students understand the importance of rules. Their evaluations of the experiment emerged during the discussion: what caused the failure of the workshop were language issues, infantility, and the pace of learning differing between pupils.

They also recounted an experience with the students’ parents: the Women’s School, aimed at teaching Italian to immigrant mothers. During the discussion, many doubts emerged over the usefulness of involving the parents in this way.

Finally, they described another educational experience: a workshop on the topic of violence against women, based on newspaper readings. During the discussion, the teachers reported to have observed the presence of widespread misogyny and of an alarming aggressive tendency in the classroom.

The teachers proposed to investigate the causes behind the academic failure and school wastage of their pupils, distributing questionnaires or collecting information post hoc . But the methodological proposal, which had initially excited the teachers, was then abandoned. Later on, the teachers decided to introduce interdisciplinary workshops: a workshop about the telegraph, as it is the ancestor of modern immediate, long-distance communication; a workshop teaching how to plan a trip to a foreign country; and a workshop teaching how to build polygons using plastic straws.

As already mentioned, in this Lower Secondary School, teachers have been cooperating with MdS for some time, offering workshops and accepting the help of its partners. Many times MdS has offered the school a reflective space for teachers, but opposition has been considerable. This school’s manifest problem is educational wastage in its many forms.

For the “Crossing Educational Boundaries” Project, we decided to observe some already-existing workshops, characterized by interactive methods and by the presence of a teacher, an expert on the subject, and an educator: a buoyancy workshop; a workshop about food composition; and a workshop about the food pyramid.

Phase 2: Action

Because of some new organizational issues, only one workshop was carried out: the one about aggression and rules of conduct, which used triggering images and created spaces of narration and discussion. The workshop was managed by an MdS pedagogue, but the teachers were present too. Some photos were projected: a picture of wolves baring their teeth but not attacking, and another of wolves playing. A debate arose among the students about the reasons behind animal and human aggression, about strategies to restrain it and control emotions, and about civilization and friendship.

All workshops were carried out and observed: the observer noticed that during the workshop involving learning the basics of the Morse alphabet, the students were divided into groups placed in different classrooms in order to try and communicate from a distance, and as a result many students were bored and some did not participate at all. During the workshop that involved a division into groups in order to use a computer to buy tickets, book accommodations, and plan museum visits and nights out, many conflicts erupted between single students or subgroups for the use of the computer, and some students did not participate at all. During the workshop consisting of building different polygons following the teacher’s instructions, using straws of different lengths, only one small group participated, while many students remained inactive.

The first workshop began in a situation of confusion that caused a strong emotional reaction of discouragement in the teacher: “I can’t do it anymore! I wasn’t trained to educate, it’s not my job! I’m sick and tired of shouldering the education of other people’s children!” The chaos continued: some pupils stood up and wandered around, some exited the classroom, some strangers entered, one threw pencils, another isolated himself, some provoked others. According to the observer, the teacher became cynical with some students, mocking them for their physical features or for their mistakes. Then she managed to restore calm, and demanded loudly for the approval of the MdS partners: “Here, see, I shut them up.” In the second workshop, we found the same chaos, but here one of the students intervened to restore calm: “Shut up, we can’t work like this!” After a while, the chaos started again: some left the class, some entered, some joked around, some threw things, some ate, some used mobile phones, some ruined the others’ project. At this point, the teacher had a strong emotional reaction and started screaming in turn. The observer noted that when no adult in the classroom decides to stop the actions and talk to the students, chaos grows and the adults explode; when the educator intervenes by stopping the action and listening to the kids, calm is restored.

Phase 3: Reflection

During the final discussion, the teachers expressed their opinions: the workshop worked, but they don’t have time to do things like that, because they have to follow the syllabus. A single teacher says: “Actually, we could, we are free to choose.”

At the end of the workshops in this school, the teachers entrusted the reflection to their students. The observer commented that “they seem to struggle to talk about what they feel more than what they know.” Finally, the students said that working in groups is at the same time more tiring and more fun, and that they lacked the time to finish the workshop because the bell rang. A young girl said that today she felt good at school, she felt like she was at home.

After many organizational issues, the teachers suspended the research activities.

A discussion meeting is held with teachers and students, in order to reflect on the workshops’ progress: the teachers decided to assign some students the task of cooperating and maintaining order, so that they are responsible. A third workshop started peacefully, then the usual chaos began. The teacher left the class often. This time, the educator took it upon herself to talk to the kids to make them reflect on what was happening and on a sense of the rules for working in a group.

A new discussion with the students followed, where they discussed their own self-representation: some kids said that they are seen as “monsters,” and that it’s true they are “monsters,” and that is why there is an observer.

During the final discussion, the teachers suggested to pupils that they keep diaries about what happens in class, to discuss them together later, but the kids say they don’t want to write negative things about their classmates. During the last group discussion, the students gave their evaluation of the workshop activities they took part in, using words like: nice, bad, tranquillity, serenity, happiness, relaxing. A girl adds: “I felt good, like at home.”

In this school as well, after some organizational issues, the research activities were temporarily suspended.

Phase 4: Evaluation

Subsequently, MdS decided – together with the teachers – to entrust a team of external researchers with the textual analysis of the corpus composed of the observational reports. The initial results have been discussed with the teachers from all schools on the occasion of the International Convention “Crossing Educational Boundaries,” held in Naples in October 2017.

The corpus – composed of 18 observational reports – was pre-processed, as it underwent disambiguation and partial lemmatization . Each text was marked by three illustrative variables : city (Roma, Bologna, Napoli), type of school (Lower or Upper Secondary), and type of activity (discussion or workshop). The analyzed characteristics of the textual corpus are illustrated in Table 1 .

Table 1. Textual corpus: quantitative characteristics.

The analysis classified 511 ECUs out of the 732 detected (stability index 69.81%), divided in two macro-areas (A. Students; B. Teachers) and four stable clusters, as shown in the dendrogram of ECU classification (see Figure 1 ). For each cluster, the number and percentage of ECUs were indicated (see Table 2 ). Each cluster was assigned a thematic label on the basis of the specific vocabularies and of the most significant ECUs . Specific vocabularies and illustrative variables of clusters are illustrated in Table 2 . 2

Figure 1. Descending hierarchical classification.

Table 2. Clusters: specific vocabularies a and illustrative variables.

I Macro-Area

The first macro-area identified by ALCESTE contains clusters 1 and 4, regarding, respectively, the words and actions of the students.

Cluster 1 – The students’ discourse on marginality (146 ECUs) (28.57%)

The specific vocabulary of Cluster 1 (see Table 2 ) contains many names of the students 3 who participated in the discussion, and shows their self-representation as linked to the suburb they live in, with all its contradictions. The suburb – compared with the center – is considered a place of freedom, where it is easy to make friends, but also a cage with no institutional control. In school, they feel ill at ease, but this truth is hidden, because they pretend. Addressing teachers with “lei” (Italian formal language) creates too much distance in their relationship, and does not make them feel close. The associated illustrative variables show a significant correlation (see Table 2 ) with the school in Rome, where the students are older.

The content of the cluster becomes clearer by reading the specific ECUs:

1. “I have a friend of mine who used to live in the center and let’s say he was a normal person,” says Antonio, “now this friend of mine went to live in Prima Valle (suburban neighborhood) and yeah, I mean, he’s in trouble.”

2. “He recognized him because he has the double haircut, like the one I have …” says Stefano, tilting his head and showing off his nice haircut: “the double cut means you’re not from the center, that you’re an outsider. So, they recognized him and stabbed him!”

3. “In the suburbs, it’s easier for a kid to become autonomous on their own, of course! Because we grow up faster,” continues Fabrizio. “In these places, though, many kids find themselves forced to find personal autonomy far too soon.”

4. “It’s not like it’s easy to talk here at school,” Luigi tells us. “For example, I can’t stand having to address the teachers with ‘lei’: I think it would be much better to address them with ‘tu,’ because in this way I’d feel that they were closer and we could form a deep bond, of true friendship, or nearly so.”

5. “But me, in these kind of moments I don’t feel like saying anything, I just wanna stay quiet, by myself.”

6. “Sometimes I feel a bit bad, I feel down and I don’t feel like telling the reason why, or like saying what I feel, because maybe I don’t even really know.”

7. “From TV, from the internet, from friends, from teachers, even from our parents: they’re all there, telling us what to do, what to say and what to wear, sometimes it’s a good thing, but sometimes it’s bad. It’s good when people really care about us and can give us real directions, while still leaving us the freedom to choose.”

In Cluster 1’s most significant ECUs, some additional features of student self-representation emerge: exterior features, violent conflict between neighborhoods, and early autonomy outside the school. Students emphasize difficult communication with teachers. They emphasize this difficult communication with teachers, but also express the desire to be guided by adults who are authentically interested: “it’s good when people really care about us and can give us real directions, while still leaving us the freedom to choose.”

The illustrative variables associated with this cluster show that the discourse is, above all, from the older students and takes place during the workshops (presumably the narrative laboratory on aggressiveness).

Cluster 4 – The students’ behavior between disorder and attentiveness (139 ECUs) (27.20%)

Cluster 4’s specific vocabulary (see Table 2 ) contains numerous references to the workshop activities carried out in class (see illustrative variables associated). The names of students, teachers, and MdS educators are repeatedly mentioned; there are many verbs indicating activity and movement, and some words that explicitly refer to space and activities (such as to do, to begin, to enter, to re-exit, to go out, to come, to sit down, to get up, to arrive, to play, to bring, to throw). There are also many temporal indexes (like now, minutes, while, after, often); some words describe the atmosphere during the workshop, constantly alternating between chaos and involvement (like confusion, calm, disorder, attention, silence).

In Cluster 4’s most significant ECUs, we see clearly the constant attention swings of the class:

1. The kids stay enthusiastic about the experiments and explanations, which are not abstract but refer to their daily life, to concrete and practical examples. Massimo often leaves his desk, not to disrupt the class, but to see from up close what Barbara (workshop teacher) does. The kids are interested, they participate and ask questions, but the kid from before enters again and brings Luca a sandwich.

2. After 5 min they begin to pay attention. Then confusion starts again, so Barbara (workshop teacher) and Tonia (educator) raise their voices. No effect. So they change strategy, Barbara stays silent and Tonia tries to reason with the class about what is happening.

3. Now the (class’) teacher, who had left for 5 min, returns, and silence falls after her reprimand.

4. Massimo is interested, again he stands up and goes to see the experiment from up close, following Barbara (workshop teacher) while she walks among the desks. Tonia (educator) starts explaining from desk to desk, and as soon as she leaves Rosa’s table, she stands up. The group collapses, Rosa moves to a different desk, Enrico touches everything, Tina leaves the classroom.

5. During the distribution of the newspapers there is great confusion. Barbara (workshop teacher) talks, the kids stand up, tear the newspapers out of each other’s hands, the (class’) teacher tries to restore order by yelling and clapping her hands, while Tonia (educator) starts explaining the activity.

6. A great step forward was taken in such a short time. Even Mariarca raises her hand to be allowed to talk. Giuseppe enters the class again, I’m afraid he could bring chaos into this idyllic moment, but he leaves immediately, without creating confusion, because no one minds his presence, everyone stays seated in silence.

II Macro-Area

The second macro-area identified by the semantic-structural analysis contains clusters 2 and 3, regarding, respectively, the words and actions of the teachers.

Cluster 2 – The teachers’ discourse on difficulties (182 ECUs) (35.62%)

The specific vocabulary of Cluster 2 (see Table 2 ) contains the teachers’ words, uttered during the discussion groups (see also the associated illustrative variable). The teachers discussed their professional difficulties, related to the school and to the neighborhood. In particular, they focused on the students’ lack of skills, knowledge, awareness, curiosity and spontaneity, and on the need to understand and improve their relationship with them in order to better support their development and learning. Subsequently, the teachers discussed how they can participate in this research in its many possible forms, such as by creating questionnaires and working in groups; they discussed the time they would need, and the topics and experiences that might make sense for them and help them.

1. Here, kids have a strong neighborhood identity. Their difficulties are due to the context of their origins, but not exclusively to that: the teachers unanimously agree on the matter.

2. The kids lack self-awareness, and awareness of their talents, their limits, their resources, and of their altered perception of space and time. The teachers continue working on an atmosphere of trust for the development of these skills, trying to build an alliance, or a pact, through alternative teaching activities, but to no avail.

3. There is a need for constant updates, because those who have been in the school system for a long time tend to consider some behaviors as natural and fail to embrace new ones. Some of the new teachers are a resource.

4. The professors think that a practice involving constant research and planning would be indispensable in order to be able to understand social changes.

5. The objective is to find a common language, improving communication with the class. All teachers make efforts every day to create a connection, but it is hard and the results are discouraging; nevertheless, they think it is possible.

In Cluster 2’s most significant ECUs, we see clearly some of the teachers’ ideas: in these schools, the kids have a strong sense of suburban identity, which causes some of their difficulties. There have been many tests of alternative teaching methods, aimed at creating an alliance with the students, but to no avail. Finally, there is a need for constant updates and research, especially for those who have been in the school system for a long time. Despite the discouragement, the teachers believe that change is possible.

Cluster 3 – The teachers’ behavior in the organization (44 ECUs) (8.61%)

Cluster 3 is the quantitatively least vast. Its specific vocabulary (see Table 2 ) contains references to the active organization of the research: dates, hours, setting (project, meeting, workshops, etc.), dynamic verbs (to bring about), verbs in the future tense (it will be, they will be), partners to involve (observer, educator), methods (experimentation, workshop observation), criteria for the choice of the classes to involve (to define), and accurate definition of the final phase (feedback, fulfilment, reflections, etc.).

The elementary context units specific to this cluster show commitment to the organization, but also some hindrances that stop the teachers from always being present during the activities they planned:

1. We organize the on-field work with the teachers present, and we co-plan the experimental teaching activities that will be offered to the different classes involved in the project.

2. The teachers seem available to start the experimental activities we agreed upon, and to establish the dates of the meetings over the telephone.

3. We will observe some classes held by the teacher, looking for answers about the main topics that emerged during the discussion.

4. Because of school obligations, the teachers S and P cannot take part in the meeting of February 14th.

5. Today the teachers are unavailable, because of the concurrence of another project.

Phase 5: New Planning

After the presentation of the results of this research to all the schools involved in this PAR, on the occasion of the aforementioned international convention, a small group of teachers discussed and planned, in cooperation with MdS, an intervention prototype: S.A.P.E.R.E. 4 (Open Space for Planning And Educational Research). These prototypes are intended to defend resilience through collegiality and self-reflection: they are, in fact, groups of school teachers, educators and psychologists in the association who meet periodically for multi-vision meetings. The multi-vision group is a reflective methodology already successfully used by MdS partners ( Parrello et al., 2019b ). These prototypes are currently active in some schools in the Neapolitan suburbs, where the Association has made available its economic and professional resources.

This research is part of the many actions undertaken by MdS in order to contain the phenomenon of educational wastage in its multiple forms.

In deprived environments, school can be an important opportunity for development and social inclusion; instead, it often fails, as shown by the available data. In order to understand the reasons behind this partial failure, MdS deems it essential to actively involve the “main characters” of school life, equipping them with the resources necessary to produce potential change.

Following the theoretical perspectives that see educational wastage mainly as the effect of inadequate relationships, MdS has long since chosen the path of “taking care of the carers,” that is, to deal with the well-being of the adults responsible for educating the youth.

This project was born out of the experience gained in many Italian suburban schools: here – as it is also known from the literature – the difficulties of the students, and the high dispersion rate, make teachers feel ineffective or, worse, powerless, thus reducing their well-being at work and triggering a negative cycle damaging their educational performances.

T-PAR is a powerful form of professional development for teachers: it actively involves them, improving their awareness of themselves, of their emotions and actions, and of their power in that environment. However, T-PAR is not easily realized in schools: in the first place, because its multiple, open-ended goals would require the availability of the educational institution to accept modifications and unexpected changes. Secondly, because, in the beginning, it adds to the workload of the teachers without offering immediate advantages; and thirdly, because it can necessitate additional funding along the way, according to the paths undertaken. For these reasons, the first result to be emphasized here is therefore the realization of T-PAR in all its phases. In particular, the initial engagement phase was rather delicate: it was necessary to prevent the teachers from perceiving the research as if it were imposed by their superiors requesting their voluntary participation. The largest phase was planning in all schools, while the action phase has often encountered organizational obstacles, and the phase of reflection was always very short. But all phases – with their strengths and difficulties – were implemented in each school and documented by the observational reports.

In particular, in the school in Rome, the teachers decided to let the students talk from the start. This is an important, infrequent choice that involves students, and it allows the comparison of the discourses of adults and teenagers. Both ascribe the causes of academic failure to a difficult educational relationship and to lack of communication, but end up blaming each other for it; both complain about the strict limits of the institution. Both wish to find a way to communicate and change some of the school’s rules. A single teacher – a voice from outside the box – ultimately reminds the colleagues: “we are free to choose!” In the school in Bologna, the teachers reported impeccable functioning, and focused on the different features of workshop-based pedagogy, potentially able to create a serene climate in which learning is made easier. In the school in Naples, the well-established habit of being observed for MdS projects allowed the teachers to show their own strong emotional reactions, caused by the constant oscillation of the classes between chaos and attention. The discouraged teacher said, “I wasn’t trained to educate, it’s not my job!” Each school therefore seems to give emphasis to one aspect: the active involvement of students as co-researchers ( Fielding, 2004 ), attention to alternative pedagogy ( Esi, 2015 ), and/or the importance of the teacher’s emotional competence ( Nouwen et al., 2016 ).

The semantic-structural analyses of the observational reports highlight additional important elements.

The students’ discourse (cluster 1) underlines the specificity of the environment. The suburb – compared with the center – is considered a place of freedom, a place which requires early autonomy, but is also a cage: some kids say that those who tried to “trespass” ended up in danger. In school they are not at ease, but they pretend. They emphasize difficult communication with teachers. They would like less controlling and more authentically interested teachers. In workshops, their behavior is inconsistent (cluster 4): they swing continuously from moments of attention and participation to moments of indifference and disruptive action; they are able to undertake the work, but they either do not want or cannot devote themselves to it with consistency. Perhaps even in the workshops realized in the three schools, where there is no asymmetry caused by the frontal lesson format, the issue of who controls and holds the power never disappears, and therefore ultimately carries weight. The teachers’ discourse (cluster 2) underlines the specificity of the environment, too: in the suburbs, it is difficult to teach and to apply theories, because it is hard to build a good educational relationship; here, according to the teachers, young people seem to have no awareness of their limits and possibilities, and they take a defensive stance, in order to oppose or to attack the adults. The observation of teachers’ behavior (cluster 3) shows how difficult it is to free themselves from the rigid and careless mechanism of the institution; organizational problems arise constantly, impeding full participation in the research. In all clusters, the lack of emotional vocabulary is striking. Teachers and students never mention emotions, while – as we have seen – the observers record multiple instances of behaviors definable as “acting out”: sarcastic displays, shouting, people leaving the classroom, disrupting actions from adults and adolescents alike.

These results suggest that, as assumed, the teachers used the professional support offered by MdS and their resources to analyze the problematic situations in which they are immersed. The general objective of the project was achieved, and hypotheses have been generated regarding the causes of educational wastage, identifying two potential areas of intervention: the improvement of teacher-student communication and of emotional competence. The second objective of the project was reached by a small group of teachers from various schools who, after the evaluation phase, started to plan actions to reduce the problem. Are they particularly “resilient” teachers? Remembering that resilience involves the capacity of an individual teacher to harness personal and contextual resources to navigate through educational challenges, we wonder if the project has supported their resilience and why it has failed to involve all the other teachers in the final phase (phase 5). In the context of the teaching profession, resilience may be conceptualized as a capacity, a process and also as an outcome: a dynamic process whereby characteristics of individual teachers and of their personal and professional contexts interact over time as teachers use specific strategies ( Beltman, 2015 ). In particular, time and its management are fundamental resources: the most common professional challenge is lack of time due to heavy workloads and non-teaching duties such as paperwork or meetings ( Castro et al., 2009 ; Beltman et al., 2011 ). The teachers denounced the “dual level” of the institutional mandate: the organization is separated from the exigencies of the educational relationship; and its scheduling and regulations fail to take into account the specificities of individuals and contexts, and are more and more oriented toward formality. Ultimately, school tends to hinder change. But, according to Enriquez (1972) , the institution can become the place to cling onto in order to defend oneself from multiple anxieties.

“It follows that when the defensive component prevails, norms, role, schedules, technologies, etc., are used not as tools of work and development, but with the aim of never changing, of controlling everything and expecting everything, so to prevent the unexpected, or change, from creating anxiety. (…) Within organizations, everything is planned and thought-out (and happens consciously) as if the members and their relationships were moved solely by ideas and rational moments (…). However, in school there are also emotional, libidinal, affective factors (…). If the effect of these feelings over whether we support or obstruct each other in our cooperation and partnership with colleagues and pupils are not recognized, not only do we lose an occasion to work creatively, that is, to learn, but above all we contribute to keep the Institution unchangeable, namely we contribute to represent its defensive feature” ( Blandino and Granieri, 1995 , 95–96).

Ultimately, school is a place of paradoxes and contradictions. In order to avoid sacrificing any needs of the people and of the institution, pupils and teachers become masters of balancing acts: oscillating between participation and absence, cooperation and insubordination. However, this incessant oscillation can be seen in a positive perspective, as the attempt of both adults and young people to live within the school authentically, voicing their ambivalence. Of course, it is an attempt that requires energy and does not change the institution.

In conclusion, the results of this phase of the research contribute to the construction of a more precise picture of the situation of suburban schools, where the rates of educational wastage are high: the teachers who participated in our T-PAR are prepared on a theoretical level, are sensitive to the many problems of their pupils, and feel responsible as educators, but are also very distressed by the formal requests of the educational institution. In these conditions, they struggle to put their theoretical preparation to use, and fail to gain the trust of these young people and to give meaning to their job. What they get in return is a state of dissatisfaction that threatens their resilience.

Caring for horizontal and vertical relationships, the construction of an atmosphere of community within the school, and systematic reflection that gives space to the emotional and unconscious world should all be at the center of any project against educational wastage.

Limits and Prospects

The specific limitations of this study involve the use of a single tool monitoring the intervention, that is observation, and the use of a single type of analysis. It would also be useful to complete this study by adding different analyses of the other schools’ research material.

In any case, these initial results propose school policies not limited to broadening the curriculum of suburban schools at risk of educational wastage: there is, additionally, the need to use further resources to improve the educational environment and to allow the teachers to systematically exercise professional self-reflection. To do so, it would be very useful to monitor the phase of research currently underway, which is the realization of intervention prototypes based on the use of reflective tools, in turn based on the model of the multi-vision group of MdS.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated for this study are available upon request from the corresponding author.

Ethics Statement

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Declaration of Helsinki, and was approved by the Ethical Committee for Psychological Research (CERP) of the Department of Humanities of the University of Naples Federico II, prot. number 24/2019. The minors involved were only taking part in school activities that were included by the schools in their learning programs; the schools obtained an oral informed consent from the families at the beginning of the year. The CERP did not request further parental consent.

Author Contributions

SP and CM designed the study and supervised the research. SP, II, and FC analyzed the data and wrote up the first draft of the manuscript. All authors interpreted the results, and approved the final version of the manuscript.

This work was partially funded by MIUR, the Italian Ministry of Education and Research.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Action Research

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Action Research is an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal, which is a forum for the development of the theory and practice of action research.

The aim of the journal is to offer a viable alternative to dominant 'disinterested' models of social science, one that is relevant to people in the conduct of their lives, their organizations and their communities.

The journal publishes quality articles on accounts of action research projects, explorations in the philosophy and methodology of action research, and considerations of the nature of quality in action research practice.

" Action Research offers a greatly-needed forum at a time of growing recognition around the world that engagements between researchers and practitioners are central to generating both new knowledge and innovations in practice relevant to many critical problems." L. David Brown , Harvard University, USA

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Action Research is a new international, interdisciplinary, refereed journal which is a forum for the development of the theory and practice of action research.

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v.24(1); 2022 Jan

Best Practices and Lessons Learned for Action Research in eHealth Design and Implementation: Literature Review

Kira oberschmidt.

1 eHealth Cluster, Roessingh Research and Development, Enschede, Netherlands

2 Biomedical Signals and Systems Group, University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands

Christiane Grünloh

Femke nijboer, lex van velsen, associated data.

Full overview of all categories and description of settings for each category.

Full list of categories per setting variable.

Action research (AR) is an established research framework to introduce change in a community following a cyclical approach and involving stakeholders as coresearchers in the process. In recent years, it has also been used for eHealth development. However, little is known about the best practices and lessons learned from using AR for eHealth development.

This literature review aims to provide more knowledge on the best practices and lessons learned from eHealth AR studies. Additionally, an overview of the context in which AR eHealth studies take place is given.

A semisystematic review of 44 papers reporting on 40 different AR projects was conducted to identify the best practices and lessons learned in the research studies while accounting for the particular contextual setting and used AR approach.

Recommendations include paying attention to the training of stakeholders’ academic skills, as well as the various roles and tasks of action researchers. The studies also highlight the need for constant reflection and accessible dissemination suiting the target group.

Conclusions

This literature review identified room for improvements regarding communicating and specifying the particular AR definition and applied approach.

Introduction

The way health care is organized and executed is of great societal concern, as it affects our quality of life. Hence, health care systems and eHealth technologies used to support health care should be designed in a way that meets the needs and expectations of their stakeholders. One way of doing this is through action research (AR). According to Bradbury and Lifvergren [ 1 ], AR in health care “seeks to (1) improve patient experiences and the health of populations, (2) reduce the per capita cost, (3) improve the work life of those who deliver care, and (4) bring health care providers into circumstances that allow for continuous learning together with patients.” AR has been used as a research framework in nursing and health care, for example, to improve the quality of patient care and investigate changes in action [ 2 ]. AR is a collaborative approach, where people affected by the change envisioned in AR become active members of the research team. AR is often used in the design of eHealth systems. However, existing literature reviews of AR in eHealth predominantly focus on the development of new frameworks [ 3 - 5 ] but not on how eHealth AR is currently carried out. Therefore, this literature review outlines the state of the art of AR in eHealth design.

eHealth projects cover a wide variety of topics and technologies and can therefore greatly benefit patients, professionals, and many other health care stakeholders. However, to gain the most from eHealth systems and technologies, it is crucial that they match with what is needed in practice [ 6 ]. To ensure such a match, Van Gemert-Pijnen and colleagues [ 6 ] suggest, among other things, working together with relevant stakeholders in all stages of the project, implementing the study results in practice, and continuously evaluating the process. Similarly, co-design has been mentioned as a useful technique for creating eHealth systems that suit the needs of the end users [ 3 ]. These ideas fit well with the principles of AR, which will be outlined below.

Definitions of AR have changed over the years. AR originated with Kurt Lewin [ 7 ], who described it as several consecutive circles of planning, action, and reflection. These cycles are shown in Figure 1 , developed by Williamson and colleagues [ 2 ]. In later definitions, the cyclical nature of AR remains one of its key features. Reason and Bradbury [ 8 ], who build on Lewin’s work, define AR as research that (1) involves stakeholders not only as participants but also as members of the research team, (2) consists of (at least) 1 cycle of planning, action, and reflection, (3) establishes direct changes, and (4) then evaluates those changes in and with the community. Their work [ 8 ] includes many interesting examples of AR from various fields. Furthermore, Bradbury and colleagues defined 7 “choice points for quality in action research” [ 9 ], criteria that can be used to plan, conduct, report, and assess AR projects .

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Action research cycles (adapted from Kurt Lewin [ 7 ] by Williamson and colleagues [ 2 ]).

Within AR, different variations exist, such as action design research (ADR) or participatory action research (PAR). Usually, there is agreement on the main principles of AR explained earlier, but some authors or groups emphasize some aspects over others. For example, as the name suggests, ADR incorporates elements of design research into AR [ 10 ], whereas PAR highlights the involvement of the community [ 11 ]. For a more detailed overview of the similarities and differences between some of these approaches, see Williamson et al [ 2 ] or Coghlan and Brannick [ 11 ].

In general, AR and AR approaches such as ADR are similar to participatory design (PD) approaches that are used in human computer interaction (HCI) research. However, AR emphasizes reflection on and learning from the process that was carried out, whereas the main aim of PD is to create a solution [ 12 ]. AR, as opposed to PD, does not start with a clear goal of what needs to be developed but defines this throughout the process together with stakeholders. Additionally, AR is more immersive and calls for stakeholder involvement for a longer period of time due to its iterative cycles [ 13 ]. Nevertheless, in some cases, studies that are described as PD-related ones also meet Reason and Bradbury’s criteria [ 8 ] for AR [ 14 ]. Hayes [ 12 ] argues that AR and HCI research can supplement each other, as both often provide solutions on a local scale. As Hughes [ 15 ] describes, there is no standard way of implementing AR in health care due to the broadness of the field. Instead, there is a variety regarding the why, how, and with whom AR in health care is carried out [ 15 , 16 ]. For example, levels of stakeholder engagement and the context in which AR takes place can vary [ 16 ]. Other differences among AR studies include the topic, country, project duration, main target group, and methods used. Therefore, these aspects are considered in this review. The purpose of this review is to give an overview of the current literature on eHealth AR and summarize the best practices and points of improvement for future eHealth AR projects. Special attention is paid to the contextual variables of the research (eg, setting, duration, number of stakeholders), as this is expected to influence the outcomes, best practices, and points of improvement of a study. To provide an overview of AR in eHealth, this literature review addresses the following subquestions:

What is the context of AR eHealth projects?
How do eHealth AR studies define and operationalize AR?
What are the best practices for conducting AR in concrete eHealth studies?
What are the lessons learned from conducting AR in concrete eHealth studies?

Study Selection and Screening

The search was carried out in June 2020. PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar were searched using combinations of the search terms “action research” or “participatory design” and “eHealth,” “health technology,” “digital health,” or “telemedicine.” PubMed was chosen for its extensive medical database, and Scopus and Google Scholar were chosen as large scientific databases. Searching for “action research” turns up articles that include similar and related keywords like “participatory action research,” “action design research,” or “action-based research.” “Participatory design” was included as a search term because PD has significant overlap with AR, and both are sometimes used to supplement each other. The list of synonyms for “eHealth,” although not exhaustive, is expected to cover the various facets of the field. The initial search yielded 739 results. Articles were included if they (1) used and explicitly mentioned AR and (2) were about eHealth or health technology. Papers were excluded if they (1) were not written in English, (2) only included a study protocol but did not report results, or (3) only included a review of other articles. Full-text screening of the same 15 articles was performed by 2 authors (KO and CG); the authors discussed whether to include the studies until an agreement was reached. Next, the first author screened the full texts of the remaining articles, with some exceptions where a second opinion was necessary. These were again discussed between the first and second authors until an agreement was reached. Ultimately, 44 articles were included, reporting on 40 different projects. Figure 2 shows the flowchart of the inclusion process.

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Inclusion flowchart of the literature search and screening process.

Data Extraction

For each study, the definition of AR that was provided by the authors, and the related AR approaches that they cited (if any) were extracted. Additionally, information about contextual variables of the study was derived. Specifically, we identified the topic, country, organizational context, project duration, types of stakeholders involved, the main target group of the research, and methods used. The types of involved stakeholders were grouped according to the framework described by Schiller et al [ 17 ], in which they define the main stakeholder categories as the public, policy makers, and governments, the research community, practitioners and professionals, health and social service providers, civil society organizations, and private businesses. Finally, the best practices and lessons learned were derived. The best practices and lessons learned were activities that could move forward and benefit the AR project, without necessarily being recognized as standard components of AR. The difference between what was seen as a best practice and as a lesson learned was based on the timing and reporting of these actions. An activity was labeled as a best practice if researchers already planned their project with this in mind (eg, mentioning it in the description of the methods). On the other hand, lessons learned were those points that researchers came to know during their project, which were reported mainly in the discussion section. From the first 5 articles, the best practices and lessons learned were extracted by 2 authors (KO and CG), and they compared their results. The remaining data were extracted by 1 author (KO) in consultation with the second author where a second opinion was necessary. Furthermore, 5 authors published not 1 but 2 papers about their project. For these papers, the same study context was described whereas the definition of and approach to AR and the best practices and lessons learned were reported separately, as these sometimes differed between the articles. A reflection on 2 projects was included in 1 article. In this case, each project context was reported separately whereas only 1 AR definition and approach as well as one set of best practices and lessons learned were outlined.

A general overview of all the included studies describing the AR approach, AR definition, and contextual variables was obtained. The contextual variables (topic, location, target group, stakeholders, duration, and methods used) were categorized. Furthermore, the studies were mapped in a matrix based on the study duration and the types and number of different stakeholders that participated in the study. The contextual data were coded and categorized inductively. To identify which AR approach was the most used, the citation frequency of each approach in the included studies was recorded. Furthermore, the cited AR approaches that were available were accessed and checked for cross-referencing. All cited AR definitions were mapped to show the relationship between them. The AR definitions used, best practices, and lessons learned were coded by 1 author (KO). The best practices and lessons learned were coded individually first and then combined for both categories.

The setting of the included studies was described based on 6 categories (topic, location, duration, involved stakeholders, target group, and methods). Multimedia Appendix 1 presents all the categories and the description of the setting for each study. The most common aspects of each category will be discussed below.

We identified 9 broader categories of the research topics in the 44 included studies (see Table 2.1 in Multimedia Appendix 2 for the full list). The most common were home care and telemonitoring, and health promotion and education (both n=8), followed by electronic medical records and health information systems (n=7), and mental health services (n=5).

The studies were set in 21 different countries, Australia being the most common (n=5) followed by the United States (n=4) and Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (all n=3). Some studies from nonwestern countries, like Tanzania or Colombia were included, but no country was represented more than once or twice. Within the different countries, studies took place in various contexts, the most prevalent of which were rural areas (n=6) and hospitals (n=5). All contexts and countries can be found in Tables 2.2 and 2.3 of Multimedia Appendix 2 .

Target Groups

Among the 44 studies, 2 studies explicitly focused on 2 different target groups at the same time, whereas all other studies had 1 main target group. In most cases, the target groups were patients (n=11). Of these, the most common group was patients with cancer (n=3). There were 6 studies each focusing on clinicians as well as children and young adults, and 5 studies targeted older adults (see Table 2.4 in Multimedia Appendix 2 for the full list of target groups).

Stakeholders

In many cases, several stakeholders were included in the study, up to 6 different types of stakeholders included in some cases. In summary, 20 different types of stakeholders were involved (see Table 2.5 in Multimedia Appendix 2 for the full list). Health care workers (n=18) and patients and their representatives (n=12) were involved the most, followed by governmental bodies (n=9) and general nonmedical staff members (n=8). When clustering these stakeholder types according to the framework defined by Schiller and colleagues [ 17 ], the largest group consisted of practitioners and professionals (n=48), followed by members of the public (n=38). Policy makers and government bodies (n=13), the research community (n=10), private businesses (n=6), and civil society organizations (n=3) were represented less often. The only group that was not represented at all included health and social service providers.

Not all of the 44 studies reported the duration of the project (n=7). Studies that did report the duration (n=33) lasted from a few months (n=5) to more than 10 years (n=2). The majority (n=13) of these studies reported a project duration between 2 and 3 years, and the average project duration was 2.7 years. Figure 3 shows the distribution of the 10 most frequently involved types of stakeholders for the different project durations in the 33 projects that reported the project duration. Stakeholder types are shown in the order of how many times they were involved in total; however, because some studies did not report project durations, the numbers in this graph differ from those described above. The 2 biggest stakeholder groups, health care workers and patients, were rarely, or in the case of patients even not at all, involved in long-term studies.

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Heat map showing the most commonly involved types of stakeholders against the project duration.

In Figure 4 , the study duration is mapped against the number of different stakeholders that were involved in each of the 33 projects that reported a project duration. Studies that did not report the overall project duration are not included in the figure. Most of the included studies lasted for up to 2 years, including 2 or 3 stakeholder groups. There are some longer studies including more stakeholder groups.

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Heat map showing the number of stakeholders involved against the project duration.

Research Methods Used

As mentioned earlier, AR is a framework that does not advise the use of a single methodology, and studies can therefore include a variety of different research methods. Most of the 44 included studies indeed used several methods, with some studies employing up to 6 different methods . Interviews were used most frequently (n=24), followed by focus groups (n=22), workshops (n=14), and surveys (n=13). On average, studies used nearly 3 different methods (average 2.8). All methods can be found in Table 2.6 of Multimedia Appendix 2 .

AR Definitions

The articles contained 44 definitions of AR. They could be grouped according to 4 different aspects that they emphasized. First, 21 studies emphasized that in AR projects, practitioners and other stakeholders become (co)researchers (n=21). Second, AR is a cyclical process that includes different stages (n=19). Third, 14 studies described how AR focuses on solving a practical issue and aims to extend research knowledge. The fourth aspect was that AR takes place in a community setting (n=10). Further, 2 studies included 3 of these aspects in their definitions, and only 2 other studies mentioned all 4 aspects. Most studies included either 1 (n=16) or 2 (n=17) of the aspects, whereas 7 studies included none of these points in their definition or did not at define AR in detail. Table 1 provides an overview of the number of mentions per aspect and the studies mentioning these aspects.

Number of mentions and studies mentioning the aspects of the AR definition.

AR Approaches

Table 2 gives an overview of the AR approaches that were cited at least twice in the included articles. The AR approach was not cited in 4 studies. In some cases, different papers from the same authors were cited; however, as these eventually described the same approach, the citation count was added up. The most commonly cited approach was that proposed by Reason and Bradbury [ 8 ]. As described earlier, the key elements of this approach are that AR (1) involves stakeholders as coresearchers, (2) consists of plan, act, and reflect cycles, (3) makes a change in practice, and (4) evaluates the said changes in and with the community. Overall, most definitions share these main aspects but differ in terms of the aspects that are particularly emphasized. For example, Baskerville and colleagues [ 55 ] highlight the duality of practical work and scientific knowledge, whereas Baum and colleagues [ 56 ] underline the need for reflective practice that includes all stakeholders. Figures 5 and and6 6 depict the cited approaches in more detail. There are 3 independent researchers or groups that are mentioned as being the origin of AR, namely Lewin [ 7 ], Trist and colleagues [ 57 ], and Freire [ 58 ]. Wherever the origin of AR was mentioned, some cases have named 2 of these, as observed in Figure 5 . The cited AR approaches also frequently refer to each other and sometimes authors collaborate with each other, for example on books about AR (see Figure 6 ). There are no very distinct groups conducting their own AR, but the different AR groups are often connected and build upon each other’s work.

Overview of the most cited action research approaches in the included articles per author or research group, including the number of citations.

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Overview of the action research approaches referred to in the included articles, indicating those papers that are mentioned as “the origin” of action research. Studies that either name an approach as being the origin of action research, or are being named as such, are highlighted in blue for better readability.

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Overview of action research approaches referred to in the included articles. Arrows indicate citations between the action research approach papers. The number of times that the articles included in this review cited each approach is indicated in the box. We have used different arrow thicknesses for better readability. Blue boxes indicate those papers that were available and checked for citations.

Best Practices and Lessons Learned

As previously described, an activity was identified as a “best practice” if researchers already planned their project with this in mind (eg, mentioning it in the description of methods). Lessons learned were those points that researchers came to know during their project. These were mostly reported in the discussion section. In total, 85 best practices and 66 lessons learned were identified, which were clustered into 22 categories of best practices and 16 categories of lessons learned. Among the 44 papers, 3 papers did not indicate any best practices that they followed, whereas 12 papers did not include any identifiable lessons learned. There were 8 overlapping categories, identified as best practices in some articles and as lessons learned in others. These will be discussed in more detail below.

Best Practices

The identified best practices in the 44 studies were most often related to the use of a specific method (n=9), namely personas (n=2), world café, journey mapping, role play, scenarios, case studies, design cards, and mixing different types of data collection methods (all n=1). Other best practices were a continuous evaluation of the project and a reflection on the process by the research team (n=8). The importance of establishing active contact between researchers and stakeholders and raising the confidence and skills of stakeholders was emphasized by 7 studies. The improvement of stakeholder skills mainly referred to research and analytical skills, allowing stakeholders to set up their own studies or continue the work after the project was finished. There were several specific suggestions to improve the regular project team meetings, for example, to always use the same agenda or to share a common area (office space) to make contact easier. Some other best practices concern the reporting and presentation of outcomes (n=6). The complete list of best practice categories can be found in Table 3 .

Overview of all best practice categories and number of mentions per category (N=44).

Lessons Learned

Apart from the best practices, the lessons learned from each study were identified. The most common lessons learned were increasing stakeholder knowledge and skills (n=8) and continuous evaluation of the project and reflection on the process (n=6). Both of these had been identified as best practices in other articles (more on this overlap below). Recommendations for the use of specific methods were also common (n=5). Lessons learned regarding reporting, adapting the project to fit the needs of stakeholders, fostering a welcoming environment, and the questionable replicability of the research were each mentioned 4 times. All lessons learned are shown in Table 4 .

Overview of all lessons learned categories and number of mentions per category (N=44).

Overlapping Best Practices and Lessons Learned

As stated earlier, some aspects were identified as best practices in some articles and as lessons learned in others. In total, we identified 7 such overlapping aspects. Overall, the most mentioned aspect was the importance of raising stakeholder skills and confidence (n=15, where best practices= 7 and lessons learned=8). Many articles reported the need for stakeholders to learn new skills, for example related to academic research, or the need to be convinced about their ability to perform these tasks. Almost all the studies that reported this as a best practice or lesson learned involved health care professionals as stakeholders. Other commonly mentioned points were recommendations for specific methods, even though the suggested methods differed (n=14, where best practices=9 and lessons learned=5) and there was continuous reframing and evaluation of the project (n=14, where best practices=8 and lessons learned=6). Continuous reframing often referred to the iterations of planning, action, and evaluation in AR projects. Studies that described this mostly did not include this cyclical nature of AR in their definition of it. In total, there were 10 recommendations regarding the reporting and presentation of results (best practices=6 and lessons learned=4), for example calling for open and accessible publishing of outcomes. The best practices and lessons learned included recommendations about meeting regularly (n=9, where best practices=7 and lessons learned=2), adapting to the needs of stakeholders (n=8, where best practices=3 and lessons learned=5), and investing in the relationship between partners (n=6, where best practices=3 and lessons learned=3).

Chronology of Overlapping Best Practices and Lessons Learned

When observing the publication timeline, most of the overlapping aspects appeared as a lesson learned in earlier publications, and then as a best practice in papers published at a later point in time. This was the case regarding stakeholder skills, appearing as a lesson learned in 1999 [ 33 ] and as a best practice in 2016 [ 25 ]; continuous reframing of the project was a lesson learned in 2003 [ 19 ] and best practice in 2009 [ 42 ]; further, having regular meetings was a lesson learned in 2006 [ 72 ] and a best practice in 2018 [ 27 ], and adapting the research to stakeholder needs was a lesson learned in 2007 [ 32 ] and a best practice in 2016 [ 77 ]. Such a clear timeline could not be seen for accessible reporting, appearing as a lesson learned in 2017 [ 78 ] and a best practice in 2007 [ 45 ], and the relationship between partners appearing as a lesson learned in 2017 [ 36 ] and as a best practice in 2008 [ 38 ].

Principal Results

To identify recommendations on how to conduct AR in eHealth studies, this literature review analyzed the setting, AR description, and best practices and lessons learned in 44 studies. The most important recommendations from this review, which will be discussed in more detail below, are as follows: actively raising stakeholder skills and confidence; fulfilling multiple roles and tasks as a researcher; fostering constant reflection and evaluation; ensuring open and accessible dissemination; reporting in a more structured and comprehensive way.

These recommendations are not exclusively related to eHealth, despite them being derived from a review of eHealth AR studies. Hence, it is possible that the recommendations are also relevant for AR in various other fields. Therefore, where possible, examples from different disciplines are discussed below to explain or supplement a recommendation.

Stakeholder Skills and Confidence

Being involved in a project as coresearcher can potentially increase stakeholders’ confidence, besides teaching them new skills [ 79 ]. However, this does not happen automatically. Similar to our findings, the narrative review conducted by Harrison and colleagues [ 80 ] also identified educating the research team as the most important task when stakeholders are involved in health care research. Nevertheless, there is limited research on how skill training for stakeholders could look like, and this can vary greatly between studies. Stakeholders in some eHealth studies might need to learn content-related information [ 81 ], whereas other studies require methodological or statistical skills [ 54 ]. Researchers should provide adequate training and material for their project and encourage stakeholders to make use of it. The studies included in this review that recommended stakeholder skill training almost exclusively worked with health care professionals. The relationship between recommending skill training and working mainly with health care professionals remains unclear. A possible explanation could be that other stakeholder groups in other studies already had the necessary skills and thus did not require any additional training. Another possibility is that other stakeholders were not given the same roles that health care professionals held, and therefore, they did not need skill training. Finally, as we will discuss later, reporting of AR activities was not always very extensive. Thus, stakeholders outside the health care sector were possibly trained, and these studies did not report on this aspect. Generally, not all participants prefer the same level of engagement in a project, and researchers should respect these preferences [ 82 ].

Tasks and Roles of the Researcher

Different aspects of the role and tasks of the researcher in an AR project are discussed. Brydon-Miller and Aragón describe the many different tasks that action researchers need to fulfil as their “500 hats” [ 83 ]. These are not specific to eHealth studies, but they can occur in any AR study. As researchers and stakeholders have many varied duties, their roles are not fixed and might change over the course of the project [ 19 ]. One main task of the researchers that continues throughout the project is the need to foster a welcoming environment for all stakeholders [ 42 ]. Researchers should also be present and actively involve themselves at a higher level than that needed in non-AR projects [ 38 ]. Additional AR-specific tasks for the researchers include investing in partner relationships [ 35 ] or breaking down power structures [ 28 ]. Generally, AR studies demand more self-reflection and awareness from the researchers than other projects and researchers should keep this in mind when entering an AR project.

Constant Reflection

The importance of continuous reframing and evaluation of the project was emphasized in several studies. Although evaluation is 1 of the AR cycles, studies providing recommendations on this topic rarely included this in their definition of AR. Owing to the lack of reports on AR cycles, which will be discussed below, it is unclear if these studies still followed the AR cycles without reporting on them. However, sometimes, it seems that periodic planned evaluation is not enough. Instead, the participants need to regularly reflect on the current status of the project and their role in it. Therefore, new AR projects should create suitable spaces for evaluation and reflection in ways that fit the projects and stakeholders. This is especially important because reflection can become difficult once a person is in the middle of the project [ 49 ]. Holeman and Kane [ 53 ] emphasize that reflection should not only take place within the project, but it should also be explicitly reported to help other researchers. If action researchers take reflection seriously and include honest evaluations in their publishing, the AR community members can learn from each other. Additionally, researchers and other stakeholders within the project learn and benefit from constant reflection [ 9 ].

Accessible Dissemination

Another important aspect concerns paying attention to open and understandable dissemination of results within the community and among researchers. Action researchers need to communicate findings to the academic world while also finding ways to inform the target group about the project in ways that suit the target users’ needs. An example of open and accessible dissemination can be found in Canto-Farachala and Larrea [ 83 ]. They present the results of their AR project regarding territorial development on an interactive website, allowing others to learn from their work. However, it seems that accessible reporting is still not the norm in AR, as Avison and colleagues [ 62 ] describe that many AR studies are generally “published in books rather than as articles. Action researchers have large and complicated stories to tell.” Future AR projects should attempt to narrate their stories in such a way that others can learn from them.

Comprehensive Reporting

The different way of describing AR studies also leads to another issue, incomplete and elusive reporting. Although most studies did provide at least a short description of what they saw as AR, 7 studies provided no definition at all. Additionally, there were only 4 studies that included 3 or all of the 4 aspects of the AR definition in their description. Even the most mentioned aspects appeared in less than half of the included papers. Even though most papers did cite an AR approach of definition, some did not. In combination with the often-limited descriptions of AR, this makes it difficult to obtain a clear picture of how AR is perceived and performed in a particular study. This resonates with what Bradbury and colleagues [ 9 ] describe as 1 of the quality points of AR, namely “action research process and related methods (should be) clearly articulated and illustrated.” The best practices and lessons learned that were extracted from the included studies were seldom mentioned explicitly. Best practices were often hidden in the description of the project, without much reasoning. Similarly, lessons learned were often described as adaptations made during the project or as plans for the future. Although we observed that some lessons learned turned into best practices over time, we think that researchers could benefit more from each other’s work by providing concrete recommendations. This review is a step in that direction. Both aspects show that the reporting of AR studies in eHealth can be improved to show more clearly what eHealth AR projects can look like and help others in setting up such projects with specific recommendations.

Limitations

Approximately a third of the included papers (14 out of 44) were published more than 10 years ago. This also means that some of the technologies that are described in the older papers are now relatively old. However, this literature review focuses mainly on the AR methodology and lessons learned about doing action research. Therefore, there was no exclusion criterium regarding the publication date of the papers.

The search yielded several PD-related papers. These papers could have been included, given that some definitions of PD are very similar to AR. However, as our aim was to provide an overview of how AR is done, these were excluded as the researchers of these studies themselves did not identify their studies as being related to AR (ie, not referring to, mentioning, or describing AR). Although this offers a clearer picture of how researchers conduct AR, it also creates a potential limitation in that best practices and lessons learned could be enriched from PD literature.

This overview of AR approaches focuses mostly on the interconnectedness among the approaches, without a comprehensive comparison of the content. Comparing the approaches with regard to the specific aspects of AR that they describe would be a review in and of itself, going beyond the scope of this current review. Therefore, we decided to focus on the definitions that the authors themselves provided even when they also cited AR approaches, as these are most likely to reflect their own vision of AR.

This review illustrates how AR is conducted in eHealth studies. Studies that fulfilled the inclusion criteria mainly took place in western countries and lasted for 2 to 3 years. Different stakeholders were involved, but the most commonly involved groups were health care professionals and patients. As for the methods used, most studies opted for focus groups and interviews. Even though many studies cited the AR approach proposed by Reason and Bradbury [ 8 ], their own definitions of AR were often not explicit in terms of how they implemented AR. Future projects should report their AR definition as well as the best practices and lessons learned more clearly. Other recommendations include paying attention toward developing the skill and confidence of the stakeholders, being aware of the changing role of the researcher, frequently evaluating the project, and disseminating results in an understandable manner.

Abbreviations

Multimedia appendix 1, multimedia appendix 2.

Authors' Contributions: KO performed the literature search and analysis and was a major contributor in designing the study and writing the manuscript. CG contributed to the design of the study, assisted with the search and analysis, and made major contributions to the manuscript. FN and LvV contributed to the design of the study and substantially revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant 857188).

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

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Action Research in Education by Mary Beth Hines , Kerry Armbruster , Adam Henze , Maria Lisak , Christina Romero-Ivanova , Leslie Rowland , Lottie Waggoner LAST REVIEWED: 02 May 2019 LAST MODIFIED: 15 January 2020 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0140

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Introduction

The Work of the Association MdS to Contain Educational Wastage

Materials and Methods

Participants

The School in Rome

The School in Bologna

The School in Naples

Phase 1: Planning

Phase 2: Action

Phase 3: Reflection

Phase 4: Evaluation

I Macro-Area

Cluster 1 – The students’ discourse on marginality (146 ECUs) (28.57%)

Cluster 4 – The students’ behavior between disorder and attentiveness (139 ECUs) (27.20%)

II Macro-Area

Cluster 2 – The teachers’ discourse on difficulties (182 ECUs) (35.62%)

Cluster 3 – The teachers’ behavior in the organization (44 ECUs) (8.61%)

Phase 5: New Planning

Limits and Prospects

Data Availability Statement

Ethics Statement

Author Contributions

Conflict of Interest

You are here

Action Research

Current Issue: Volume 12, Issue 1 (2023)

Best Practices and Lessons Learned for Action Research in eHealth Design and Implementation: Literature Review

Christiane Grünloh

Conclusions

Introduction

Study Selection and Screening

Data Extraction

Target Groups

Stakeholders

Research Methods Used

AR Definitions

AR Approaches

Best Practices and Lessons Learned

Best Practices

Lessons Learned

Overlapping Best Practices and Lessons Learned

Chronology of Overlapping Best Practices and Lessons Learned

Principal Results

Stakeholder Skills and Confidence

Tasks and Roles of the Researcher

Constant Reflection

Accessible Dissemination

Comprehensive Reporting

Limitations

Abbreviations

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