Action research within organisations and university thesis writing

Abstract

This paper argues that action research is more appropriate than traditional research for improving practice, and professional and organisational learning. Our particular aim is to help postgraduates in the social and human sciences to understand and clarify the difference between core action research and thesis action research; that is, between collaborative, participatory action research in the field (aimed at practical improvement in a learning organisation) and independent action research in preparing the thesis (aimed at making an original contribution to knowledge). We present a model to illustrate the distinction and relationship between thesis research, core research and thesis writing.

A persuasão em trabalhos de conclusão de curso do bacharelado em Geologia

“…Em linhas gerais, nosso trabalho se enquadra dentro dos estudos sobre a leitura e a escrita na universidade (CARLINO 2004(CARLINO , 2005(CARLINO , 2006(CARLINO , 2011(CARLINO , 2013ARNOUX et al, 1996;ARNOUX & ALVARADO, 1999;ARNOUX et al, 2002;MARÍN & HALL, 2004;VÁZQUEZ & MIRAS, 2004;LEA & STREET, 1998;HILLARD & HARRIS, 2003;KELLY & BAZERMAN, 2003), os gêneros acadêmicos em relação às comunidades discursivas disciplinares (BHATIA, 1993(BHATIA, , 2004PARODI, 2008PARODI, , 2010MARINKOVICH & SALAZAR, 2011;TAPIA & MARINKOVICH, 2013;MARINKOVICH & CÓRDOVA, 2014;MOTTA-ROTH, 2001), e seu vínculo com a argumentação acadêmica (PADILLA et al, 2011;PERIN et al, 2003;ZUBER-SKERRITT & PERRY, 2002;WOLFE, 2011;SOTO VERGARA, 2002;DE LARRAIN, 2009). …”

“…Fundamentalmente, partimos da concepção de que as tarefas próprias da universidade requerem um desenvolvimento argumentativo: tanto em cada graduação quanto em cada disciplina, os modos de argumentação solicitados são diferentes (PERIN, KESELMAN & MONOPOLI, 2003;ZUBER-SKERRITT & PERRY, 2002;WOLFE, 2011).…”

Insider action research doctorates: Generating actionable knowledge

“…What brings quality of actionable knowledge is that the work contains reflection on reflection (Argyris 2003) or metalearning (Coghlan and Brannick 2005). Zuber-Skerritt and Perry (2002;Perry and Zuber-Skerritt 1992) make a useful distinction between the 'core' action research project and the 'thesis' action research project. The core action research comprises the organizational project that the manager-researcher is working on with organizational colleagues with an intended outcome of problem resolution or a change successfully implemented.…”

Evaluability Assessment Thesis and Dissertation Studies in Graduate Professional Degree Programs

“…For example, action research has become more common among both doctoral students for dissertation research (van der Meulen, 2011;Zambo, 2011) and masters students for completing their thesis studies (ZuberSkerritt & Fletcher, 2007;Zuber-Skerritt & Perry, 2002). In fact, there are books and websites devoted to writing action research theses and dissertations (see, e.g., Herr & Anderson, 2005).…”