The action-project method in counseling psychology.

Abstract

The qualitative action-project method is described as an appropriate and heuristic qualitative research method for use in counseling psychology. Action theory, which addresses human intentional, goaldirected action, project, and career, provides the conceptual framework for the method. Data gathering and analysis involve multiple procedures to access information from 3 perspectives: manifest behavior, internal processes, and social meaning. The method has a number of advantages, including its conceptualization, which is close to human experience; its systematic data gathering and analysis procedures; its usefulness in describing processes of interest to counseling psychologists; and its uniqueness among qualitative research methods.

How Care Is Negotiated Between a Young Carer and a Parent Experiencing Mental Illness and Addiction

“…An important feature of contextual action theory and the related protocol, qualitative action-project method (Young, Valach, & Domene, 2005), is that the actions observed between members of a dyad or larger social group are the unit of analysis as opposed to the individuals themselves. Although individual actions are observed, the qualitative action-project method focuses on the joint actions in a dyad (Marshall, Zaidman-Zait, Domene, & Young, 2012) such as that of young carer and parent.…”

Extending The Metaphor of Narrative to Dialogical Narrator

“…Also, it is feasible to consider how they might be combined with other research methods that address narrative process, for the example the self-confrontation method that is used for the contextual actionproject method (Young, et al, 2005). Such research might explore how individuals (e.g., parent and adolescent; spouses) engage in the project of career decision-making through the action-project approach, while explicating their respective I-positions and dialogue with self and the other as a way of co-constructing a dialogical space together.…”

“…Recently, scholars have demonstrated the utility of research methods that operationalise social constructionism and capture the dynamics of narrative in process, namely, discourse analysis (Stead & Bakker, 2010), the action-project method (Young, Valach, & Domene, 2005), and autoethnography (McIlveen, 2007b). Innovations such as these are vital for the articulation of social constructionism as a paradigm, because they may advance as research methodologies that are consistent with the criteria for trustworthiness of qualitative research (cf.…”

Evaluating the processes and outcomes of vocational counselling: An action theory perspective

“…The means of evaluation are enhanced when we can use the systems and levels of action identified in Figure 1, even in one's everyday actions as well as in our professional encounters. In addition, we have developed and used a research method, known as the action-project method, that reflects the proposed approach Valach, Young & Lynam, 2002;Young, Valach & Domene, 2005). Three aspects of the method, the unit of analysis, the data gathered, and the analysis, set it apart from more traditional methods.…”