Menu
Use when conducting participatory action research (PAR) involving collaborative inquiry, cycles of action and reflection.
Install with Codex or Claude Copy this prompt, paste it into Codex, Claude, or another assistant, and let it review the skill page and install it for you.
Based on SOC occupation classification
| name | action-research |
| description | Use when conducting participatory action research (PAR) involving collaborative inquiry, cycles of action and reflection. |
Action research (AR) links inquiry and action in iterative cycles. Stakeholders examine practices, implement changes, and reflect on outcomes. Participatory action research (PAR) foregrounds collaboration, power-sharing, and often social justice, positioning community or practitioner co-researchers as knowledge producers.
While models differ in labeling, a robust cycle includes:
Cycles are spiraling, not one-off: each turn refines questions and practice.
Emphasizes democratic participation, local knowledge, and structural critique. Common in community health, education, and international development when done ethically and non-extractively.
Partnership between researchers and communities across all phases—agenda setting, design, analysis, dissemination. Governance and benefit-sharing are explicit.
Teachers or clinicians study their own practice for local improvement and professional learning. Often smaller scale; still requires rigor and ethical clarity.
Builds change from strengths and positive exemplars rather than deficit framing. Uses discovery, dream, design, destiny phases in organizational contexts.
Facilitators may be insiders (employees, members) or outsiders (academic partners). Critical issues:
Reflexive journaling, transparent agreements, and rotating facilitation can reduce extractive dynamics.
Traditional positivist criteria fit poorly. Common alternatives include:
Combine these with ethical validity (do no harm, consent, privacy) and ecological validity (fits real-world constraints).
Kemmis, McTaggart, and Nixon emphasize participatory and public qualities of AR. Cycles are not merely technical but social practices that can be:
They stress communicative space where arguments are tested and practice architectures (material, social, cultural-discursive arrangements) are transformed.
AR can challenge IRB templates designed for fixed protocols. Use amendment-friendly designs, document evolving consent, and clarify risks when studying workplace power or community conflict.
Use AR when change and knowledge must advance together, stakeholders can sustain cycles, and contextual adaptation matters more than controlled experimentation.
Use traditional experiments when randomization and treatment fidelity are paramount and participatory control is inappropriate.
Use grounded theory when the primary output is substantive theory rather than intervention cycles—though GT can inform AR data analysis.
Use this skill for PAR design, cycle planning, validity arguments, or Kemmis-style participatory framing.
Use when writing academic prose for qualitative research — findings, methods, discussion sections with appropriate voice and conventions.
Use when formatting academic work in APA 7th edition style — citations, references, headings, tables, and manuscript structure.
Use when designing or conducting case study research following Yin's multiple case study methodology or Stake's approach.
Use when developing and densifying categories with properties, dimensions, conditions, and consequences.
Use when formatting academic work in Chicago/Turabian style — notes-bibliography or author-date systems.
Use when orchestrating the full open → selective → theoretical coding pipeline in grounded theory analysis.
