Action research a Handbook for Students

practice project. Thinking about how to help students benefit academically from 
the project and at the same time see the practical sense of research conducted 
for the purposes of master’s theses, we decided to offer our students the pos-
sibility to prepare a thesis based on action research. We believed that this way 
they would be able to study things they find important and useful, in an actual 
organisational reality and in collaboration with other people. We invited a group 
of employers to participate in the project. They agreed for the students to study 
their organisation from the inside and to provide help in the research process as 
well as during designing interventions attempting to mitigate the organisational 
problems identified during the study. The students involved in the research were 
invited to combine theory with practice, to improve the practices in the organi-
sations, and they were even asked to take over the decision-making process and 
to support the professional development of the staff.
The purpose of this chapter is to present the process of action research 
and how it can be applied for the purposes of writing an academic thesis. We 

---

A
ction
R
eseARch
A h
Andbook
foR
s
tudents
66
will try to show two parallel processes that people writing their dissertation in 
accordance with the action research model need to become involved in. The 
challenge is to address the reflective aspect — i.e. identify problems in the cur-
rent operations and design interventions mitigating those problems — and at 
the same time describe the process in a way acceptable for the purposes of an 
academic thesis.
1. THE PROCESS OF ACTION RESEARCH
A student who is writing a dissertation based on action research on their own 
faces a difficult task and several dilemmas, because the guiding principles of 
action research and of thesis writing are contradictory. For one, action research 
is supposed to be a collective venture
6
, while at universities, a dissertation is typ-
ically a work of an individual and the author takes individual responsibility for 
the work when dealing with a reviewer or the committee.
The purpose of action research is not only to generate knowledge about 
a topic, but also to enable individual and organisational development, i.e. 
a change that should help improve what is being done. This, in turn, is more 
probable when these activities happen cyclically, and not on a one-off basis that 
is typical for a thesis. Indeed, the linear and strictly defined life cycle of a thesis 
project can be incompatible with the cyclic, multidimensional and multiple-step 
character of an action research project. It would be preferable for students who 
decide to write their master’s or bachelor’s thesis in compliance with the action 
research model to be aware of these contradictions.
This approach should be particularly interesting for people who hope that 
their research can translate into specific remedial proposals that can be applied 
in real life or for people who feel dissatisfied with their situation and would like 
to have more influence over reality. It is not a different approach to thesis writ-
ing; it is a different approach to life.
When writing a thesis in the action research model, the researcher-stu-
dent has to facilitate the process of communication and collaboration on many 
levels, in many directions and in various forms. Upon entering the organisation, 
the student becomes an external researcher studying the character of the or-
ganisation and looking for its problems by communicating and collaborating 
with other people. In line with the theory of action research, they have to invite 
practitioners to cooperate with them. Practitioners can help them understand 
6
More about types of action research and their characteristics in Chapter 2 (1.1, 1.2, 1.3).

---

67
c
hAPteR
3: A
ction
ReseARch
And
mAsteR
'
s
thesis
the organisation and conduct the research, but they can also effectively block 
the process and refuse to participate. The researcher needs to invite them to