Action Research Reports: Is Your Project Valid, Credible, or Reliable?

At the end of your action research project, or even as a mid-course formative evaluation, you will need to review your data and analyze what you have actually done. This article is the last of five that describe the process for analyzing research and analyzing action research and reporting it. Analysis and reporting are alchemical processes through which the researcher carefully observes everything he has done and from that reflection emerges a completely new version of what happened. Whether and how compelling or important that new incarnation of the work is to others has a lot to do with how deeply you can justify whether your work is valid, credible, or trustworthy to others. This article is the last in a series of five that takes you through thinking about his project and then what it takes to report on it.

Research practice is generally measured against standards of validity, credibility, and reliability. Together, make the case that your findings and conclusions are correct, and your report becomes convincing to your audience. Valid, credible and reliable are concepts that apply beyond the research community, although they have a very specific meaning within a research paradigm. Now, you have to ask yourself whether or not you can make a claim for your work against those three standards.

Validity

AR has two general objectives: 1) to increase personal and community knowledge about a topic of this study and 2) to show results of improvements or progress towards a defined purpose. To what extent the practitioner can demonstrate these two goals then determines the validity of his claims. His study may be valid in one area but not in the other, as discussed earlier in this chapter when we separate his personal and professional results. Herr and Anderson go on to discuss various types of validity, each of which is a claim you could make in your final report.
Go out validity is whether or not it was successful in reaching its purpose.
process validity looks at whether you can show that your research was done well, included the voices of others in the context, and sets the research standards discussed throughout this book.
Democratic The validity is appropriate for participatory action research studies and demonstrates that the voices of all members of the community were considered.
Catalytic validity is exemplified in the study of the nurse in the previous section of this chapter. It is when one of your results exceeds its target in one or more ways.
Finally, dialogic validity can be claimed to the extent that you can show that a diverse group of stakeholders were involved and now agree with your final conclusions and analysis. Dialogic validity requires a discussion of the ways others collaborated with you throughout the project and throughout the analysis and writing of the report.

Credibility

There are two attributes you need to consider when writing your final report to ensure your credibility with stakeholders: how you report the data and how you report the process. Credibility (whether your case is convincing or not) is the degree to which the person reading the report thinks it makes sense. This is a subjective judgment and requires action researchers to be aware of their audience and context. Most action research uses simultaneous qualitative and quantitative data collection strategies, and together they enhance the strength of each. As discussed above, qualitative data such as interviews can be quantified by counting the number of times certain topics are discussed. Also the percentages of people who agree with one thing or another quantify the qualitative evidence and make it feel more solid or credible to the reader. Similarly, quantitative evidence can be scored by discussing key phrases that were written as comments, or by adding quotes from interviews that are consistent with the finding that was developed. Your final report will be more credible to the extent that you can merge and weave all of your data together. together so that the interaction between them makes sense to your reader.

The second question you have to consider is how or if you are going to report your process. While cycles of discovery, measurable action, and reflection are enjoyed by action researchers, they are not inherently necessary in the final report. At the same time, there may be definite reasons why you need to explain the process, so that what you found seems natural and therefore more believable to your audience. Basically, if you found that your process added to your findings, you should also discuss your process with your reader. As long as your findings are valid, writing them down as part of the process that revealed them will add more credibility.

reliability

Action research often tries to create an effect on things or situations that are complex. Therefore, results may not transfer reliably across settings, and action researchers generally do not believe in a “one size fits all” type of solution. However, it is interesting to read what happens to others in your field and I fully believe in the reliability of the result of the AR project. They are useful, if not to create a model of success, then at least to provoke new and innovative ideas in non-profit companies and public administration. Therefore, you may want to start increasing the reliability of your project by reading the studies of other action researchers.

There are two types of reliability: internal and external. Internal has to do with whether and to what extent you followed sound research practices in the way you collected and analyzed your data. You must also be able to demonstrate a one-to-one correlation between your data and your findings. Both are considered internal reliability. Another test of reliability is whether or not these studies could be implemented in new settings and this is known as external reliability. It is advisable to discuss both if writing a report for an academic audience.

This concludes this series of five short articles designed to help you as an active researcher analyze your data and write your final report. Also discussed in this series: how to analyze action research from a personal point of view, or in conjunction with its purpose, or as a result of its measurable actions, and finally how to determine whether it succeeded or failed overall. Regardless of the outcome of this particular action research project, it has proven to be a very useful and transformative tool for individuals or groups trying to make positive changes in complex situations.