ACTION RESEARCH - ITS NATURE AND VALIDITY

The process of knowledge acquisition which has the strongest truth cla im is the research process of natural science, based on testing hypoth eses to destruction. But the application of this process to phenomena beyond those for which it was developed, namely, the natural regularit ies of the physical universe, is problematical. For research into soci al phenomena there is increasing interest in ''action research'' in va rious forms. In this process the researcher enters a real-world situat ion and aims both to improve it and to acquire knowledge. This paper r eviews the nature and validity of action research, arguing that its cl aim to validity requires a recoverable research process based upon a p rior declaration of the epistemology in terms of which findings which count as knowledge will be expressed.