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ERIC Number: ED253544
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1984-Aug
Pages: 15
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Action Research: Its Origins and Early Application.
Cook, Stuart W.
This paper contains informal remarks on action research in social psychology from its post World War II origins to its current status. Kurt Lewin first described action research in the 1946 article, "Action Research and Minority Problems," as a three-step process of program planning, program execution, and follow-up evaluation. Ronald Lippitt and Marion Radke also described 10 aspects of action research in 1946, based on programs to reduce anti-Semitism and racial prejudice by the Commission on Community Interrelations of the American Jewish Congress and the Institution of Ethnic Affairs. Participation in the research by the research subjects was the most important element. By 1948 four additional approaches to action research developed: diagnostic, participant, empirical, and experimental. Questions and comments on the current status of action research have been raised by Nevitt Sanford, Leona Tyler, and Stuart Oskamp. What happened to action research--whether it died, moved into other disciplines, or reemerged with new names like program evaluation or social policy research--remains unanswered. (BS)
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers; Historical Materials; Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association (92nd, Toronto, ON, August 24-28, 1984).