Step 6 – Developing Action Strategies and Putting Them into Practice

Where do we look to find suitable action strategies? The most important source is our new understanding gained from analysis of the situation. Understanding an issue, by uncovering the network of interrelationships, not only leads to a new awareness of the situation, but also offers a wealth of ideas about possible action. A second important source is the actual process of data collection. Simply finding out learners’ attitudes may be enough to suggest possible solutions. A third important source is our own aims, objectives and values as instructors. In the course of problem analysis and data collection, the researcher’s aims become more practical and realistic as they are better informed by knowledge of the situation. As well, ideas and suggestions for suitable action strategies may come from external sources such as from conversations with colleagues, information about how other people have coped with similar situations, and ideas in books and articles. Exercise 5 provides a method for checking your action strategy.

Monitoring action strategies. In order to learn as much as possible from trying out the new strategy, it is important to consider in advance how to monitor the situation. A time plan may help you to think through and prepare the task of co-ordinating research activities with different action strategies. To check the results of action strategies, you need to define your own criteria of success. When can you say an action strategy was successful?

• if it has resulted in an improvement of the situation,

• if it has not also caused unintended, negative side-effects which detracted from the main, positive effects, and

• if the ‘improvement ’is not short-term.

What is considered to be an improvement depends also on who is making the judgement, and there are four voices which can be used to evaluate improvements.

• The voice of the individual instructor / researcher.
  Instructors try to improve a situation; in doing so their personal values are uppermost in defining what may be considered as improvement.

• The voice of other people concerned.
  Who counts as a person concerned cannot be definitely and finally settled in advance. Certainly, all the participants in the situation that is being researched, and all those who will be affected in any way by the action strategies being implemented, must be included.