action research

Action research is when the researcher is acrively involved in the job or activity they are studying, for example, a teacher studying education by observing their own interventions and the responses of their pupils. This is common several fields including medicine and education. It is particulatly valuable where the experience of doing something informs understanding and also where it is undesirable, or even unethical, to refrain from taking what are believed to be positive interventions.

This is unlike methods where the researcher attempts to distance themselves from the phenomenon they are observing, raising problems due to the researchers' prior expectations and the Hawthorne effect, for example where the students may react positively to please the teacher. It is impossible to avoid these problems, so the action researcher will explicitly reflect on these issues in order to surface potential impacts and biases.