The big idea: Action research means studying a real problem while you work on it, with the people who live with it, in small loops of plan, act, observe and reflect.
In 60 seconds
- Action research means studying a real problem while you work on it, with the people who live with it.
- Work in short loops of plan, act, observe and reflect. Each reflection decides what to keep, change or drop and starts the next loop.
- It earns trust by being participatory, systematic and transparent. It aims to improve one real setting, not to explain everyone.
Do this: run your BUAD 317 semester as research cycles, from 10+ stakeholder interviews to prototype testing to your summer operating plan.
How action research works
Action research is learning by doing. You study a real problem while you work on it, with the people who live with it, in short loops. Each loop teaches you what to try next.
Plan
Name the problem, the people who have it and one small step to try.
Ask: What do we need to learn, and from whom?
Act
Try the step for a short, fixed time, with the people affected.
Ask: What is the smallest test that teaches us something?
Observe
Collect evidence while it happens: notes, quotes, photos, counts.
Ask: What did people say, and what did they actually do?
Reflect
Make sense of the evidence and decide what changes next.
Ask: Keep, change or drop, and why? That answer starts the next loop.
Four questions every leader-researcher asks
What am I doing? Do I need to improve anything, and if so, what? How will I improve it? Why should I improve it? If your team can answer all four, you are ready to plan your first loop.
Applied research vs. academic research
Traditional academic research
- Who does it. Professors, scholars and graduate students.
- Where. Settings where variables can be controlled.
- How. Tests a hypothesis, often with experimental and control groups and tests of statistical significance.
- Goal. Explain or predict, then publish conclusions that hold beyond one setting.
Applied action research
- Who does it. Leaders, consultants and scholar-practitioners, together with stakeholders.
- Where. In the field, inside the real workplace, clinic, office or campus.
- How. An emerging inquiry that follows the unfolding story in the data, mostly with qualitative methods.
- Goal. Improve things for the people with the challenge, in that setting. Action comes first.
The consultant as researcher
On a consulting team you play three roles at once. Knowing which one you are in keeps your work honest.
Researcher
You ask, listen, observe and record accurately. You talk little and listen a lot.
Watch out: confirmation bias. Hunting only for evidence that supports the idea you already like.
Facilitator
The people you interview are the experts on their own experience. You translate what they know into something a team can act on.
Watch out: speaking for people instead of with them.
Change agent
You have a bias toward action. Good action research should spark a real change, not a report that sits in a folder.
Watch out: acting before you have listened.
Generative research
Also called formative or exploratory. It happens while the work is in process and builds deep understanding of needs, motivations and pain points. Its words: understand, discover, explore.
Evaluative research
Also called summative. It judges how well a solution works for the people it was built for. Its words: test, measure, compare. Human-centered design uses both.
Where action research came fromKurt Lewin and the three vital elements
Social psychologist Kurt Lewin is credited with naming action research as a tool for organizational change. His idea: ordinary people, working together, can study their own problems through repeated cycles of reflection, action and problem solving.
Three elements make it action research and not just a project:
- Participatory. The people affected help shape the inquiry.
- Democratic. Many voices count, not only the boss’s or the consultant’s.
- A double contribution. It adds to what we know and it changes something in the real world.
Socially responsive action research also aims to be empowering (it frees people from conditions that hold them back) and life-enhancing (it helps people reach their potential).
Other versions of the cycleSame loop, different names
Researchers draw the loop in different ways. They all share one move: act, then step back and learn before acting again.
| Model | Steps |
|---|---|
| Kemmis and McTaggart | Plan, act, observe, reflect (the version on this page) |
| Stringer | Look, think, act, repeated as an interacting spiral |
| Mills | Identify an area of focus, collect data, analyze and interpret, develop an action plan |
| Coghlan and Brannick | Constructing the issue, planning action, taking action, evaluating action, plus a second cycle where you reflect on how you are learning |
| Swann (design practice) | Identify the problem, analyze it, design and synthesize solutions, test, produce, then implement, evaluate and revise |
Pick one model and use its words consistently in your plan and your presentation.
Where research fits in human-centered designThe HCD stages and the research job in each
| Stage | What research does there |
|---|---|
| Inspiration (predesign) | Action research and problem definition. The biggest chance to innovate. |
| Interpretation (discovery) | Find opportunities and translate research into design direction. |
| Ideation (design and making) | Explore, design, develop and build prototypes. |
| Implementation | Roll out, then learn from how people use the product, service or space. |
Stories are dataWhy action research in HCD listens for narratives
Generative action research works like narrative research. People make sense of their lives through stories. When someone walks you through what happened, you hear their needs, workarounds and feelings in context.
- Ask for a specific time something happened, not an opinion.
- Listen for the moment of insight, the “that’s when I realized” part of a story.
- Write down exact words. A quote is evidence. Your summary of it is interpretation.
Is this “real” research?How action research earns trust
Action research does not try to generalize to every setting. Its job is to understand what is happening in one setting and improve it. It earns trust when it is systematic and transparent. Anderson’s criteria are a quick test:
- Democratic: did you hear from everyone affected?
- Outcome: did the action actually resolve something?
- Process: was the study done in a dependable, competent way?
- Catalytic: did the results move people to act?
- Dialogic: did peers review and discuss it?
For the full set of quality criteria, see the research quality (Big Tent) topic.
Try it: Action Research Cycle Planner
Tool · BUAD 317
Action Research Cycle Planner
Plan one small loop of plan, act, observe and reflect, then grow it into a spiral.
- 1Plan
- 2Check
- 3Repeat
Cycle 1 question
All checks
Your spiral so far
Put it to work: run your semester as research cycles
BUAD 317 is one long action research project run in loops. Your interviews are the first loop. Your prototype and street testing are the second. Your Capstone Presentation plans the next one. Here is how each graded deliverable maps to the cycle.
Run your semester as cycles
Plan cycle 1: the question and the people
Answer the four leader questions for your team’s challenge. Then list the stakeholder groups you need to hear from, and aim for variety, not ten versions of the same story.
Your deliverable: a one-sentence research question and a target list in your team’s interview log for Deliverable #3.
Act and observe: gather 10+ solid interviews
Talk with real stakeholders over several days, not one. Follow up with “why,” “tell me more” and “what happened next?” Record quotes, emotions, workarounds and what you see around them.
Your deliverable: Deliverable #3: one insight or quote per sticky note, a photo of each participant taken with permission, and a short reflection for each interview.
Reflect: patterns before ideas
Meet as a team before class. Look for repeating themes, contradictions and nuggets of gold. Decide what the data is telling you, not just what people said.
Your deliverable: the early patterns and themes you present in class with Deliverable #3. These feed brainstorming in Deliverable #4.
Cycle 2: prototype and take it to the street
Your prototype is the next action. Build it (Deliverable #5), then test it with 7 to 10 people who would actually use it or be affected by it (Deliverable #6).
Your deliverable: your feedback summary and artifacts for Deliverable #6.
Reflect out loud: what changed and why
Show the class your latest version, what feedback challenged your assumptions, and what you changed as a result.
Your deliverable: the five-minute iteration update for Deliverable #7.
Plan cycle 3: your summer operating plan
The project does not end in May. Your Capstone Presentation shows how your team will keep looping over the summer and what evidence you still need.
Your deliverable: the “operating plan for the summer” and “plan for gathering more evidence” parts of Deliverable #9, your Capstone Presentation.
Example: two loops on a hospital unitA made-up project showing how one loop feeds the next
Cycle 1. A team asks why patients call back with medication questions soon after discharge. They interview patients, family caregivers and nurses, and they observe ten discharges. Pattern: the patient often understands, but the caregiver who manages the pills at home was not in the room.
Cycle 2. The team prototypes a short phone teach-back for absent caregivers and tests it with eight families. Feedback: caregivers want it at a time they choose, not during work hours. The team changes the prototype to a scheduled call.
Cycle 3 plan. Over the summer, they will ask whether the same gap shows up on a second unit, and they will add a count of callbacks to see if it moves.
Before you submitA quick check for each loop
- [ ] Our research question is about a need, not a solution we already picked.
- [ ] We named every stakeholder group we need and who still is missing.
- [ ] Each action had a time box and a clear owner.
- [ ] We collected quotes, observations and photos, with permission.
- [ ] Our reflection names what we will keep, change or drop, and why.
- [ ] We can show how this loop changed what we did next.
Go deeper
Back to all BUAD 317 topics · Next: Choosing a Focus Area and Reviewing the Literature
In-class team activity · 25 min
Loop It Small
By the end: One complete plan, act, observe, reflect loop for your team's challenge, built on real quotes from the room and small enough to run next week. Your instructor will give you the password in class.
Part of the Smith GLS human-centered leadership sequence: IB 407, BUAD 317 and BUAD 497, toward the Human Centered Consulting Certificate.
Frequently asked questions
What is action research?
Action research is learning by doing: you study a real problem while you work on it, with the people who live with it, in short loops of plan, act, observe and reflect. Each loop teaches you what to try next. Unlike traditional academic research, its goal is to improve things for the people with the challenge in that setting, not to generalize to every setting.
How do you run an action research cycle?
Run an action research cycle in four steps: plan, act, observe and reflect. Plan by naming the problem, the people who have it and one small step to try. Act by testing that step for a short, fixed time with the people affected. Observe by collecting notes, quotes, photos and counts. Reflect by deciding what to keep, change or drop, which starts the next loop.
What is the difference between action research and academic research?
Academic research is done by scholars in controlled settings, tests a hypothesis, often with control groups and statistics, and aims to explain or predict beyond one setting. Applied action research is done by leaders, consultants and scholar-practitioners with stakeholders, inside the real workplace or campus. It follows the unfolding story in the data, mostly with qualitative methods, and aims to improve things in that setting.
Who created action research?
Social psychologist Kurt Lewin is credited with naming action research as a tool for organizational change. His idea was that ordinary people, working together, can study their own problems through repeated cycles of reflection, action and problem solving. Three elements make it action research: it is participatory, it is democratic, and it makes a double contribution by adding to knowledge and changing something in the real world.
How is action research used in the BUAD 317 honors course?
BUAD 317 runs as one long action research project in loops. The first loop is stakeholder interviews, with 10 or more interviews for Deliverable #3. The second loop is building a prototype and testing it with 7 to 10 people for Deliverable #6. The Capstone Presentation, Deliverable #9, plans the next loop with a summer operating plan and a plan for gathering more evidence.