| As social scientists, educational researchers must be aware of the implications of the social science technologies that we employ. As educators, we need to be especially sensitive to the necessity of producing knowledge that is directly applicable to teaching and to learning. According to Chris Argyris, prominent features of these technologies represent serious threats to the validity of social science research.;The methods used in rigorous research which require a priori precision and continuous researcher control contain innercontradictions that make accurate description highly unlikely as well as incomplete. Argyris has proposed a kind of action research, which he calls "action science," which is designed to avoid the threats to validity which are embedded in rigorous research methodologies. To the requirements of normal science, action science adds the criteria of applicability, the creation of alternative universes, a close connection between learning and the production of knowledge, and the production of accurate and usable generalizations.;The theoretical perspective for the research is from Argyris and Donald Schon who have conceptualized a theory-of-action perspective. They have described the theory-in-use that most people use to guide their behavior and have labeled it Model I. They have developed Model II, which is a theory-in-use that results in increased effectiveness for those who adopt it.;This research utilized the action science methodology to conduct a seminar in which the researcher, who was the director of a large residence hall at a Midwest university, taught the theory-of-action perspective to student staff members in the hall. It was designed to be an exploratory and descriptive study, the purpose of which was to learn how to conduct action science, to help the participants to learn to be more effective interpersonally, and to describe the research process in which the researcher was also the teacher and the supervisor of the research participants.;A description is presented of the extent to which the researcher was able to meet the criteria of action science including (a) helping participants within the context and needs of their real work setting; (b) creating an alternative environment in which old skills were interrupted; (c) teaching new theories and new skills to the participants; and (d) using low a priori precision (low unilateral researcher control) leading to high accuracy due to the openness of the researcher to the detection and correction of personal error and error in the research design itself. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI. |
