Episode 8-Acting to Learn and Learning to Act with Dr Alfredo Ortiz Aragon (Pt. 2)

In this episode, Adam and Joe do a deep dive into Action Research processes with Dr Alfredo Ortiz Aragón, an Action-Researcher and Associate Professor in the PhD Program at the Dreeben School of Education at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, and co-author of Action Research (Fifth Edition) with Ernie Stringer.

Here, Alfredo shares his journey from a pure practitioner to action researcher (2:00). and talks about his epiphany as to what constitutes meaningful work- “I realized that my whole career had been focused on producing outputs, matrices, reports, plans, not realizing that those are just props in the drama, those are just tools that may or may not be an indicator of deep meaningful conversation (5:40).” He then discusses how he entered the world of action research, how he got connected with Ernie Stringer, and how his collaboration developed to co-write "the book" on Action Research (7:20).

In the last segment, Adam and Joe talk about Ernie Stringer and Alfredo’s exciting new (5th) edition of the seminal book, Action Research. Adam pulls out some of the important concepts from the book to discuss with Alfredo: “it’s difficult to understand the concepts without having some sort of context behind it. So, it would be great if we could somehow interweave, not only talking about some of these ideas but perhaps incorporate what this looks like for you in the field as an Action Researcher”. (11:46) Alfredo contextualizes these concepts by sharing a few glimpses from his Action Research projects, such as an initiative developed with a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) grant to test out action research methods. “How can we, by introducing AR approaches, philosophy, and methods… increase participation of key community actors in their own health and wellbeing efforts in leveraging their own knowledge in coming up with solutions?” (24:40) He also shares his team's experience developing a digital storytelling project with people on the Autism spectrum. “...Asking people to share stories of their experiences and accessing services that are critical to the health and wellbeing of their kids. And what's worked what hasn't and what can we learn by a simply hearing people's stories?" (26:08) To learn more about these concepts, tune-in to the episode!

If you are interested in the book we discuss in the podcast the citation is below:

Stringer, E. T., & Aragón, A. O. (2021). Action research (Fifth edition). Sage publications