Episode 20- Rethinking Rigor in Action Research, With Dr. Alfredo Ortiz Aragón

In this episode, the AR Pod Team welcomes Dr. Alfredo Ortiz Aragón, an Action-Researcher and Associate Professor in the Graduate Program at the Dreeben School of Education, University of the Incarnate Word San Antonio, Texas, and co-author of Action Research (Fifth Edition) with Ernie Stringer.

What does rigor mean in Action Research? Is this term even appropriate for what action researchers do? To discuss these important questions the AR Pod team has a “critically casual” conversation with Alfredo about issues of rigor, quality and what makes good action research. The conversation starts with a quote by Alfredo about the problem with using the term rigor in action research (2:00), which raises a lot of hard-hitting questions, such as: “How might narrow understandings of rigor negatively affect Action Research practice?” and “Should action research be rigorous, or should it simply be responsible? (18:34) Our trio gets critical on the rigid nature of the term rigor to make the point that one needs to be mindful of the moments in action research processes where they should be rigorous and when they should not. Join us in this conversation!

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: If you are interested in Action Research, be sure to sign up for the 2021 Action Research Network of the Americas (ARNA) Annual Conference to be held (Virtually) on the 3, 10 and 17 of June. For more details you can go to their website: https://arnawebsite.org/

Also, if you are interested in learning more about Community-Based Participatory Action Research, check out this mini-course at the University of Kentucky that will be co-facilitated by Joe! https://education.uky.edu/learning-series/

References

CHECKLAND, P. & HOLWELL, S. 1998. Action Research: Its Nature and Validity Systemic Practice and Action Research, 11, 12.

Ortiz Aragón, A., & Giles Macedo, J. C. (2015). Radical epistemology as caffeine for social change. In H. Bradbury (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of action research (3rd ed. pp. 681–690). SAGE.

Melrose, M. J. (2001). Maximizing the Rigor of Action Research: Why Would You Want To? How Could You? Field Methods, 13(2), 160–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X0101300203

**If you have your own questions about Action Research or want to share any feedback, contact us on Twitter @The_ARpod or write to us at ActionResearchPod@gmail.com.**