6533b7d8fe1ef96bd126b698

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Action research as narrative: five principles for validation

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Along with the narrative turn in social sciences, the quality of research has become a more and more intricate issue. Action research reports are often narratives, located in the context of the evolving experiences of those involved. In this paper, the problem of quality in action research narratives is addressed, and some principles for assessing the quality of narrative research reports are proposed. The issue is explored both at a theoretical‐conceptual level and through a number of practical cases from the narrative‐biographical research project TeacherLife. As narrative researchers, the authors are not willing to accept an extremely relativistic stand. They argue the need for conceptual tools to grasp the problem of quality of narratives, but tools different from the traditional concepts of validity and reliability, which harbour markedly positivistic connotations. They propose five principles for judging the quality of action research from a narrative point of view. According to these principles, a ...