2.2 Disrupting the status quo: the action research dissertation as  (Page 11/13)

During the two years of coursework, within the required Research/Inquiry classes, students would upload into their portfolios two reflection papers, referred to as Connection Statements, containing supporting documents referred to as Artifacts (examples of practices the student has engaged in offered as illustrations of growing understanding of theories and research). The connection statements encourage candidates to connect ideas from the scholarship across content. Connection statements also provide candidates with the opportunity to reflect on their practice through the lens of theory and research. Candidates would draw on both the faculty-defined core knowledge and the supplemental knowledge they have gained that will be needed to complete their Action Research Plan, which would be developed during coursework. The core knowledge is grounded in themes such as Leadership Theory and Practice; Organizational Analysis; Content and Context for Learning and Research Methods. The Action Research Plan would be a third document to be included in the portfolio. Student-identified problems to be addressed in the Action Research Plan would emerge from the problems-of-practice curriculum. (See Figure 1)

In their own work settings, students would have the opportunity of learning how to use action research to address one or more of the problems they identify together with relevant colleagues during course work. Faculty feedback and candidate reflection would shape this plan. Ultimately, the Action Research Plan would become an Action Research Project serving as the capstone project. Thus, the fourth document included as part of the completed portfolio would be the write-up of the Action Research Project (or dissertation,) which would be completed within the year following coursework. These dissertations would be based on at least two iterations of the action research cycle in which the student diagnoses the situation confronted in his/her organization using preunderstanding of that situation informed by theory; plans an intervention in the organization; implements the intervention; and then studies the results of the intervention (Coghlan&Brannick, 2005).

A professionally anchored capstone does not fit neatly into pre-determined chapters. It flows and evolves as action research cycles spiral across time. It focuses on problems of practice and produces information for use. It requires inquiry into effective, research-based practice and appropriate theory. In this way, students can acquire the requisite knowledge and develop the necessary cognitive and action research skills to become critically reflective professionals and skillful scholar leaders who are prepared to participate with others to make relevant organizational change in the interests of those who have been less well served by the status quo.

This proposed capstone experience would require a particular kind of advisor-student relationship. The advisor would not only support the student in his/her research projects, but would also assist the student to reflect on deeply held beliefs and personal theories about leadership practice and the organizations in which they work. We believe that this capstone experience also calls for a different type of committee than one normally appointed for PhD. candidates. Herr and Anderson (2005) argue that dissertation chairs and committee members need to understand that the action researcher likely has multiple roles in the project—as researcher, as insider or familiar outsider, as administrator, employee or consultant. And they must be able to offer appropriate methodological and epistemological approaches to the study.“Action research is a messy, somewhat unpredictable process, and a key part of the inquiry is a recording of decisions made in the face of this messiness”(Herr&Anderson, 2005, p. 78). Thus, advisors should also have opportunities to instruct in the program that prepares students to undertake this kind of research.