GM505 Unit 2 Action Research Methodology Comparison Example

Four Calls About One Missing Document: A Unit 2 Methodology Comparison of Three Ways to Study It

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

GM505: Action Research and Consulting Skills

Unit 2 Methodology Comparison

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The college, its financial aid office and every figure are composite and illustrative; the methods and sources cited are real.

The Question

Lakeshore Community College enrolls about 11,000 students on a north and a south campus, and about 60 percent receive some form of financial aid. Students selected for federal verification must submit documents such as tax transcripts and household forms before their aid can be finalized. Advisors report that some students call three, four or five times about the same missing document. The question is why, and what the office could do about it.

Three Designs

A student satisfaction survey. After the fall term, the office would mail or email a survey to all students who submitted verification documents, asking how clear the instructions were, how many times they contacted the office and how satisfied they were. The researcher would be someone outside the office, perhaps from institutional research, who designs the questions, analyzes the responses and reports findings.

A two-campus comparison. The north and south campuses process verification through the same system but with different staff. A comparison would measure repeat-call rates per student on each campus over a term, along with differences in staffing, procedures and student population, and ask which differences track the gap. The researcher would analyze call records and file data without changing anything during the study.

Insider action research. An advisor who works in the office would run a series of cycles: diagnose the problem with colleagues, plan a change, act, observe the results and reflect, then begin again. Action research, as Kurt Lewin described it, joins inquiry and practical change in the same process, with each cycle of action producing knowledge for the next (Lewin, 1946). Gerald Susman and Roger Evered later defined its phases as diagnosing, action planning, action taking, evaluating and specifying learning (Susman & Evered, 1978).

Comparing Them in the Same Terms

Who frames the question. In the survey, the researcher frames it, usually as satisfaction. In the comparison, the researcher frames it as a difference to explain. In action research, the question is framed with the people involved, including staff and, where possible, students.

Where the researcher stands. The survey researcher is outside, collecting responses at a distance. The comparison researcher is also outside, working from records. The action researcher is inside, a member of the office who is studying and changing her own workplace at the same time.

What counts as evidence. The survey produces self-reported ratings and counts. The comparison produces measured rates and documented differences. Action research produces a mix: records, observations, conversations and the results of changes tried.

What findings can claim beyond this office. The survey can describe how students at this college experienced verification, and with a good response rate it might be compared with other colleges. The comparison can identify factors associated with higher or lower call rates, with some claim to generality if the campuses differ in clear ways. Action research produces findings about this office, in this period, with limited claim to generality.

What changes while the study runs. In the survey and the comparison, nothing changes by design; the office runs as usual. In action research, the office changes during the study, because changing it is part of the method.

The survey and the comparison can tell the office why students call; only action research tests whether a change the office makes will reduce the calls, but it pays for that with findings that may hold only here.

How Each Would Operate in Practice

The survey would take a term to field and analyze, cost little beyond staff time and give the dean a report she could compare with national satisfaction data. But self-reported contact counts are unreliable, and students who gave up on aid entirely are least likely to respond.

The comparison would take a term of data and some weeks of analysis. It could show, for example, that the north campus has fewer repeat calls and a processor who writes notes in student files. But with only two campuses, any single difference might be a coincidence, and the study would leave the office no closer to a tested change.

Action research would run in cycles of several weeks each. The advisor would code calls, trace files and observe the processing desk, then design a change with colleagues, pilot it and measure the effect against the other campus. The office would learn whether its own change worked. But the advisor's position inside the office would shape what she sees and what colleagues tell her, which David Coghlan and Teresa Brannick describe as the central challenge of researching one's own organization (Coghlan & Brannick, 2014).

What Action Research Gives Up

The trade is clearest stated as three items. First, generality: findings will describe one office's experience, not financial aid offices in general. Second, distance: the researcher is part of what she studies, so her presence and her stake in the outcome affect the evidence. Third, control: because the office changes during the study, other events, such as a staffing change, may be mistaken for the effect of the change being tested.

What the Dean Would Hear From Each

The designs would also produce different kinds of report for the dean of enrollment, who will decide what happens next. The survey would give her satisfaction scores and a list of complaints, which tells her students are unhappy but not what to change. The comparison would give her a correlation between campus practices and call rates, which suggests a change but does not show it would work. The action research would give her the result of a change the office actually tried, with the conditions under which it worked and failed. For a dean who has to decide whether to change a process, the third report is the most useful, even though it is the narrowest.

Choosing a Design

For this question, action research is the right choice. The office does not need a general account of why students call aid offices; it needs a change that reduces repeat calls here. Action research is the only design of the three that tests such a change.

The limits of that choice belong in the same paragraph. The findings will not generalize far. The advisor's insider position will need to be examined throughout, which is the subject of the reflexivity analysis later in the engagement. And the two-campus comparison is not abandoned entirely: the south campus will serve as a comparison during the pilot, which recovers some of the control the action design gives up.

Conclusion

A survey, a two-campus comparison and insider action research would each study why students call repeatedly about missing documents, and each makes different claims at different costs. Action research is chosen because it alone tests a change, and the paper is explicit that the choice costs generality, distance and some control.

References

Coghlan, D., & Brannick, T. (2014). Doing action research in your own organization (4th ed.). Sage.

Lewin, K. (1946). Action research and minority problems. Journal of Social Issues, 2(4), 34-46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1946.tb02295.x

Susman, G. I., & Evered, R. D. (1978). An assessment of the scientific merits of action research. Administrative Science Quarterly, 23(4), 582-603. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392581