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96 YOUR RESEARCH PROJECT ACTION
This can be seen as related to experimental research, though it is carried out in the real world rather than in the context of a closed experimental system. A basic definition of this type of research is: ‘a small scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such an intervention’ (Cohen and Manion, 1994, p. 186). Its main characteristic is that it is essentially an ‘on the spot’ procedure, principally designed to deal with a specific problem evident in a particular situation. No attempt is made to separate a particular feature of the problem from its context in order to study it in isolation. Constant monitoring and evaluation are carried out, and the conclusions from the findings are applied immediately, and further monitored. Action research depends mainly on observation and behavioural data. As a practical form of research, aimed at a specific problem and situation and with little or no control over independent variables, it cannot fulfil the scientific requirement for generalizability. In this sense, despite its exploratory nature, it is the antithesis of experimental research. ETHNOGENIC
In this approach, the researcher is interested in how the subjects of the research theorize about their own behaviour rather than imposing a theory from outside. The test of success is that the subjects themselves recognize the description of familiar features of their culture. As a process of studying human behaviour, according to Goetz and LeCompte (1984), the ethnogenic approach has three characteristic features: it aims to represent a view of the world as it is structured by the participants under observation by eliciting phenomenological data; it takes place in the undisturbed natural settings of the subjects; and it attempts to represent the totality of the social, cultural and economic situation, regarding the context to be equally important as the action (Uzzell, 1995, pp. 304–5). This is a difficult form of research for several reasons. As so much of culture is hidden and rarely made explicit, the data being sought by the researcher need to be pursued by delving deep into the language and behaviour of the subjects of the study, and of the surrounding conditions in which they live. There is an ever-present danger that the cultural background and assumptions of the researcher will unduly influence the interpretations and descriptions made on the basis of the data collected. In addition to this, there can be confusions produced by the use of language and the different meanings which may be given to words by the respondents and researcher. The accounts of events in the past can never capture the infinite contents of history. Historical knowledge, however well authenticated, is always subject to the biases and memory of its chronicler. It is also very difficult for one living in the twenty-first century to understand a world outside the framework of contemporary beliefs, values and attitudes.