New Book Chapter by SPF Board Member

By Eunsook Hong

A chapter by SPF Board President Lonnie Rowell is included in the newly published Wiley Handbook of Action Research in Education edited by Craig A. Mertler (2019).  Rowell’s chapter examines rigor in educational action research in the larger context of education research. Beginning with the understanding that essentially rigor is simply the quality of being extremely thorough and careful in conducting research, Rowell provides a critical examination of the place of rigor in educational action research, including the problematic nature of traditional views of rigor in scientific research and the more hopeful spirit of rigor in action research. According to Rowell, this spirit embodies the recognition that given the current state of research in education, those engaging in educational action research will benefit the most from grounding their work in a solid understanding of flexible research designs and taking a stance of opposition to the dominant form of education research while embracing the call for democratization of knowledge in education.