Practice-oriented research: contribution to a practitioner’s knowledge

specified. This can only be achieved if the practitioner’s circumstances as well as his options for action both “objectively” and “subjectively”, i.e. seen from the practitioner’s viewpoint are precisely known. It is, therefore, necessary to explore and map the practice in which know- ledge needs have emerged, to formulate these needs as precisely as possible, and to prioritize them, before one of these is chosen as the one that should be addressed in the research project. We advise using the “intervention cycle” as a tool for this process of mapping and prioritizing knowledge needs. The intervention cycle see Figure 3.3 depicts problem solving as an iterative process consisting of five distinct phases: 1. problem finding : identification and definition of a problem; 2. problem diagnosis: finding out why a problem exists causes; 3. design of intervention: designing an intervention based on a diagnosis that should help to solve the problem; 4. implementation: implementing the intervention that has been designed; 5. evaluation: ascertaining whether the aims of the intervention have been achieved and whether or to what degree the problem has been solved. The five phases of the intervention cycle define the stages through which a “problem” progresses. The basic underlying assumption is that Problem finding Implementation Problem diagnosis Design of intervention Evaluation Intervention cycle Figure 3.3 The intervention cycle for solving a practical problem the logical and temporal order that is depicted in this cycle must not be violated. One phase needs to be completed sufficiently before the problem can move to the next phase. Based on this assumption, we believe that practitioners’ knowledge needs can be prioritized by “locating” where they are in terms of phases of this cycle. As shown in Flowchart 3, there are three forms of practice-oriented research: ■ descriptive practice-oriented research; ■ hypothesis-building practice-oriented research; ■ hypothesis-testing practice-oriented research. We recommend beginning any practice-oriented research project with a thorough exploration of the practice to which the research is ori- ented in order to determine whether hypotheses can be found that should be tested. If no hypothesis can be found in this way, it must be decided whether or not a hypothesis and hypothesis-testing is needed in order to generate the knowledge that the practitioner needs. If it is decided that it is not necessary to find and test a hypothesis, descriptive practice-oriented research should be designed and conducted. If, however, it is decided that the practitioner definitely needs knowl- edge about a relationship between aspects of the practice, hypothesis- building practice-oriented research should be designed and conducted. If a hypothesis is available, and assuming that the result of the test of this hypothesis will provide knowledge on which the practitioner can act in the current circumstances, hypothesis-testing practice-oriented research should be designed and conducted.

3.3.3 Exploration for practice-oriented research

The aims of exploration for practice-oriented research are: ■ to specify the problem as precisely as possible; ■ to identify its current phase in terms of the intervention cycle; ■ to identify knowledge needs; and ■ to prioritize these needs according to their urgency in rela- tion to the phase in the intervention cycle to which the prob- lem has progressed. The main result, thus, of the exploration of practice is a specification of the main practitioner’s knowledge need, i.e. the knowledge that the practitioner currently needs most in order to act effectively in the current circumstances. As can be seen in Flowchart 3 we distinguish, first, between an exploration of practice which comes first and a con- secutive exploration of theory and, second, between two types of explo- ration of theory, depending on the knowledge need that is formulated as the result of the exploration of practice. We will discuss each of these three types separately. Hypotheses available Hypotheses not available Description needed Hypothesis needed Hypotheses not available Hypotheses available Descriptive research See Flowchart 3C Exploration of practice for defining the phase of the problem and the knowledge needs: 1. Problem finding 2. Problem diagnosis 3. Design of intervention 4. Implementation 5. Evaluation Exploration of theory for finding hypotheses Exploration of theory for confirming relevance of hypotheses Hypothesis-testing research See Flowchart 3A A contribution to a practitioner’s knowledge A contribution to a practitioner’s knowledge Hypothesis-building research See Flowchart 3B Practice-oriented research Flowchart 3 Deciding on the type of practice-oriented research