Introduction

Action research is rapidly becoming one of the most popular research methods in information and communication research among practitioners. Increasingly they are recognizing the value of this approach in improving service provision, encouraging reflective practice and structuring and disseminating experience to the wider community. Action research has been used to investigate organizational functions such as the role of the library and library staff in the provision of distance learning programmes (Bailey et al., 2004), for educational research investigating individual solutions to differing learning needs, such as tackling student referencing errors (Kendall, 2005), and to improve students’ information literacy skills over a longitudinal series of interventions (Pickard, 2005). As Rowley points out:

Kurt Lewin is the sociologist who first used the term ‘action research’, to describe his work in the field of human dynamics with individuals affected by post-war social problems. He believed that in order to truly make a difference some form of change or action had to be embedded in the research design from the outset. An investigation leads to some form of action, which is followed by an evaluation of that action: ‘The research needed for social practice can best be characterized as research for social management or social engineering. It is a type of action-research, a comparative research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action, and research leading to social action. Research that produces nothing but books will not suffice’ (Lewin, 1948, 202).