How are Counsellors Transformed Through Engaging in Action Research? A Narrative Analysis.

Abstract

While many researchers (i.e., inquirers) create knowledge products for potential uptake in practice, others in practical-critical, future-forming communities (e.g., action research [AR]) seek to cocreate social change as an inherent part of their inquiry. Specifically, counsellor-inquirers who enact AR are in an unusual situation because professionally, their work overlaps with AR (i.e., both are a relational process of cocreating social change). However, they have not been asked at length about how they are transformed through engaging in AR. I held a semi-structured conversation with eight counsellor-inquirers who had finished a thesis or dissertation using AR or published a manuscript on AR. I transcribed the interviews, using narrative segments of transcripts that were in answer to my research question as narrative data. Through Riessman’s (2008) thematic narrative analysis (NA), I created within-transcript (i.e., for individual coinquirers) and across-transcript research narratives (i.e., common findings between coinquirers) as answers to my inquiry. As regards the latter, by engaging in AR, counsellor-inquirers seem to be transformed in terms of broadening their change efforts, shifting their counselling practice, refining their critical practice, engaging in the process of identity construction, pivoting their relational practice, and augmenting their research practice. This inquiry holds relevance for neophyte narrative analysts, counsellor education, future-forming research, and action researchers.