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RESEARCH DESIGN
In the second cycle, based on the findings of the first cycle, I investigated
how the participants" awareness of the artistic purpose and knowledge of
tools can help in consciously creating Drama Events, gaps in dominant social
narratives, in living through improvisations.
The data analysis investigates many of the issues connected to these
two questions. The answers come together to offer a complex response to
the seemingly simple central research question: Can Drama Events be created
in Living Through Drama?
I continue by describing the particulars of the research conducted, starting
with the research design, followed by the details of the implementation of
the two cycles. I present the data collection methods used, and the mode of
data analysis.
RESEARCH DESIGN
The problem that is at the heart of this research is on the one hand my
individual professional problem but it also connects to a wider socio-political
problem, as this is often the case with action research.* I have followed
the basic structure of action research projects and completed two cycles of
research. Both series consisted of a spiral formed by the cycles of planning,
action, observation and reflection which led back to further planning. It is
important to acknowledge that action research demands ongoing reflection
and this in some instances of my research produced overlapping stages rather
than “neat self-contained spirals”. The process of synthesising practices
of drama and theatre that at times also contained opposing features besides
many shared characteristics produced a critical dialectic discourse in which
reaching back to lessons and outcomes over cycles proved useful.
Conducting my research in two cycles allowed me to explore different
theoretical connections between the two fields and a variety of structures in
diverse contexts and with two different age-groups. Before detailing the data
collection tools I present the basic differences in the approach and the logistics
of the first and the second cycle.
560 Jean McNiff — Jack Whitehead: Action Research: Principles and Practice, 2" edn., London,
RoutledgeFalmer, 2002, 15.
561 Maggie Coats: Action Research: A Guide for Associate Lecturers, Milton Keynes, The Open
University, 2005, 5.
562 Wimpenny: Participatory action research, 92.