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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.
