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Graduate Course Proposal Form Submission Detail - COM6306
Tracking Number - 2021

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Current Status: Approved, Permanent Archive - 2004-03-18
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Detail Information

  1. Date & Time Submitted: 2003-10-27
  2. Department: Communication
  3. College: AS
  4. Budget Account Number: 1217000
  5. Contact Person: Gil Rodman
  6. Phone: 9743025
  7. Email: grodman@chuma.cas.usf.edu
  8. Prefix: COM
  9. Number: 6306
  10. Full Title: Action Research
  11. Credit Hours: 3
  12. Section Type: D - Discussion (Primarily)
  13. Is the course title variable?: N
  14. Is a permit required for registration?: N
  15. Are the credit hours variable?: N
  16. Is this course repeatable?:
  17. If repeatable, how many times?: 0
  18. Abbreviated Title (30 characters maximum): Action Research
  19. Course Online?: -
  20. Percentage Online:
  21. Grading Option: R - Regular
  22. Prerequisites: Graduate Standing
  23. Corequisites: None
  24. Course Description: Action research is rooted in engagement, involving collaboration with community or organizational partners who will be affected by the research. Through hands-on projects we learn principles of action research and explore communication and ethical issues.

  25. Please briefly explain why it is necessary and/or desirable to add this course: This course is critical to the university mission of doing engaged research. It addresses a need for developing rigorous and yet relevant ways of doing research that benefit the interests of our various communities and the university at the same time. It
  26. What is the need or demand for this course? (Indicate if this course is part of a required sequence in the major.) What other programs would this course service? This course adds to an already strong program of qualitative methods in the communication department. Yet, it adds in a way that does not exclude other, including quantitative, research methods. It also allows students to learn by doing an actual project, and to see what research issues emerge in the course of doing that actual project. Although housed in the communication department, it is very much an interdisciplinary course. In addition to students from communication, we have had students from other programs (including other colleges at USF) in previous classes, and the interdisciplinarity others bring to the course is another strength. Faculty in other departments and colleges have also expressed a desire to be informed of future offerings of this course, as they felt it fulfilled a real need for their students too. It should also be noted that students from this course have gone on to present their project work (sometimes in collaboration with their community partners) at professional and academic disciplinary and interdisciplinary conferences (including the USF-hosted conference on University as engaged citizen).
  27. Has this course been offered as Selected Topics/Experimental Topics course? If yes, how many times? This course has been offered twice previously as a Special Topics course.
  28. What qualifications for training and/or experience are necessary to teach this course? (List minimum qualifications for the instructor.) Ph.D. in Communication or closely related field.
  29. Objectives: To create an understanding of action research as a culture of inquiry, including its relationship to other methodologies.

    To create the practical knowledge involved in doing an action research project.

    To create an understanding of the epistemological foundations of action research.

    To foster recognition of the communication processes involved in all facets of an action research project, from agenda setting to policy formulation.

    To clarify ethical issues involved in doing research, including action research.

    To understand the role of action research in community life, including quality of life issues.

    To understand what an action research program looks like from different cultural perspectives.

  30. Learning Outcomes: As a result of this course, students will:

    Understand the philosophical and historical roots of action research.

    Be able to initiate and carry out an action research project.

    Be able to understand how other methodologies might also fit with action research.

    Learn communication issues involved in doing research in collaboration with community or organizational partners, including how to facilitate the creation of a “third language.”

    Understand the complexities of research relationships, involved in basic processes, such as the construction of a research agenda.

    Take seriously all issues of ethics in doing participatory research.

    Be skilled in facilitating action / reflection cycles.

    Be familiar with the current literature in action research – and be able to offer a presentation based on their project work that speaks to such issues.

  31. Major Topics: Action research defined in relation to other methodologies, including the scientific method.

    History of action research and its contexts, including traditions of industrial democracy.

    Epistemological foundations of action research, including traditions of pragmatism and systems approaches.

    Researcher relationships in doing action research, including communication issues involved in collaborative work.

    Ethical issues in doing action research.

    Cogenerative research and local knowledge.

    Reflective practice.

    Construction of learning arenas, search conferences and dialogue.

    Participatory and reflexive evaluation.

  32. Textbooks: Davydd Greenwood and Morten Levin (1998). Introduction to Action Research: Social Research for Social Change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

    In addition, there will be topical texts chosen based on the semester projects, as well as readings from current publications that deal with ongoing issues in action research.

  33. Course Readings, Online Resources, and Other Purchases:
  34. Student Expectations/Requirements and Grading Policy:
  35. Assignments, Exams and Tests:
  36. Attendance Policy:
  37. Policy on Make-up Work:
  38. Program This Course Supports:
  39. Course Concurrence Information:


- if you have questions about any of these fields, please contact chinescobb@grad.usf.edu or joe@grad.usf.edu.