Project Participants
The action research (AR) team for this project included me as the researcher, two research assistants, three members of the board of directors, JFSC‘s executive assistant, and an editor. Each member of the AR team signed a Letter of Agreement (see Appendix A) to ensure participant and organizational confidentiality.
The criteria for selecting the project participants was to include those individuals within the organization who were closest to and directly affected by the research question. The project participants comprised of all 22 staff of the organization: 16 frontline and 6 leadership team members. Stringer (2007) asserted that the nature of the AR process is a collaborative one, and this project sought to enact an approach to inquiry that included all relevant stakeholders.
The mode of communication for the all three cycles of AR planned was email, as it was the preferred format within the JFSC organization according to the Executive Director (B. Sheckter, personal communication, July 2, 2010). The Executive Assistant of the JFSC organization emailed the online invitations to the staff. Each online invitation provided information about the research project, my role as a researcher, the date, time, and location of the event, and provided any information required to attend the event (Stringer, 2007). Confidentiality of the participant‘s response was clearly communicated, in writing, before each AR cycle. I made every effort to ensure that the protection of individual identities was honoured and respected. For methods in which individual privacy and confidentiality could not be offered, participants were asked to treat all information as confidential and to not share research information outside the group.
JFSC is accustomed to online surveys; therefore, the first AR cycle selected was an online survey. All 22 staff members were invited to participate (see Appendix B). These