In this definition, the Lewinian notion of the spiral is preserved in the
notions of planning, acting, observing and reflecting. Participation,
too, long recognized by Lewin and his colleagues as an essential aspect
of the action research process, remains an essential feature. But the
definition also gives central importance to the notion of strategic action.
Action research, it is claimed, is the research method of preference
whenever a social practice is the focus of research activity. It is to be
preferred to positivistic research which treats social practices as
functions of determinate systems, and to purely interpretive approaches
which treat practices as cultural-historical products. In fact, social
practices are essentially risky enterprises requiring judgments about
their prudence, and as such they cannot be justified solely by reference
to theoretical principles nor justified purely retrospectively by reference
to their cultural and historical location.