Researching their own practice (II): the competencies required by practitioner researchers

Practitioner research has a specific role to play in the development of a profession. It can be argued that it is often at the start of the development of knowledge of an emerging practice. This research, produced by scholar practitioners, is highly ‘situated’ within the practice environment and at its best is not restricted to the evaluation within practice of existing models and theories but can through critical engagement with others lead to the development of new knowledge. To date, however, there is little literature concerned with the competencies required of practitioner researchers in general. Clearly this does restrict the evidence base for professional development in this area and the provision of resources to support this valuable activity. This study seeks to engage in an initial exploration of these competencies through the consideration of a small case study and the use of grounded theory for data collection and analysis. The case is a community of executive coaching practitioners brought together to undertake practitioner research as part of the Rainbow Convention, a conference held in Cape Town in May 2011. The community was unusual as all the self selected practitioners were trained in action learning and research methodologies and overseen by research supervisors but were not required to undertake a university course nor complete a research degree. This allowed the competencies required to carry out practitioner research to be considered in isolation from the competencies required for academic study. Through focus groups and interview the participants identified the competencies they considered most useful to the development of their research. The results are compared to the competencies required of professional researchers and the degree of agreement is of interest to those seeking to provide research training for senior practitioners either through research degrees or as part of their professional development