Shared Inquiry capabilities and differing inquiry preferences: Navigating 'full cycle' iterations of action research

This chapter takes a fresh approach to some persistent issues facing action research as a philosophy of science by drawing on an expanded framework that integrates insights from systems thinking, psychology and sociology in a new way (Wadsworth 2011). The familiar shared range of human 'inquiry capabilities' are firstly described and identified as corresponding with the processes of living systems to achieve dynamic stability - the conditions for life - through repeated cycles of inquiring. I then articulate the new concepts of 'inquiry preferences' and their 'reach' around the action research inquiry cycle to encompass the diversity of capabilities within human populations for achieving inquiry more effectively collectively, and particularly under conditions of crisis. The skills outlined offer to enable working more reflexively with our own and others' inquiry capabilities and preferences, and resource those using action research with a sequence of questions to ensure more effectively traversing 'full cycle', drawing on all preferences and avoiding the systemic risks of exclusion or dominance of any particular preferences