ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses fields of application and critical issues of the approach. Action research holds that a teaching strategy is an attempt to realize an educational idea in a concrete interactional form. As educational ideas always incorporate educational values, it does not make sense to separate instrumental questions from intentional ones. Action research is not a method of data analysis. Neither it is characterized by specific methods, but rather by integrating various methods in a methodologically consistent strategy. New developments in substantive natural scientific research as well as in philosophy of science may be interpreted as paving the way for a reincorporation of alternative research traditions’ into a ‘unified methodology’. Invention, scrutiny and application of methodological rules and criteria is a right and duty of the researcher working within a concrete project rather than a prerogative of specialized methodologists. A characteristic feature of traditional empirical research is its personal and institutional separation of reflection and action.
