ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. This book outlines the much reviled practice-research gap, which numerous commentators lament, but too often without concrete examples. We have sought to demonstrate ways it has been bridged through practitioner research. This book is divided into two parts. Some aspects of the specific style of research and development of the profession are discussed through a series of discursive, descriptive and reflective chapters in first part. These are backed up in second part with carefully chosen, and we hope stimulating, accounts of exemplar studies, each of which demonstrates work-based research leading to practice-based products over a range of professional settings and applications. Professors Simon du Plock and Paul Barber draw on their extensive experience across a variety of approaches to both traditional and professional doctorates to examine some further key features of this style of high-level study and professional development and its context.
