Practitioner knowledge in practitioner research

Abstract

One of the biggest issues facing practitioner researchers is the way in which their practitioner knowledge and identity affects the collection of data. Although it may be possible, when planning research, to maintain a degree of distance from the self, when actually in the field the self and its values, knowledge and habits have a disturbing tendency to intrude on the research. Many practitioner researchers become anxious about this bias and struggle to overcome, suppress or control it. The anxiety partly arises because the self and, in particular, the practitioner knowledge that it manifests, is seen as subjective and therefore out of place in an endeavour which is traditionally valued for its objective scientific status.