There are two classical epistemological positions and both are concerned about the relationship of our mind to our experience in generating knowledge. Empiricism places primary focus on what we experience. Empirical processes collect data about the world through our five senses and build up a body of knowledge which is seen as probably true rather than absolutely true through a process of induction. Rationalism places primary focus on our mind. Explanations about experience are deducted from these certain principles.
Scientific method is a particular combination of empirical and rational procedures.
Action research is another combination of empirical and rational procedures. Scientific method starts by making a rational decision about the type of problem that it will pursue. Scientific method makes the value choice to pursue generalisable knowledge rather than situation specific knowledge, i.e to pursue external validity at the expense, if ncessary, of internal validity. Therefore, it choses problems where it is possible to extract meaningful relationships between discrete variables. Scientific method continues with the rational processes of seeking out current knowledge about the relationship between the chosen variables through a literature or other searches.