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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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The Qualitative Report

Journal

2011

Participatory Research

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Participatory And Action-Oriented Dissertations: The Challenges And Importance Of Community-Engaged Graduate Research, Emily Van Der Meulen Sep 2011

Participatory And Action-Oriented Dissertations: The Challenges And Importance Of Community-Engaged Graduate Research, Emily Van Der Meulen

The Qualitative Report

Graduate students commonly experience isolation and estrangement when conducting their final research projects, which can contribute to difficulties in completion. A creative and socially beneficial way to offset academic isolation is for graduate students to engage in participatory and action-oriented research projects with local communities. Facilitating a research study with a local partner can be a richly rewarding experience. This article argues that students who enjoy working in collaborative environments and want their final research projects to lead to beneficial social change can find fulfillment in action research (AR) methodologies. Critiqued by some for its lack of tangible and practical …


Consistency And Change In Participatory Action Research: Reflections On A Focus Group Study About How Farmers Learn, Fred P. Piercy, Nancy Franz, Joseph L. Donaldson, Robert F. Richard May 2011

Consistency And Change In Participatory Action Research: Reflections On A Focus Group Study About How Farmers Learn, Fred P. Piercy, Nancy Franz, Joseph L. Donaldson, Robert F. Richard

The Qualitative Report

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on our efforts to balance consistency in our multi-year participatory action research study with the need to adapt our research protocol to what we are learning along the way. While both are important, we share several examples of how our flexibility and openness to adapt our protocol to our research findings has lead to methodological refinements and serendipitous learnings. We discuss implications for both agricultural education and research.