The Practitioner Guide to Participatory Research with Groups and Communities

✍ Scribed by Kaz Stuart; Lucy Maynard

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 195
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Avoiding both over-simplification and jargon-riddled complexity, this book is an invaluable, straightforward guide to participatory research for you and your fellow practitioners working with community groups and organisations. The book offers a route map for your research project, taking you through each stage of the participatory research process, from planning your project to disseminating your findings. Keeping in mind imperatives such as engagement, involvement and voice, the book explores how best to conduct your research in ways which are meaningful for the participants. The book includes valuable resources such as reflection points, chapter summaries and further reading lists offering support to practitioners to plan and undertake participatory research projects with their communities with confidence.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Cover
The Practitioner Guide to Participatory Research with Groups and Communities:
Copyright information
Table of contents
List of figures and tables
Glossary
About the authors
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Foreword
Introduction
Welcome to the book!
How can I use this book?
Some quirky parts of the book
1 Just what is participatory research?
Chapter overview
Just what is research?
Key types of research
The importance of participatory research
The difficulties of participatory research
Tricky terminology
Summary
Further reading and resources
2 How do we begin to plan our participatory research project?
Chapter overview
Let’s start with a cup of tea!
The stages of research design
Deciding on your purpose, aims and questions
Identifying your core beliefs
Working out how to go about the research
Working out who and what will be involved in answering your questions
Working out how to collect each bit of data: data collection tools
Working out what the data says
Planning what to tell who and how
Making sure everyone stays safe
Doing the research
Reviewing the research
Exploring the match between stages
Summary
Further reading
3 What do we want to explore and why?
Chapter overview
Research aim
Research questions
Contributing to social justice through question design
Locating your study in wider literature
What to include
Finding the literature
Trusting the literature
Recording and sharing the literature
Reading and writing it up
Summary
Further reading
4 What ideas are the foundations of our research?
Chapter overview
Research philosophy
A participatory philosophy
The bedrock
Foundation one
Foundation two
Foundation three
Other types of research philosophies
Research approach
Research alignment
How much do you share?
Summary
Further reading
5 How will we go about exploring our questions?
Chapter overview
Aligning our research approach
Participatory methods
Participatory sampling: an overview
Types of participation
Engagement and recruitment
Participatory data collection tools
Participatory data analysis
Research ethics for participatory research
Quality participatory research
Disseminating participatory research
Reflective task and tea break five
Summary
Further reading
6 Who can get involved to explore our questions?
Chapter overview
Who to involve in research
Who are all the stakeholders?
What is power?
Co-researcher empowerment
Who is interested in getting involved?
Issues with defining groups
Sampling strategies
How many is ‘enough’?
Recruitment strategies
Dealing with drop out
Summary
Further reading
7 How shall we collect our data?
Chapter overview
What are data collection tools?
Common data collection tools
Surveys
Interviews
Focus groups
Observations
Secondary data
Creative data collection tools
Storytelling
Photo or object elicitation
Walking research
Mapping tools
Arts-based tools
Digital tools
Supporting participants to choose data collection tools
Summary
Further reading
8 What do we do with our data?
Chapter overview
What is data analysis?
Qualitative and quantitative data
Approaching the data
Quantitative analysis
Quantitative data analysis software packages and spreadsheets
Qualitative analysis
Qualitative data analysis software packages and highlighter pens
Visual data
Developing a data analysis plan
Participatory analysis
Summary
Further reading
9 How do we get our messages out there?
Chapter overview
Who is your research audience?
What is your message?
Which outputs will be the most effective?
Reports
Posters and infographics
Presentation formats
Performances
Websites
Gallery or installation
Publication
What is the best way to communicate your message?
Planning your dissemination strategy to achieve social justice
What if it doesn’t work?
Summary
Further reading
10 How do we keep everyone safe?
Chapter overview
What are research ethics?
A two-stage process in participatory ethics
Ongoing ethics
Transparency
Consent and withdrawal
Rights to withdraw consent
Anonymity and confidentiality
Protection from harm
Safeguarding
Research roles
Incentives, remuneration and benefits to participants
Data protection
Partnership and power
Community rights and conflict
Social justice and action
Summary
Further reading
11 Doing and reviewing participatory research
Chapter overview
Project planning: how to plan what will happen when
It’s a messy business: expect mess and challenges
Teamwork: how will we work together and who will do what
Problem solving: dealing with delays and issues
1. Wild ideas
2. The ‘miracle question’
3. Appreciative Inquiry
4. Scaling
Evaluating success and identifying learning: process and outcome
Quality measures: evaluating ‘how good’ your participatory research is
Applying a social justice lens to the evaluation of the project
Summary
Further reading
Conclusion
Chapter overview
Revisiting the principles of participatory research
Participatory research, wellbeing and social justice
References
Index