Table 1 Essential elements of participatory action research
| Quotes from Published Definitions | References |
|---|---|
| Names Used | |
|
Participatory action research
Qualifiers: cooperative inquiry; appreciative inquiry; community-based participatory research; action learning; action science; developmental action inquiry | [22–24, 35–40, 44–50] |
| Purpose of the Action Research | |
|
Generation of new knowledge
Qualifiers: practice-grounded, compelling enough to motivate to action; answer a question of importance to each other | [24, 32, 34, 36, 38, 39, 46, 51, 52] |
|
Change
Qualifiers: social change; improvement; improve health/well-being; take action; solution generation; planning action steps; engage in quest for information/ideas to guide future actions | [22–24, 32, 35–37, 52, 53] |
| Educating | [23, 24, 32, 36, 54] |
| Theory generation or refinement | [23, 52] |
|
Relationship building
Qualifiers: strengthen relationships among group members, learn to integrate individualizing characteristics with a deeper communion with others and the world; involvement; | [23, 27, 38, 55] |
|
Developmental/Transformative for the individuals or organizations involved
Qualifiers: a re-educative process that develops capabilities and transforms individuals/teams through experiential engagement; empowerment; reciprocal transfer of expertise | [23, 24, 35, 51, 53, 54] |
| Methods | |
|
Problem-focused
Qualifiers: problem identification; diagnosing a problem; define a pressing problem; an agreed area of human activity; solution generation; planning action steps; engage actively in the quest for information and ideas to guide future actions | [22, 23, 34–39, 54] |
| Systematic | [32, 36] |
|
Cyclical
Qualifiers: emergence; adaptive cycles of action-feedback-action-feedback-action; repeated episodes of reflection and action; between meetings, members inquire into their own practice, observe, and implement new actions to help learn something new about the question; four phases of reflection and action; experimentation; learning at each step to inform the next set of decisions/actions; evaluation leads to diagnosing the situation anew based on incremental learnings | [23, 34, 35, 37, 39, 51] |
|
Reflective
Qualifiers: self-reflective; members reflect together on their work; inquiring deeply into assumptions and root causes, and transferring learning at multiple levels | [23, 27, 38–40, 52] |
|
Collaborative Design and Evaluation
Qualifiers: partnership; collective; group activity; mutualistic; inclusive; collaboration shapes and transforms methods; co-learning; participation of all relevant constituencies or stakeholders; involve all participants in all aspects of the research process; organization members participate throughout the research process from the initial design to the final presentation of results and discussion of their implications; reciprocal transfer of expertise; shared decision making power; mutual ownership of the processes and products of the research enterprise; facilitators and group participants co-author reports to present findings; participate in the research processes, which in turn are applied in ways that benefit all participants; multiple person, multiple perspective with participants as co-researchers | [22–24, 32–39, 49, 51, 52] |
|
Context specific
Qualifiers: Must be applicable to the system in which the inquiry takes place | [23, 46, 51, 56] |
| Studying the whole or the patterns rather than the parts | [33, 35, 52] |
|
Qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis
Qualifiers: mixed method designs collecting/analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data in single study; concurrent triangulation with multi-strand, multi-wave design; data collected/analyzed simultaneously/iteratively | [23, 28, 34, 52] |
| Who | |
|
Researchers
Qualifiers: Professional action researchers, core research team members, researchers | [22–24, 38, 49] |
|
Whoever is affected by the problem being studied
Qualifiers: Requisite variety; system members; communities; those affected by the issue being studied; representatives of organizations; members of an organization or community seeking to improve their situation; group of peers | [24, 32, 38, 39, 46, 49] |
| Fields Represented | |
| Health Related: Public Health, Primary Care, Patient Care, Nursing, Health Education, Health Sociology, Disability Research, Environmental Health, Injury Research, Mental Health, Reproductive Health | |
| Non-Health Related: Anthropology, Business Administration (Organizational Change/Development, Management, Human-Information System Interfaces), Sociology, Community Development, Community Psychology |