Facilitating a participatory action learning action research process in a higher educational context

Abstract

Researchers facilitated a participatory action learning action research process with second year Social Sciences students at a University in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. This paper focusses on the facilitation of a participatory action learning action research process and the contribution of this to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning of the researchers. A social constructivist theoretical framework was employed. The significance of this research is that it adds to the understanding and implementation of participatory action learning action research, the evolving perception of participation as well as ownership within a participatory action learning action research process within the relatively less studied context of sub-Saharan African and South Africa more specifically. This paper demonstrates how utilising participatory action learning action research contributed to the researchers own “lifelong learning”, particularly with regard to scholarship and collaborations in the process of knowledge production. The researchers’ critical reflections and learning throughout this process could be of assistance to other researchers who are interested in embarking upon similar participatory research projects in higher education.

Teaching Entrepreneurship Education (EE) Online During Covid-19 Pandemic: Lessons learned from a Participatory Action Research (PAR) in a Malaysian Public University

“…This participatory action research was carried out in accordance to its inquisitive process (Schiller et al, 2021) and with the assistance of ATLAS.ti, a Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS). PAR does not test on relationships using inferential statistics, and it does not necessarily must contain hypothesis (Meinefeld, 1997).…”

“…Thereafter, my third concern is to evaluate myself, in relation to the students' feedbacks; whether have benefited from the process of knowledge transfer through online platforms that was uncalled for because of the Covid-19 pandemic. These three concerns have not been explored simultaneously from other literature sources, and thus becomes important for me through a Participatory Action Research (PAR) (Schiller et al, 2021).…”

Challenges in the Valorization of the Funerary Heritage; Experiences in the Municipal Cemetery of Murcia (Spain)

“…The following thematic guides have been elaborated since then, in a subject of Social Anthropology that is offered at the University of Murcia and is developed in the form of student research projects following the methodology "research based-learning" [27,28]. In each of the thematic guides, twelve stories of people or families buried in the municipal cemetery are presented under the theme of the year.…”

A charge to educational action researchers

“…That is, when adults are confronted with students' crucial questions, they can teach students to the social and scholarly skills needed to conduct meaningful research (W ojcik & Mondry, 2017) and create space so they can be central to the inquiry process ( Carl and Ravitch, 2018 ;Roll & Browne, 2017). Researchers can create clear advantages for participants through collective action and work guided by an equity partnership that encourages youth to engage in their own research to create innovative solutions to improve their experiences, lives, and schools (Carl & Ravitch, 2018;Schiller et al, 2018). This kind of approach encourages researchers to face power dynamics headon for the benefit of all participants (Bettencourt, 2018).…”

“…These pieces explore the less-than-obvious feelings and positionalities that reside within an individual as they engage in participatory action research. Exploring routes for democratizing the research process by using methods such as reconstructive horizon analysis to critique the ways adult researchers engage with youth participants creates an opportunity for reflexivity about the tensions that exist in the research setting that is crucial to promoting an ethic of care (Call-Cummings et al, 2019;Schiller et al, 2018). That is, researchers must resist an overfocus on the product of research and instead spotlighting the process of transforming engagement with youth participants.…”