“Not Only Adults Can Make Good Decisions, We as Children Can Do That as Well” Evaluating the Process of the Youth-Led Participatory Action Research ‘Kids in Action’

Abstract

In Youth-led Participatory Action Research (YPAR), youth collaborate with academic researchers to study a problem, develop actions that align with their needs and interests, and become empowered. ‘Kids in Action’ aimed to develop actions targeting healthy physical activity and dietary behavior among, and together with, 9–12-year-old children as co-researchers. This paper presents the process evaluation of ‘Kids in Action’ based on eight focus groups with children (N = 40) and eight interviews with community partners (N = 11). Interview guides were based on empowerment theory and the RE-AIM framework, in order to evaluate the study on: empowerment, collaborations, reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance. Transcripts were analyzed using evaluation and provisional coding. Both children and community partners perceived an increased awareness of healthy behaviors and an improvement in confidence, critical awareness, leadership and collaboration skills, which contributed to increased feelings of empowerment. Community partners valued child participation and the co-created actions. Actions were also well-perceived by children and they liked being involved in action development. The strong relationship of researchers with both children and relevant community partners proved an important facilitator of co-creation. Future studies are recommended to attempt closer collaboration with schools and parents to gain even more support for co-created actions and increase their effectiveness.

Critical Thinking Using Project-Based Learning: The Case of The Agroecological Market at the “Universitat Politècnica de València”

“…AR and CT are intimately related, as we have stated in our definition of action research. This has also been observed in other AR processes [71,72]. For this reason, CT is defined as a transversal competence in RM.…”

“…A new generation of AR emerged within the social movements of developing countries [70], supported by Popular Education Theories. In this sense, this new approach proposes the elaboration of theoretical arguments to justify more active approaches, and the need for AR to link its activity to broader social movements [71].…”

Involving Parents to Help Improve Children’s Energy Balance-Related Behaviours Through a School-Based Intervention

“…Even though our study specifically reports on the characteristics of the study participants, we did not collect enough data to compare these characteristics to the characteristics of the school population and draw conclusions on the sample representativeness. To improve the match between the intervention and the characteristics, interests and needs of the children and their families, we suggest involving the target audience when developing the challenges [ 54 ]. This was not done when developing Challenge Me, resulting in some challenges being performed poorly.…”

Child health behaviour and parent priorities for a school-based healthy lifestyle programme

“…Parents' prioritisation of child involvement in a youth-focused school-based healthy lifestyle programme may have served as a parenting strategy aimed at surmounting the most highly ranked barriers to child health behaviour change. A study of young people in Amsterdam who collaborated with researchers to design and implement actions to promote healthy physical activity and dietary behaviour in a school-community partnership determined that children liked being involved in action development and that they perceived an increased awareness of healthy behaviours, an improvement in confidence, increased feelings of empowerment and the development of learning and critical thinking skills (Anselma et al, 2020). Child involvement in healthy lifestyle programme decision-making suggests an added benefit of supporting social, emotional and critical thinking development as well as health.…”