Participatory action research
Encyclopedia
Participatory action research – or action research
– is a recognized form of experimental research that focuses on the effects of the researcher's direct actions of practice within a participatory community with the goal of improving the performance quality of the community or an area of concern.
The "research" aspects of PAR attempt to avoid the traditional “extractive” research carried out by universities and governments where “experts” go to a community, study their subjects, and take away their data to write their papers, reports and theses. Research in PAR is ideally BY the local people and FOR the local people. Research is designed to address specific issues identified by local people, and the results are directly applied to the problems at hand. The case study
is often used as a research method as part of PAR.
PAR proceeds through repeated cycles, in which researchers and the community start with the identification of major issues, concerns and problems, initiate research, originate action, learn about this action and proceed to a new research and action cycle. This process is a continuous one. Participants in Action Research projects continuously reflect on their learning from the actions and proceed to initiate new actions on the spot. Outcomes are very difficult to predict from the outset, challenges are sizeable and achievements depend to a very large extent on researcher’s commitment, creativity and imagination.
Examples of action research projects dissertations and masters thesis can be easily found by searching the internet. Some universities host sites where the best example of this form of research in corporate and university organizations], and school communities.
PAR should not be confused with PRA - Participatory rural appraisal
. PRA is an assessment technique that could form part of a PAR process, but does not encompass the full action-reflection cycle.
and Group Dynamics models developed by psychologist Kurt Lewin
in the early-to-mid 1900s, as well as on the study of oral
culture by such scholars as Milman Parry
and Walter J. Ong
. At its core, PAR revolves around three sets of relationships: relations between individuals within communities and groups, relations between those groups and communities, and relations between people and their physical environment. Management of group dynamics in its many aspects thus plays a central role in PAR processes, and PAR practitioners/facilitators must have a strong foundation in this field.
PAR builds on the critical pedagogy put forward by Paulo Freire
as a response to the traditional formal models of education where the “teacher” stands at the front and “imparts” information to the “students” that are passive recipients. This was further developed in "adult education" models throughout Latin America. Friere (1990) wrote,
Based on the work of Freire, it was Colombian sociologist Orlando Fals-Borda who gave PAR its worldwide recognition by organizing the first PAR conferences in Cartagena, Colombia. Based on his research with peasant groups in rural Boyaca and with other underserved groups, Fals-Borda was able to effectively incorporate the "Community Action" component into the research plans of many traditionally trained researchers. It was not until then that communities started to fully appreciate the benefits of this approach which had initially seemed too abstract for many.
Antonio Gramsci
is less known for, yet very important in contrtibuting to PAR. Gramsci, writing in early 20th century Italy, argued that all people are intellectuals and philosophers. "Organic intellectuals" is how he terms people who take their local knowledge from life experiences, and use that knowledge to address changes and problems in society. The idea that PAR researchers are really co-learners and researchers with the people they meet in the research process promotes the validity that all people are intellectuals who develop intricate philosophies through lived experience.
PAR also has its roots in phenomenology and postmodernism
. These movements validated experience as a valid way of knowing, very much the foundation of the “action-reflection” model of Experiential learning
and the PAR process. PAR is part of an important shift in paradigm from the traditional, positivist, science paradigm which arose to bring certainty and verifiability to research questions, to postpositivism
which recognizes and tries to address complex human and social problems.
Finally, PAR has origins within the development discourse.
(PV). Practitioners have also recently tried to move away from the word "research" because of its extractive connotations and abstract meaning to many community and group members. Thus new names (with some new elements) are being used, such as "participatory action learning
", "participatory learning-action", and "participatory action development".
PAR is a popular method used in teaching adult learners in low-income communities, and others how to explore, challenge, and react to their own needs. It is gaining popularity among community youth workers
, as well as middle and senior high school teachers as a successful methodology for engaging youth voice
in the classroom. According to Torre & Fine (2005), "Youth PAR projects are typically centered on issues of intimate, structural violence: educational justice, access to quality healthcare, the criminalization of youth, gang violence, police brutality, race/gender/sexuality oppression, gentrification and environmental issues." PAR is also increasingly used in service learning projects and provides the basis for a variety of secondary approaches such as Triple Task Method
.
and Robert Chambers
, point out the intrinsically political nature of PAR. Participation is empowerment and empowerment is politics. Furthermore, it is very difficult for PAR to fully extricate itself from the researcher-community relationship that in itself affects local power dynamics. Community participation in such a context should be recognized for what it is - an externally motivated political act.
However, in some cases, the participatory researcher may actually be a part of the community whose realities are being transformed. In Oakland, California, for example, Kitty Kelly Epstein is a longtime local resident, a grassroots
activist and a participatory researcher. She has used the combination of these three roles successfully to help change policies and power dynamics.
Others would point to the irony of citing participatory evangelist Chambers, ally of the World Bank, in a section on critique. Arturo Escobar argues that concepts of participation and sustainability only help to foster a gentler image of development than usual. In some situations, as highlighted by Diane Rocheleau, participatory methods can also serve as Trojan horses to bring global and environmental restructuring processes directly to rural communities, bypassing national institutional buffers and pre-empting critical review. They can also be manipulated by various actors to deliberately affect power dynamics, often with a more centralizing effect than democratizing, as explored by Triulzi. This point of view was summarised in Bill Cooke and Uma Kothari's Participation: The New Tyranny? in 2001 .
PAR has also been criticized for lacking the methodological rigor and technical validity that is the gold standard of much academic research, similar to attacks on Action Research by mainly quantitative researchers that reject Interventionist epistemologies. It is suggested that this weakness is a necessary tradeoff of a collaborative and adaptive research design. Supporters, however, counter that sacrificing some level of methodological and technical rigor is well worth the additional face validity and practical significance that is gained through a PAR approach. Additionally, many academic supporters would assert that there are ways to conduct PAR that is sound by academic standards, if one were to adopt a 'typical' qualitative research design that accounts for qualitative quality criteria, such as accountability, credibility, transferability and reliability. Furthermore, evaluating one's work against the "seven I's" proposed by McNiff and Whitehead (2009) will help ensure that a PAR project adheres with qualitative research quality criteria.
Action research
Action research or participatory action research – is a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a "community of practice" to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. Action research is done simply by action,...
– is a recognized form of experimental research that focuses on the effects of the researcher's direct actions of practice within a participatory community with the goal of improving the performance quality of the community or an area of concern.
Overview
Action research involves utilizing a systematic cyclical method of planning, taking action, observing, evaluating (including self-evaluation) and critical reflection prior to planning the next cycle (O'Brien, 2001; McNiff, 2002). The actions have a set goal of addressing an identified problem in the workplace, for example, reducing the illiteracy of students through use of new strategies (Quigley, 2000) or improving communication and efficiency in a hospital emergency room (Eisenberg, Baglia, Pyrnes, 2006). It is a collaborative method to test new ideas and implement action for change. It involves direct participation in a dynamic research process, while monitoring and evaluating the effects of the researcher's actions with the aim of improving practice (Dick, 2002; Checkland & Holwell, 1998; Hult & Lennung, 1980). At its core, action research is a way to increase understanding of how change in one's actions or practices can mutually benefit a community of practitioners (McNiff, 2002; Reason & Bradburym, 2001; Carr & Kemmis 1986; Masters, 1995).- "Essentially Participatory Action Research (PAR) is research which involves all relevant parties in actively examining together current action (which they experience as problematic) in order to change and improve it. They do this by critically reflecting on the historical, political, cultural, economic, geographic and other contexts which make sense of it. … Participatory action research is not just research which is hoped that will be followed by action. It is action which is researched, changed and re-researched, within the research process by participants. Nor is it simply an exotic variant of consultation. Instead, it aims to be active co-research, by and for those to be helped. Nor can it be used by one group of people to get another group of people to do what is thought best for them - whether that is to implement a central policy or an organisational or service change. Instead it tries to be a genuinely democratic or non-coercive process whereby those to be helped, determine the purposes and outcomes of their own inquiry." - Wadsworth, Y. (1998)
The "research" aspects of PAR attempt to avoid the traditional “extractive” research carried out by universities and governments where “experts” go to a community, study their subjects, and take away their data to write their papers, reports and theses. Research in PAR is ideally BY the local people and FOR the local people. Research is designed to address specific issues identified by local people, and the results are directly applied to the problems at hand. The case study
Case study
A case study is an intensive analysis of an individual unit stressing developmental factors in relation to context. The case study is common in social sciences and life sciences. Case studies may be descriptive or explanatory. The latter type is used to explore causation in order to find...
is often used as a research method as part of PAR.
PAR proceeds through repeated cycles, in which researchers and the community start with the identification of major issues, concerns and problems, initiate research, originate action, learn about this action and proceed to a new research and action cycle. This process is a continuous one. Participants in Action Research projects continuously reflect on their learning from the actions and proceed to initiate new actions on the spot. Outcomes are very difficult to predict from the outset, challenges are sizeable and achievements depend to a very large extent on researcher’s commitment, creativity and imagination.
Examples of action research projects dissertations and masters thesis can be easily found by searching the internet. Some universities host sites where the best example of this form of research in corporate and university organizations], and school communities.
PAR should not be confused with PRA - Participatory rural appraisal
Participatory rural appraisal
Participatory rural appraisal is an approach used by non-governmental organizations and other agencies involved in international development...
. PRA is an assessment technique that could form part of a PAR process, but does not encompass the full action-reflection cycle.
Origins
PAR has many of its roots in social psychology. It builds on the Action researchAction research
Action research or participatory action research – is a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a "community of practice" to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. Action research is done simply by action,...
and Group Dynamics models developed by psychologist Kurt Lewin
Kurt Lewin
Kurt Zadek Lewin was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology....
in the early-to-mid 1900s, as well as on the study of oral
Orality
Orality is thought and verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy are unfamiliar to most of the population. The study of orality is closely allied to the study of oral tradition...
culture by such scholars as Milman Parry
Milman Parry
Milman Parry was a scholar of epic poetry and the founder of the discipline of oral tradition.-Biography:He was born in 1902 and studied at the University of California, Berkeley and at the Sorbonne . A student of the linguist Antoine Meillet at the Sorbonne, Parry revolutionized Homeric studies...
and Walter J. Ong
Walter J. Ong
Father Walter Jackson Ong, Ph.D. , was an American Jesuit priest, professor of English literature, cultural and religious historian and philosopher. His major interest was in exploring how the transition from orality to literacy influenced culture and changed human consciousness...
. At its core, PAR revolves around three sets of relationships: relations between individuals within communities and groups, relations between those groups and communities, and relations between people and their physical environment. Management of group dynamics in its many aspects thus plays a central role in PAR processes, and PAR practitioners/facilitators must have a strong foundation in this field.
PAR builds on the critical pedagogy put forward by Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy.-Biography:...
as a response to the traditional formal models of education where the “teacher” stands at the front and “imparts” information to the “students” that are passive recipients. This was further developed in "adult education" models throughout Latin America. Friere (1990) wrote,
-
- "The silenced are not just incidental to the curiosity of the researcher but are the masters of inquiry into the underlying causes of the events in their world. In this context research becomes a means of moving them beyond silence into a quest to proclaim the world.”
Based on the work of Freire, it was Colombian sociologist Orlando Fals-Borda who gave PAR its worldwide recognition by organizing the first PAR conferences in Cartagena, Colombia. Based on his research with peasant groups in rural Boyaca and with other underserved groups, Fals-Borda was able to effectively incorporate the "Community Action" component into the research plans of many traditionally trained researchers. It was not until then that communities started to fully appreciate the benefits of this approach which had initially seemed too abstract for many.
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian writer, politician, political philosopher, and linguist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime...
is less known for, yet very important in contrtibuting to PAR. Gramsci, writing in early 20th century Italy, argued that all people are intellectuals and philosophers. "Organic intellectuals" is how he terms people who take their local knowledge from life experiences, and use that knowledge to address changes and problems in society. The idea that PAR researchers are really co-learners and researchers with the people they meet in the research process promotes the validity that all people are intellectuals who develop intricate philosophies through lived experience.
PAR also has its roots in phenomenology and postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
. These movements validated experience as a valid way of knowing, very much the foundation of the “action-reflection” model of Experiential learning
Experiential learning
Experiential learning is the process of making meaning from direct experience. Simply put, Experiential Learning is learning from experience. The experience can be staged or left open. Aristotle once said, "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." David A...
and the PAR process. PAR is part of an important shift in paradigm from the traditional, positivist, science paradigm which arose to bring certainty and verifiability to research questions, to postpositivism
Postpositivism
In philosophy and models of scientific inquiry, postpositivism is a metatheoretical stance that critiques and amends positivism. Postpositivists believe that human knowledge is based not on unchallengeable, rock-solid foundations, but rather upon human conjectures...
which recognizes and tries to address complex human and social problems.
Finally, PAR has origins within the development discourse.
Recent developments
PAR has evolved through the 1990s and into the 21st century as it has been applied to various fields within international development. For example, participatory plant breeding (PPB) and participatory technology development (PTD) are two techniques that utilize PAR approaches. Other research approaches that often fall under the label of PAR include participatory research, critical action research, classroom action research, action learning, action science, soft systems approaches, and industrial action research (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2000). Additionally, more methods have been developed to add nuance and solidify key processes of "how" to do PAR, such as participatory development communication (PDC) and participatory videoParticipatory video
Participatory video is a form of participatory media in which a group or community creates their own film. The idea behind this is that making a video is easy and accessible, and is a great way of bringing people together to explore issues, voice concerns or simply to be creative and tell stories...
(PV). Practitioners have also recently tried to move away from the word "research" because of its extractive connotations and abstract meaning to many community and group members. Thus new names (with some new elements) are being used, such as "participatory action learning
Action learning
Action learning is an educational process whereby the participant studies their own actions and experience in order to improve performance. Learners acquire knowledge through actual actions and repetitions, rather than through traditional instruction....
", "participatory learning-action", and "participatory action development".
PAR is a popular method used in teaching adult learners in low-income communities, and others how to explore, challenge, and react to their own needs. It is gaining popularity among community youth workers
Community youth workers
Community youth workers are young people and adults who are engaged in education, empowerment, activism, or other activities focused on adolescents in community-based settings, including churches, schools, or community centers. As a distinct field, community youth work, , has been established in...
, as well as middle and senior high school teachers as a successful methodology for engaging youth voice
Youth voice
Youth voice refers to the distinct ideas, opinions, attitudes, knowledge, and actions of young people as a collective body. The term youth voice often groups together a diversity of perspectives and experiences, regardless of backgrounds, identities, and cultural differences...
in the classroom. According to Torre & Fine (2005), "Youth PAR projects are typically centered on issues of intimate, structural violence: educational justice, access to quality healthcare, the criminalization of youth, gang violence, police brutality, race/gender/sexuality oppression, gentrification and environmental issues." PAR is also increasingly used in service learning projects and provides the basis for a variety of secondary approaches such as Triple Task Method
Triple Task Method
-Triple Task methodology:The research approach was originally developed by Simon G. Bell and Stephen P. Morse . The approach was first used by the authors in the European Union Seventh Framework Programme under the grant agreement n° 217207: POINT project .-Background:Triple Task or TT is a...
.
Critique
Many, such as Peter L. BergerPeter L. Berger
Peter Ludwig Berger is an Austrian-born American sociologist well known for his work, co-authored with Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge .-Biography:...
and Robert Chambers
Participatory rural appraisal
Participatory rural appraisal is an approach used by non-governmental organizations and other agencies involved in international development...
, point out the intrinsically political nature of PAR. Participation is empowerment and empowerment is politics. Furthermore, it is very difficult for PAR to fully extricate itself from the researcher-community relationship that in itself affects local power dynamics. Community participation in such a context should be recognized for what it is - an externally motivated political act.
- "However much the rhetoric changes to participation, participatory research, community involvement and the like, at the end of the day there is still an outsider seeking to change things... who the outsider is may change but the relation is the same. A stronger person wants to change things for a person who is weaker. From this paternal trap there is no complete escape." (Chambers 1983)
However, in some cases, the participatory researcher may actually be a part of the community whose realities are being transformed. In Oakland, California, for example, Kitty Kelly Epstein is a longtime local resident, a grassroots
Grassroots
A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...
activist and a participatory researcher. She has used the combination of these three roles successfully to help change policies and power dynamics.
Others would point to the irony of citing participatory evangelist Chambers, ally of the World Bank, in a section on critique. Arturo Escobar argues that concepts of participation and sustainability only help to foster a gentler image of development than usual. In some situations, as highlighted by Diane Rocheleau, participatory methods can also serve as Trojan horses to bring global and environmental restructuring processes directly to rural communities, bypassing national institutional buffers and pre-empting critical review. They can also be manipulated by various actors to deliberately affect power dynamics, often with a more centralizing effect than democratizing, as explored by Triulzi. This point of view was summarised in Bill Cooke and Uma Kothari's Participation: The New Tyranny? in 2001 .
PAR has also been criticized for lacking the methodological rigor and technical validity that is the gold standard of much academic research, similar to attacks on Action Research by mainly quantitative researchers that reject Interventionist epistemologies. It is suggested that this weakness is a necessary tradeoff of a collaborative and adaptive research design. Supporters, however, counter that sacrificing some level of methodological and technical rigor is well worth the additional face validity and practical significance that is gained through a PAR approach. Additionally, many academic supporters would assert that there are ways to conduct PAR that is sound by academic standards, if one were to adopt a 'typical' qualitative research design that accounts for qualitative quality criteria, such as accountability, credibility, transferability and reliability. Furthermore, evaluating one's work against the "seven I's" proposed by McNiff and Whitehead (2009) will help ensure that a PAR project adheres with qualitative research quality criteria.
See also
- Phronetic social sciencePhronetic social sciencePhronetic social science is an approach to the study of social – including political and economic – phenomena based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, variously translated as practical judgment, common sense, or prudence. Phronesis is the intellectual virtue...
- Public participationPublic participationPublic participation is a political principle or practice, and may also be recognised as a right . The terms public participation may be used interchangeably with the concept or practice of stakeholder engagement and/or popular participation.Generally public participation seeks and facilitates the...
- Praxis interventionPraxis interventionPraxis Intervention is a form of participatory action research. Where other forms of participatory action research emphasize the collective modification of the external world, the praxis intervention model emphasizes working on the Praxis potential of its participants...
- Participatory rural appraisalParticipatory rural appraisalParticipatory rural appraisal is an approach used by non-governmental organizations and other agencies involved in international development...
- OralityOralityOrality is thought and verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy are unfamiliar to most of the population. The study of orality is closely allied to the study of oral tradition...
- Wikibooks: Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 13: The Reflective Practitioner
External links
- Action Research For Everything (AR4Everything)
- Center for Collaborative Action Research at Pepperdine University (CCAR)
- Cofundos aims at establishing a prediction market for participatory research funding.
- Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action
- Institute for Participatory Action Research and Design at CUNY Graduate CenterCUNY Graduate CenterThe Graduate Center of the City University of New York brings together graduate education, advanced research, and public programming to midtown Manhattan hosting 4,600 students, 33 doctoral programs, 7 master's programs, and 30 research centers and institutes...
- Youth Action Research Institute
- Examples of using Participatory Video as a tool for community-led research
- Georgetown University Youth PAR
- Datacenter - Research for Justice
- Freechild Project PAR webpage
- Participatory Learning and Action series
- Participatory action research- A guide to on-line resources from the Learning for Sustainability site.
- SOLAR: Social and Organisational Learning as Action Research
- community-based participatory researchCommunity-based participatory researchCommunity-based participatory research is research that is conducted as an equal partnership between traditionally trained "experts" and members of a community. In CBPR projects, the community participates fully in all aspects of the research process....
(CBPR)
Other resources
- Participatory Action Research Network (PARNet) (not active as of Feb. 2007)
- Action Research Journal. Sage Publications. ISSN 1741-2617
- Bessette, Guy. 2004. Involving the Community: A Guide to Participatory Development Communication. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. 162pp. ISBN 1-55250-066-7.
- Braun, A. and H. Hocde. 1998. Farmer Participatory research in Latin America; Four Cases ACIAR Proceedings.
- Carr, W. & Kremmis, S.(1986). Becoming Critical: Education, Knowledge, and Action Research. London: Falmer Press
- Brydon-Miller, M. "Why action research?" In Action Research Volume 1(1): 9–28. SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks CA, New Delhi www.sagepublications.co.uk .
- Burns, D. 2007. Systemic Action Research: A strategy for whole system change. Bristol: Policy Press
- Chambers, R. 1994. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA): Analysis of Experience. World Development 22(9):1253-1268.
- Chambers, R. 1983. Rural Development: Putting the Last First, London: Longman. ISBN 0-582-64443-7.
- Checkland, P., Holwell, S. (1998). Action Research: Its Nature and Validity. Systemic Practice and Action Research, Volume 11, (Issue 1, Feb), p 9-21.
- Coghlan, D., & Brannick, T. (2007). Doing action research in your own organization. Thousand Oaks, CA.: Sage Publications.
- Cooke, Bill and Kothari, Uma. (eds) 2001. Participation: The New Tyranny? London: Zed.
- Dick, B. (2002). Action research: Action and research Accessed on Feb 3, 2007
- Doherty C, & Hope W. (2000). "Shared governance--nurses making a difference." Journal of Nursing Management 2000 March 8(2):77-81.
- Eisenberg, E. M., Baglia, J., & Pynes, J. E. (2006). Transforming emergency medicine through narrative: Qualitative action research at a community hospital. Health Communication, 19, 197-208.
- Escobar, Arturo. 1992. Culture, economics, and politics in Latin American social movements theory and research, pp. 62–85 in Arturo Escobar and Sonia Alvarez (eds.), The Making of Social Movements in Latin America. Boulder: Westview Press.
- Fals-Borda, O., & Rahman, M. A. (Eds.). (1991). Action and Knowledge: Breaking the Monopoly with Participatory Action-Research (1st ed.). New York: Apex Press.
- Gramsci. A (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. Q. Hoare and G. Nowell Smith (Eds. & trans.). New York, NY: International Publishers.
- Greenwood, D. J.Davydd GreenwoodDavydd Greenwood is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Institute for European Studies at Cornell University....
, González Santos, J. L. i Cantón, J. (1991) Industrial democracy as process: participatory action research in the Fagor Cooperative Group of Mondragón, Assen/Maastricht-Stockholm: Van Gorcum Arbetslivscentrum. - Hickey, S., and Mohan, G. (2005). Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation? Exploring New Approaches to Participation in Development.
- Hult, M., and Lennung, S. (1980). "Towards a Definition of Action Research: A Note and Bibliography," Journal of Management Studies (17:2), 1pp. 242–250.
- James, E. Alana, Milenkiewicz, Margaret T and Bucknam, A. (2008). Participatory Action Research for Educational Leadership Using Data-Driven Decision Making to Improve Schools . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
- James, E. Alana, Slater, T. and Bucknam, A. (2011). Action Research for Business, Nonprofit, and Public Administration - A Tool for Complex Times . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
- Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. (1988). The action research planner. Geelong, Victoria, Australia: Deakin University Press.
- Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. (2000). Participatory action research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd ed., pp. 567–605). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
- Lunch, Chris & Nick. 2006. Insights into Participatory Video: a handbook for the field. Oxford: Insight - free pdf download available
- Masters, J. (1995) The History of Action Research in I. Hughes (ed) Action Research Electronic Reader, The University of Sydney, Accessed online on Feb 2, 2007 at http://www.behs.cchs.usyd.edu.au/arow/Reader/rmasters.htm.
- McIntyre, A. (2008). Participatory action research (paperback ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA.: Sage Publications.
- McTaggart, Robin. 1989. 16 Tenets of Participatory Action Research.
- McNiff, (2002) Action research for professional development. Accessed online Feb 2, 2007
- McNiff, J. and Whitehead, D. (2009). Doing and Writing Action Research. London: SAGE Publications
- Narayan, D. 1996. What is Participatory Research? In Toward Participatory Research. Washington, D.C. World Bank. p. 17-30.
- O'Brien, Rory. 1998. An Overview of the Methodological Approach of Action Research.
- O'Brien, R. (2001). An overview of the methodological approach of action research In Roberto Richardson (Ed.), Theory and Practice of Action Research. João Pessoa, Brazil: Universidade Federal da Paraíba. (English version) Accessed online on Feb. 2, 2007 from .
- Participatory Learning and Action series Peer reviewed informal journal. Free downloads available
- Pretty, J.N., Guijt, I., Thompson, J., and Scoones, I. (1995) "Participatory Learning and Action: A trainer's guide." London: International Institute for Environment and Development
- Pound, B., S. Snapp, C. McDougall, and A. Braun (eds.). 2003. Managing Natural Resources for Sustainable Livelihoods: Uniting Science and Participation. Ottawa: Earthscan/IDRC. 260pp. ISBN 1-55250-071-3.
- Quigley, B., 2000, ?The practitioner-research: a research revolution in literacy?, Adult Learning, 11 (3), 6-8.
- Rocheleau, D.E. 1994. Participatory Research and the Race to Save the Planet: Questions, Critique, and Lessons from the Field Agriculture and Human Values, Spring-Summer 1994, 25 pp.
- Reason, P. & Bradbury, H. (Eds.) (2001) Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA, 512p
- Selener, D. 1997. Farmer Participatory Research. In Participatory Action Research and Social Change. Ithaca, New York: The Cornell Participatory Action Research Network, Cornell University. p. 149-195.
- Seymour-Rolls, Kaye and Ian Hughes. 2000. Participatory Action Research: Getting the Job Done. Action Research E-Reports, 4.
- Stringer, E. T. (2004). "Action Research in Education". Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
- Stringer, E. T. (2007). Action research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA.: Sage Publications.
- Tracy, S. J. (2007). Taking the plunge: A contextual approach to problem-based research. Communication Monographs, 74, 106 – 111.
- Triulzi, L. 2001. Empty and populated landscapes: the Bedouin of the Syrian Arab Republic between "development" and "state". Land Reform, Land Settlement and Cooperatives, (2), 30-47.
- Vernooy, Ronnie. 2003. Seeds that Give: Participatory Plant Breeding. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. 100pp. ISBN 1-55250-014-4.
- Wadsworth, Yolanda. 1998. What is Participatory Action Research? Action Research International, Paper 2.
- Whyte, W. F. (Ed.). (1989). Action research for the twenty-first century: Participation, reflection, and practice (Vol. 32; No.5).American Behavioural Scientist 499-623.