Leveraging Participatory Action Research to Support Contextually Specific Implementation of Evidence-Based Interventions in School Settings

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” (Henry Ford)

Community partnerships and participation initiatives have nudged slowly into the research limelight, often endeavoring to amplify the voice of intended beneficiaries and empower overlooked and underserved populations. For that reason, the concept of participatory research hinges upon a power shift in which the targeted recipients are understood to be active (rather than passive) agents in their own development. And yet, sound programs designed to improve community well-being frequently struggle in navigating a course of action that avoids the collision of an “outsider’s” visions and “local” realities. Additionally, the notion of real participation often remains elusive when researchers and stakeholders hold discordant definitions of “community engagement,” “partnership,” and “collaboration.”

The growing interest in, and requirement for, public involvement offers multiple opportunities to engage stakeholders across all phases of the research and action implementation cycle (e.g., from exploration to dissemination and sustainability of evidence-based practice). The focus of the presentations is on participatory initiatives that assist schools and their constituents in becoming centers for social change, rather than targets of intervention. Using the educational setting as a backdrop, presenters will discuss how a cycle of participatory action research and a focus on key implementation drivers (e.g. competency of interventionists, the social validity of interventions from those receiving it, and systems capacity for implementation) inform effectiveness of interventions. The first presenter will highlight a collaboration with stakeholders (teachers) to implement culturally relevant instructional practices. The second will stress the importance of extracting student voice when considering developmental fit and contextual relevance of intervention efforts, and the third will feature a system employed by teachers to enhance family-school communication. The last presenter will emphasize how an ongoing focus on data collection and analysis can support intervention implementation and effectiveness. Finally, given participatory action research is cyclical and not static nor linear in nature, the role of mixed method evaluation will also be discussed throughout the presentations as a tool that may lead to more nuanced understanding of results.

Using both examples from ongoing school-based projects in diverse communities, as well as personal anecdotes from longstanding partnerships, each presentation will explore the role of power, motivation, and trust in building and maintaining relationships, as well as offer mindful approaches to help avoid the pitfalls of participatory action research.