Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Glossary
- About the Authors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 Just What is Participatory Research?
- 2 How do We Begin to Plan Our Participatory Research Project?
- 3 What Do We Want to Explore and Why?
- 4 What Ideas are the Foundations of Our Research?
- 5 How Will We go About Exploring Our Questions?
- 6 Who Can Get Involved to Explore Our Questions?
- 7 How Shall We Collect Our Data?
- 8 What Do We Do With Our Data?
- 9 How Do We Get Our Messages Out There?
- 10 How Do We Keep Everyone Safe?
- 11 Doing and Reviewing Participatory Research
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
2 - How do We Begin to Plan Our Participatory Research Project?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 June 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Glossary
- About the Authors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 Just What is Participatory Research?
- 2 How do We Begin to Plan Our Participatory Research Project?
- 3 What Do We Want to Explore and Why?
- 4 What Ideas are the Foundations of Our Research?
- 5 How Will We go About Exploring Our Questions?
- 6 Who Can Get Involved to Explore Our Questions?
- 7 How Shall We Collect Our Data?
- 8 What Do We Do With Our Data?
- 9 How Do We Get Our Messages Out There?
- 10 How Do We Keep Everyone Safe?
- 11 Doing and Reviewing Participatory Research
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
Chapter overview
Now we know what research is, we can start to think about what it involves and how we plan it. Just as work with people, groups and communities is rarely straightforward, similarly research can have the same uncertainties to challenge us. Therefore, it can be helpful to have a clear and logical set of stages to support you and the co-researchers to plan the research. These can act as check points that can help to guide you in your research journey. Thinking all these steps through before you start, or referring back to them along the way, can help to make the project go as smoothly as possible, just like making a good cup of tea.
Let’s start with a cup of tea!
When you make a cup of tea you know there are certain things that you will need, and you know they need to be put together in a certain order – for example boiling the water before putting it onto the tea. But there are also lots of choices involved in making a cup of tea too – what sort of tea? Will it need milk and sugar? What should it be served in? Those are design choices, and it might depend on what the situation is and who you are with as to which type of tea is appropriate. Designing research is similar in that there are a range of stages that usually happen in a set order and each involves a lot of choices, but once you have the hang of it, it comes naturally.
So research design involves thinking through the steps in planning your research.
The stages of research design
We are going to introduce ten broad stages in a research cycle as shown in the diagram below (Figure 2.2).
Each of these stages is discussed in a chapter of this book. If you follow the stages in the diagram they will help guide you through the research project. Whilst we plan research in a step by step, or linear, approach, you will probably find you have to keep moving backwards and forwards across the steps as a decision made in one step will affect the decisions in another.
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- Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2022