Participatory Action Research Involving "All the Players" in Evaluation and Change
"In so many evaluations," said a program officer, "no one thinks to ask the users." Participatory action research offers grantmakers a way to do so. It engages all parties in all aspects of an evaluation, from defining the problem to gathering and analyzing data to preparing recommendations. In this guide, learn about a unique evaluation method and how grantmakers used it to evaluate programs in agriculture, early childhood development, and immigration. Part of our series on evaluation techniques.
Highlights
- Ensuring a rigorous approach and objective results
- Developing trusting partnerships as part of an evaluation
- Building the conditions for a successful PAR evaluation
- Two mini-case studies
This guide is part of a series on evaluation techniques, check out related content below for additional resources in this series.

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Additional Resources: Participatory Action Research
- The website of the Participatory Action Research Collective at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Also see www.changingminds.ws for a detailed description of a particular project.
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How Funders Build the Successful Conditions for a PAR Evaluation
- Determine that the evaluators have adequate facilitation skills to identify and engage all relevant stakeholders, as well as to help participants learn. If this is not the case, be certain that appropriate and effective facilitators are present on the team.
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PAR’s Evaluative Effectiveness
There will always be those who argue that Participatory Action Research (PAR) gives up the neutrality, objectivity, and distance that characterize “gold standard” evaluative science.
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Participatory Action Research FAQs
Do evaluator partners in PAR need specialized skills and sensibilities?
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What they Did and How They Did It
From Community Teams to Statewide Policy. To “develop trusting partnerships,” there was “plenty of schmoozing time over spaghetti dinners,” recalled the lead evaluator of a PAR research program to engage parents, nonprofit service providers, and teachers in interventions for children who showed signs of developmental delays.
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When Should a Foundation Consider Using Participatory Action Research?
PAR is probably not the approach to take when you are, according to a grantmaker, seeking “demographic or cultural data,” or in the words of an evaluator, “looking at larger patterns, rates, changes over time,” or trying to demonstrate the results of an intervention by comparison with a control group.
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Recommendations for Conducting Participatory Action Research
- No one way. PAR evolves from and must be attentive to local context. It is, according to a leader of international development projects, “not a model, but an approach.”
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What is Participatory Action Research (PAR)?
Participatory Action Research (PAR) offers grantmakers opportunities to bring applied research and evaluation skills to those closest to the issues involved. PAR evaluation promotes positive change as it produces objective data, building knowledge that communities and communities of practice can put to use in strengthening themselves...
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"In so many evaluations," said a program officer, "no one thinks to ask the users." Participatory action research offers grantmakers a way to do so. It engages all parties in all aspects of an evaluation, from defining the problem to gathering and analyzing data to preparing recommendations. In this guide, learn about a unique evaluation method and how grantmakers used it to evaluate programs in agriculture, early childhood development, and immigration. Part of our series on evaluation techniques.
Highlights
- Ensuring a rigorous approach and objective results
- Developing trusting partnerships as part of an evaluation
- Building the conditions for a successful PAR evaluation
- Two mini-case studies
This guide is part of a series on evaluation techniques, check out related content below for additional resources in this series.