Category Archives: YPAR

Why YPAR Matters: Youth Are “Looking at the World Differently”

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By: Britney, Justus & Jessica, youth from the Teen Wellness Team

This post is the 8th publication in a YPAR series, which aims to explain participatory research, youth-led measurement and evaluation approaches, and strategies for youth-adult collaborations in YPAR.

Highlights:

  • Through the YPAR Series, adults and youth have described what youth participatory action research is and why youth should be engaged in processes like it.
  • This post highlights themes from this series with youth voices who have participated in Youth Participatory Action Research (or YPAR) as part of a program on mental health. 
  • Britney, Jessica, and Justus talk about their experiences in YPAR, what they’ve learned, how they are looking at the world differently, and more as this series concludes.
Source: WAYS Lab

As part of the Wellness And Youth Social action (WAYS) Lab, several local high school students have been working with UVA adult researchers since March to identify a research question that addresses disparities in the youth mental health crisis. They are known as the Teen Wellness Team (TWT). Their goal is to conduct research that will shape community-based actions to promote youth mental health.

The youth team members have learned about how to conduct research, engaged in discussions about the mental health needs of young people in our community, and heard from guest speakers about different careers in health care and research. Together, the TWT has identified a research question of interest and is currently in the process of making a research plan to collect data this fall.

Dr. Irène​ P. Mathieu (an Assistant Professor of General Pediatrics and Principal Investigator of the WAYS Lab) and team sat down with three TWT members to ask about their experiences and what they want others to know about the YPAR process. These youth voices are shared by themes that have been presented throughout this YPAR series.

Why YPAR?

Unlike other ways of working with young people, YPAR centers youth as experts with their own agency in the research process.

  • Britney says, “a lot of people should be introduced to YPAR and learn more about what YPAR is.”
  • Jessica says that YPAR “…could help our community, and it would help a lot of teens.”

Benefits from YPAR

Youth benefit from engaging in participatory approaches to research and other activities.

  • Justus comments, “YPAR has made me look at the world differently. Every person I see- I wonder what they’re going through. And not just youth, but adults, too. I jotted down a lot of things in my notebook. I think about things around town, places that are out of business. We don’t have a lot of teen hangout spots. I see a building and think, ‘This could be a mental health clinic.’ I really wish that youth here would do something about it, but there’s not a lot of people that would advocate for change. We need motivation. An adult running it would bring things back to where it is now. There are a lot of places that have potential, but we need agency.”
  • Britney says, “it makes me think there are so many little things that contribute to a greater idea. It encourages me to think outside the box and consider the smaller parts contributing to one big thing.”

Learning in YPAR

A part of YPAR is breaking down the power structures so youth can learn in new and different ways and feel that adults are truly listening to them.

  • Britney says being in a YPAR group “…changed how I think of people around me, and if people have bad attitudes or don’t look the best, maybe they had a bad day. It makes me think that we don’t know what’s going on with people. This group talking about confidential stuff, it makes me feel like I’m not alone talking about mental health. We just need a safe place to talk about this and deal with it together.”
  • Justus says she’s changed by “being in the group and us talking about mental health and how to help the community. I think about people around me and wonder what they’re thinking or feeling. I normally don’t think like that.”

Advice after YPAR

Any adult working with youth can use YPAR strategies to think about the collaboration process.

  • Britney says, “I think adults should know that this research is basically a bubble where people can have a safe place to talk about issues and give their opinions on stuff that matters to them. I think it’s a great opportunity for students and teenagers to be able to experience how to do research and how to just be more creative. And it just opens up their mind and makes them think more regarding issues around them and issues locally. Makes them think not only about themselves but people around them and how these issues affect their communities. They should know that this is great for their child or students if they’re interested.”
  • Justus says if another student is interested in YPAR to “maybe just go for it. Don’t be nervous going into it. It’s not only a life thing, be comfortable to say your opinion. Be yourself and don’t be nervous being around new people. Have an open mind.”

YPAR Research Experiences

YPAR provides experiences for youth in research that may include understanding their community and forming questions they can test. 

  • Jessica says that sometimes parts of the research process were “hard. It’s hard to think of how to make up a question based on the topic or how to make the question related to the topic.”
  • Britney says, “it has been a long process to choose a perfect question. It surprised me that so much has to be done to even start a research question. But I think it will turn out great. [I started to] notice that there are small things that we have to be attentive to.”

Reflections on YPAR

Other youth who have participated in YPAR also shared their reflections in this series.

  • Justus says, “at first it was nerve-wracking because I’m not the type of person to really talk to people let alone talk about my feelings or opinions. Being in this group has helped me come out of my shell and not only see and hear other people’s opinions. Being in this group is cool.”
  • Britney says “YPAR made me think more about the connections to everything. Usually, we think about a general idea rather than the little parts that tie the idea. YPAR has helped me think even greater outside the box and think of those little parts that tie the idea together.”

Missed a post in the YPAR series? Check out all the tips and resources:

  1. The Benefits of Engaging in Participatory Approaches to Research
  2. Why Young Investigators Are Important
  3. Youth Voices in YPAR (includes youth)
  4. Strategies for the YPAR Collaboration Process (includes downloadable resources)
  5. How Can Youth Voice Amplify Research? Listening & Leadership Are Key
  6. 4 Universal Facilitation Tips for YPAR Collaboration
  7. Asset & Power Mapping as Tools for Youth-Led Research (includes downloadable resources)
  8. Why YPAR Matters: Youth Are “Looking at the World Differently” (includes youth)

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Justus is a recent 2023 graduate of Charlottesville High School (CHS). She was a student in the CATEC EMT program, and is a current member of the TWT. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her family and friends, traveling, listening to music, and learning new languages. She is open minded and understanding.

Author Bio: Britney is a freshman at James Madison University and majoring in psychology. She is involved in mental health research as a member of the Teen Wellness Team to find resources to help my community.

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Author Bio: Jessica is currently attending Charlottesville High School and attended CAYIP last summer. She likes to get involved in programs that offer new experiences. Jessica is also a member of Teen Wellness Team. She loves to spend time with family, painting, listening to music, and organizing.

Asset & Power Mapping as Tools for Youth-Led Research

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By: Jessica Forrester

This post is the 7th publication in a YPAR series, which aims to explain participatory research, youth-led measurement and evaluation approaches, and strategies for youth-adult collaborations in YPAR.

Highlights:

  • In this series on Youth Participatory Action Research (or YPAR), we have started to share tips & strategies for facilitators.
  • Some YPAR facilitators use two types of modeling activities in their research projects, community asset & power mapping.       
  • This blog includes explanations of these mapping exercises, reflections on the iterative nature of creating maps, and downloadable examples to use in future work.
Source: North Minneapolis Asset Map made by Mychi Nguyen in YoUthROC Magazine 2022

Interactive activities are central to Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). These activities encourage youth to think critically about their communities and provide opportunities to strengthen problem-solving skills. Exercise examples include community asset mapping and power mapping. Below I’ll describe these two maps, when to include them in your YPAR process, and steps your team can follow for your research project. Additionally, there are templates and examples to support future YPAR projects.

Community Asset Mapping

Community asset mapping is an action-oriented process that documents often unexplored resources within a defined community. Assets are valuable resources for communities to maintain their well-being. These resources include individuals, land and physical environments, culture, stories, businesses, and citizens’ associations.

In other words, community asset mapping visualizes a community as inherently full of social and physical resources rather than defined by deficits that need remediation.

Asset mapping is a data collection step that can support a YPAR project after you’ve decided on your research goals or as a stand-alone project to document resources and build collaborative relationships. Regardless of your route, community asset maps are a powerful tool to understand the context of research projects and envision how resources already occurring in a community can be used to create change. Additionally, taking the time to find out what is already happening in a community will avoid duplicating services or solutions that others have done.

Here are some steps to create your own community asset map:

  1. Identify where and who makes up the community that you want to explore. Are you or your youth interested in your neighborhood, school, or entire city?
  2. Determine what kind of assets you want to know about and how you’ll find out about those assets. For example, youth can interview community members about their positive experiences in the community or read newspapers to find out about groups organizing local events.
  3. Logically organize the community asset map to share, use, and maintain.

Templates & Examples of Assets Maps

Community Mapping ActivityDownload

UC Berkeley’s YPAR Hub created an activity to guide YPAR teams in defining what community means and identifying the resources within a community.

Example of an Asset Map in ActionDownload

YoUthROC (a community and University-connected youth research team that supports the growth of YPAR) created asset maps for their magazine to highlight their research finding surrounding nourishing youth assets and agency.

Power Mapping

Power mapping is a visual representation that organizes people and organizations based on how much a person/group supports your project and how much power a person/group has to help your project progress. Completing this visual exercise will help YPAR teams understand how power operates within your community.

In addition, power mapping can help YPAR teams strategize about stakeholders who strongly support their research goals, opposers who might hinder their project, and people/groups in the middle who could be influenced to assist.

You can incorporate power maps into various steps of your research process. For example, a) during the early brainstorming stage as youth think about the proposed audience of the project, b) when they finish the project and are preparing to present the findings, or c) when they create an action plan and are contemplating who can help them make positive change. Regardless of which step, power maps can help youth and your team create a framework for success to meet the research, action, and relationship-building goals.

Here are some steps to create a power map:

  1. Brainstorm a list of people/groups in your community who make decisions on the YPAR topic. This list can include those responsible for creating the problem you want to change, those who may want to fix the problem, those already working to fix the problem, and your YPAR team.
  2. Place each person/group on the power map template based on their level of support and power (see the Power Mapping Activity below for the template). Questions you can ask yourself are: Do they agree or disagree with the goals of our YPAR project? How much power do they have over decision-making? You can do this virtually (via Jamboard or Google Slides) or in person with a whiteboard and sticky notes.
  3. Reflect on how people/groups are organized on the map and determine the next steps. Future actions can include engaging with your influential supporters or limiting the impact of powerful non-supporters.

Templates & Examples of Power Maps

Power Mapping ActivityDownload

A guide created by Community Futures, Community Lore (UC Davis) to assist YPAR teams in thinking strategically about supporters and detractors while you focus on your action efforts.

Example of a Power Map in ActionDownload

On the second slide of the Instagram post, YoUthROC completed a power map with local partners during their Research to Social Action workshop series.

Reflections on Mapping

Asset maps are just the beginning. Typically in community mapping exercises, assets are listed with short descriptions for brevity. In actuality, each asset could be further broken down and described. Youth and research teams can work towards transcending from maps to more detailed inventories that document individuals’ self-identified skills, partnerships between institutions and community groups, and strategies to identify additional resources. These steps would give a more well-rounded view of community assets and allow researchers to be more knowledgeable on community values, issues, and organizing efforts before proposing community-engaged projects.

Maps should be re-visited. An essential step in creating asset or power maps is to re-visit and update them. These tools are not final, and the continuation of participatory research depends on continually revising community resources. For example, organization leaders change regularly. It may be worthwhile to update the asset map depending on the new leader’s values or update your power map to reflect their level of support and possible allyship.

Missed a post in the YPAR series? Check out all the tips and resources:

  1. The Benefits of Engaging in Participatory Approaches to Research
  2. Why Young Investigators Are Important
  3. Youth Voices in YPAR (includes youth)
  4. Strategies for the YPAR Collaboration Process (includes downloadable resources)
  5. How Can Youth Voice Amplify Research? Listening & Leadership Are Key
  6. 4 Universal Facilitation Tips for YPAR Collaboration
  7. Asset & Power Mapping as Tools for Youth-Led Research (includes downloadable resources)
  8. Why YPAR Matters: Youth Are “Looking at the World Differently” (includes youth)

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Dr. Jessica Forrester is a postdoctoral researcher working directly with Youth-Nex and the Youth Action Lab. Before joining the University of Virginia, Jessica earned a Ph.D. in STEM Education from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s and master’s degree in biomedical engineering. Her dissertation combined her interest in STEM engagement with justice-oriented practices in education to create mathematics activities for an after-school tutoring program in North Minneapolis. Specifically, qualitative and community-based approaches were utilized to acknowledge community assets and, in turn, value those assets during mathematical learning to influence students’ identity development, skills development, criticality, and joy. Additionally, Jessica explores equity and justice through youth participatory action research and mentoring networks.

4 Universal Facilitation Tips for YPAR Collaboration

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By: Olivia Burke

This post is the 6th publication in a YPAR series, which aims to explain participatory research, youth-led measurement and evaluation approaches, and strategies for youth-adult collaborations in YPAR.

Highlights:

  • Detailed in earlier in this series, engaging youth in participatory action research promotes autonomy, self-efficacy, critical thinking skills, empowerment and civic engagement.
  • Effective facilitation is the key to successful YPAR partnerships.
  • In this blog, I share tips for facilitators based on years working in YPAR at multiple sites across a diverse range of students.
Source: Canva

This summer marks my third anniversary with the Youth Action Lab. The intersection of my two academic passions, education research methodology and adolescent development, this lab caught my attention as an undergraduate in UVA’s School of Education and Human Development. While working on my master’s, my interest in utilizing Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) as both a research method and youth-empowerment tool continued to blossom.

The bulk of my research with Youth Action Lab focuses on successful participatory action research facilitation. My experience facilitating YPAR with six different youth groups/schools ranges from: in-person to remote settings, ages 3rd to 12th grades, and highly selective leadership groups to alternative school models. In reflecting on the years, I identified four universal facilitation tips that help me establish successful YPAR collaborations.

Intentionally Break Down the Adult-Youth Power Structure

After the initial introduction to YPAR, spend time breaking down the traditional youth-adult power structure. YPAR is often facilitated in a school or school-like setting where the youth are traditionally ‘knowledge consumers.’ While the youth will learn throughout the YPAR process, they are also considered a primary source of knowledge. Unlike a traditional student-teacher relationship, the youth-researchers and YPAR facilitators have equal decision-making power. Being explicit about the shared ‘power’ throughout the YPAR process allows youth the space to share their truth and confidently make research decisions. As a facilitator, make sure you:

  • Intentionally share the idea that the youths’ knowledge and points of view are as important as the facilitators’.
  • Treat the youth with the same level of respect as you would any other co-researcher or adult colleague.
  • Spend time encouraging students to use their voice in the facilitation time; they will likely begin to speak up, unprompted, throughout the year.
  • Position yourself, physically, in a space that does not imply a power dynamic. For example, in a circle of desk rather than in front of the class like a teacher might.

Build Foundational Connections with Youth Researchers

Establishing a genuine relationship with the youth-researchers is crucial for a successful partnership. Once the youth-researchers feel comfortable around you, they will be more likely to explore authentic research topics. Though researchers strive to remove bias from the process, overarching research topics are inherently personally and often are sparked from emotions or reactions to everyday experiences. Building an authentic connection allows space for the youth-researchers to be vulnerable and explore their true interests. As you hone your YPAR facilitation skills, remember to:

  • While respecting your own boundaries, be vulnerable and authentic yourself. I often share a bit about my personal experiences and what makes me ‘me.’
  • Allow the youth to get to know you as a ‘normal’ person first—this also helps break down power structures between facilitator and youth-researcher. Having casual conversations about the latest trends or music tastes will remind the youth-researchers that we are just like them and normal people.
  • Share some of your own interests, research interests and how you personally connect to them.

Follow an Adaptable Curriculum & Timeline

The Youth Action Lab follows a general curriculum adapted from the University of California Berkeley’s YPAR HUB. I found that this YPAR curriculum is best utilized as a starting point to spark engagement and teach youth-researchers the social science research process. Since YPAR is rooted in empowering youth to make their own research decisions, it is important to be flexible to the youths’ interests and not get caught up in following the curriculum verbatim (like a teacher needs to in the classroom). The youth may feel more drawn to different aspects of the process than others, and it is not only OK but encouraged to follow their lead. As you consider YPAR curriculum, remember your goal as the facilitator is to:

  • Give youth the space and time to explore each step of the process. For example, a youth-researcher may enjoy spending the bulk of their time on background research or exploring data collection methods.
  • Spend more time on aspects of the social science process that excites and energizes the students.
  • Create a broad timeline from the start but be flexible at each stage. For example, allowing students more time to research their topic of interest or presenting their findings to different groups.

Meet the Youth Where They Are At

As mentioned in previous series posts, reflecting and checking personally bias is crucial for successful YPAR facilitation. In YPAR, the youth possess the content knowledge and it is their worldview that drives the research project. I, like most of us, have preconceived notions of how the world works and what is ‘right and wrong.’ My worldview may vary drastically from the youth though. Checking my bias throughout the research process promotes a research product authentic to the youth.

I also strive to meet the youth where they are at that day, and in some YPAR meetings you may need to pivot in the moment if that is best for them. While it is a collaborative process, not everyone involved has a fully developed prefrontal cortex. Provide the youth-researchers with more support on the days you notice they may be struggling. Giving them space to have ‘bad days’ promotes trust, mutual respect, and ultimately a more successful partnership. As a YPAR facilitator, it is essential that you:

  • Allow youth to explain their thinking and share what experiences are driving their opinions (often you will learn something new from them).
  • Share your own worldview and prompt a conversation to highlight where we, as co-researchers, may differ.
  • Check-in with the youth, as people, at the beginning of each session. Not every YPAR session needs to be 100% focused on the research project.

Missed a post in the YPAR series? Check out all the tips and resources:

  1. The Benefits of Engaging in Participatory Approaches to Research
  2. Why Young Investigators Are Important
  3. Youth Voices in YPAR (includes youth)
  4. Strategies for the YPAR Collaboration Process (includes downloadable resources)
  5. How Can Youth Voice Amplify Research? Listening & Leadership Are Key
  6. 4 Universal Facilitation Tips for YPAR Collaboration
  7. Asset & Power Mapping as Tools for Youth-Led Research (includes downloadable resources)
  8. Why YPAR Matters: Youth Are “Looking at the World Differently” (includes youth)

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Olivia Burke is an incoming PhD student studying Research, Statistics, and Evaluation at the School of Education under the guidance of Dr. Nancy Deutsch. She completed her B.S.Ed. as a Youth and Social Innovation major in 2021 and her M.Ed. in Quantitative Analytics for Education in 2022. She spent the last year as a data analyst at the National Student Clearinghouse on their Custom Research team. Since her initial involvement with in 2020, she has continued her work with Youth Action Lab as a YPAR facilitator and researcher. During her PhD, she plans to utilize and promote PAR-methods in education research.

How Can Youth Voice Amplify Research? Listening & Leadership Are Key

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This post is the 5th publication in a YPAR series, which aims to explain participatory research, youth-led measurement and evaluation approaches, and strategies for youth-adult collaborations in YPAR.

By: Jessica Forrester

Highlights

  • In this series on Youth Participatory Action Research (or YPAR), we’ve argued that youth engagement at all levels of research design can leverage their expertise and increase the validity of research findings. 
  • There are several ways to increase youth voice in research, including listening, collaboration, and leadership.
  • In this blog, I will describe how I’ve listened to youth in my collaborative research and how I envision youth leadership could amplify my future work.
Source: Canva

Increasing student voice and engagement in the research process has many benefits for youth development. These benefits include creating a network of justice-oriented adults and youth, developing critical thinking skills, and cultivating a sense of empowerment and purpose. Listening, collaboration, and leadership are three approaches to increasing youth voice in research that align with expert suggestions for transforming school decision-making. I will describe how I’ve used these practices below and give strategies on how you can apply these ideas to your work.

Increasing Student Voice Through Listening

Not all research studies are designed to be youth-led, and that’s okay. Sometimes adult researchers can include instances of listening to seek youth perspectives and opinions about our data and work.

Within my doctoral research process, I was the leading developer of culturally responsive mathematics activities for an after-school tutoring program in the North Minneapolis community. Even though I was the primary designer, I felt there were ways to include youth voices and feedback to improve my research. For example, one activity idea included an infographic of the distribution of Black teachers in the United States by region. It was clear from the infographic that the Midwest had drastically fewer Black teachers compared to the South, West, and Northeast. I was hesitant to include this figure because the students attending the program were predominately Black, and my aim of the activities was to create joyful learning experiences for students. Questions I asked myself were:

  • How can students help transform this activity from bleak to joy-centered?
  • How can we work together to change this activity into one focused on students’ identity and community?
  • How can we highlight Black teachers in Minnesota to inspire students and future teachers?

I held a reflection meeting with two 11th grade students participating in the program to gather youth input and feedback. I showed them the infographic, expressed my hesitancy to include it, and asked how they thought we could make this infographic more joyful. They gave several insightful possibilities:

  • Using the chart as an introduction to the lack of Black teachers locally and nationally,
  • Creating a survey for Black teachers to know more about their experiences, and
  • Designing a call to action for more teachers of color.

The revised activity would still allow students to mathematically explore the data while critiquing Black teachers’ working conditions and suggesting recommendations for change. We left that conversation feeling hopeful that a somewhat depressing activity could transform into a multi-dimensional learning moment for students.

Moving from Listening to Leadership

Listening is an excellent start to increasing youth engagement but it comes with challenges. For instance, Dana Mitra mentions the possibility of misinterpreting youth voices when students aren’t fully engaged with all steps of the research process. A way to improve youth engagement and move past a limited practice of only listening is to create opportunities for leadership and decision-making. A future direction of my research would incorporate students in the development phase of curriculum writing. At the end of the day, students are the ones engaging with curricular materials and deserve opportunities to give their voice and input. A fully collaborative curriculum with researchers, educators, community members, and students would provide opportunities for youth leadership over their learning.

If you are interested in moving from listening to leadership in your work, here are some tips and questions to ask yourself:

  1. Acknowledge your bias on what partnerships between youth and adults look like. What are my preconceptions of youth-adult collaboration? How can I change my everyday practices to create reciprocal youth-adult relationships? Am I willing to learn from the insider knowledge of youth?
  2. Establish clear goals, roles, and responsibilities at the beginning of the collaboration. Do I know everyone’s competencies, strengths, and talents? Are those strengths aligned with their roles and responsibilities? Am I providing valuable training opportunities to support youth development?
  3. Regularly reflect on your practice. Is there any misalignment between the partnership’s goals and actions? Is anything holding me back from transforming my current youth-adult collaboration? Over the next few months, what can I do to improve our decision-making process, communication, or shared responsibility?

Missed a post in the YPAR series? Check out all the tips and resources:

  1. The Benefits of Engaging in Participatory Approaches to Research
  2. Why Young Investigators Are Important
  3. Youth Voices in YPAR (includes youth)
  4. Strategies for the YPAR Collaboration Process (includes downloadable resources)
  5. How Can Youth Voice Amplify Research? Listening & Leadership Are Key
  6. 4 Universal Facilitation Tips for YPAR Collaboration
  7. Asset & Power Mapping as Tools for Youth-Led Research (includes downloadable resources)
  8. Why YPAR Matters: Youth Are “Looking at the World Differently” (includes youth)

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Dr. Jessica Forrester is a postdoctoral researcher working directly with Youth-Nex and the Youth Action Lab. Before joining the University of Virginia, Jessica earned a Ph.D. in STEM Education from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s and master’s degree in biomedical engineering. Her dissertation combined her interest in STEM engagement with justice-oriented practices in education to create mathematics activities for an after-school tutoring program in North Minneapolis. Specifically, qualitative and community-based approaches were utilized to acknowledge community assets and, in turn, value those assets during mathematical learning to influence students’ identity development, skills development, criticality, and joy. Additionally, Jessica explores equity and justice through youth participatory action research and mentoring networks.

Youth Engaged in Research: Strategies for the Collaboration Process

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This post is the 4th publication in a YPAR series, which aims to explain participatory research, youth-led measurement and evaluation approaches, and strategies for youth-adult collaborations in YPAR.

By: Shereen El Mallah

Highlights:

  • In this YPAR series, I’ve shared that participatory research is an approach to research, rather than a single research method, that intentionally considers power and equity with respect to both processes and outcomes.
  • Youth have a unique insight into their own needs and lived experiences, and engaging them in the research process can leverage their expertise on how best to support their own learning and development.
  • In this blog, I share specific strategies that facilitated the collaboration process to support the design and application of participatory research in practice.
Source: Dr. Shereen El Mallah

Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is an approach to conducting research increasingly used by educators, administrators, practitioners and researchers alike. However, there is still a lack of practical knowledge about how participatory research can best be designed and applied in practice.

In a recent publication, I provide examples or starter templates for researchers who are seeking to develop culturally sensitive measures and/or who are inviting youth stakeholders to transition from the passive role of informant to the active role of co-researcher. These are included below but first, I share some of the strategies that supported the youth-adult collaboration in this study.

How To Guide

The collaborative process can be broken down into multiple phases. During the planning phase (i.e., prior to engagement), the research team took the following steps:

  • Planning a “shadow day,” to follow a subgroup of students for three hours as they went about their regularly scheduled school day. This has previously been used as a teacher training and professional development exercise, and in the context of the case study, it held the same purpose of better understanding the realities of students in their daily environment.
  • Toward the same goal, disposable cameras were handed out to 30 randomly selected seventh and eighth grade students. They were asked to take pictures throughout the week of “things that were important to them.” The adult researchers were asked to do the same. All pictures were printed and later put on display in the room where collaborative working sessions took place.

During the partnering phase, the research team took the following steps:

  • The first collaborative working session was dedicated to collectively drafting a “contract” that discussed expectations, identified priorities and articulated the collective goals of the team. This conversation revealed varied outlooks among the youth researchers, from hesitation and apprehension (stemming from poor experiences in the past or a general distrust of adult outsiders) to hope and excitement at the prospect of playing a role in improving the student survey experience.
  • A lot of attention was also directed towards ensuring the statements in the contract were explicit, with very little room for ambiguity. For example, stating a commitment to shared decision-making was followed by a detailed description of the voting process (two-thirds majority for all votes) and a clear rationale provided for the few decisions that would be exempt from the process (e.g., the adult-driven research design decisions that were already underway, the decisions around any disciplinary matters that might emerge, etc.).

During the training phase, the research team took the following steps:

  • Youth researchers were encouraged to coin their own terms for the research concepts. For example, most youth researchers referred to quantitative and qualitative analysis as “numbers” analysis and “word” analysis; and although this may not be a technically accurate, it helped them more quickly distinguish between the two approaches
  • With regard to preparing students to lead cognitive interviews with their peers, the adult researchers employed reciprocal teaching strategies (“I do, we do, you do”): first modeling the interview protocol, then role-playing the interviewee for the youth researchers and eventually creating space for the youth researchers to offer one another feedback as they honed their interviewing skills.

During the learning phase (i.e., data analysis and interpretation), the research team took the following steps:

  • Youth researchers were guided through semi-structured data interpretation activities which included reflecting on surprises between what they expected and what they found in the data, as well as identifying patterns within the sample.

During the sharing phase (i.e., dissemination), the research team took the following steps:

  • The youth researchers created a social media page to highlight some of the key decisions and work products that emerged from each collaborative session.  One member of the team was charged each week with taking candid photographs to include in the updates that were co-authored by the adult and youth researchers on the team.
  • At the end of the data collection and analysis process, the youth researchers prepared four more comprehensive presentations to be delivered at a schoolwide assembly (targeting their peers), a school board meeting (targeting school and district leadership), a staff meeting (targeting their teachers) and a parent-teacher night (targeting families). Adult researchers in attendance took notes during the interactive presentations, documenting any questions or concerns raised by audience members. During the subsequent collaborative working sessions, the research team debriefed on key take-aways from the experience, as well as brainstormed new strategies to refine the dissemination process (e.g., after the first presentation, the decision was made to have handouts available for audience members).

Download Resources

To promote more widespread use of YPAR approaches, five resources were included in the publication and linked below. These resources were written for a general audience to ensure broad applicability and include examples, templates, and tools that may be helpful for those seeking to initiate research involving youth-adult collaborations. Each one was designed with the intention of drawing a more explicit link between the abstract guidelines and the concrete practices that are often associated with the YPAR process. 

Sample Recruitment FlyerDownload

A template of a recruitment flyer that can be used to invite students to work with adult researchers on improving school survey experiences.

Sample Project PlanDownload

An example of a project plan that begins with a broad overview of the research process in a youth-adult partnership, followed by a more detailed breakdown of the focus and purpose of each collaborative working session.

Sample Training Tool: Survey EvaluationDownload

A newly developed measure called the “KIVI” used by both youth and adult researchers to examine the clarity, relevance and coverage of items on survey measures.

Sample Training Handout: Types of ValidityDownload

A training handout explaining the different types of validity used to evaluate surveys in an age-appropriate and relevant way for youth researchers.

Sample Training Handout: Interview PromptsDownload

A training handout used to help youth researchers obtain richer responses from their peers when conducting interviews.

Missed a post in the YPAR series? Check out all the tips and resources:

  1. The Benefits of Engaging in Participatory Approaches to Research
  2. Why Young Investigators Are Important
  3. Youth Voices in YPAR (includes youth)
  4. Strategies for the YPAR Collaboration Process (includes downloadable resources)
  5. How Can Youth Voice Amplify Research? Listening & Leadership Are Key
  6. 4 Universal Facilitation Tips for YPAR Collaboration
  7. Asset & Power Mapping as Tools for Youth-Led Research (includes downloadable resources)
  8. Why YPAR Matters: Youth Are “Looking at the World Differently” (includes youth)

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Dr. Shereen El Mallah is interested in the intersection of applied science and social justice. As a scholar-activist, her work draws heavily on rapid cycle evaluation, participatory approaches, design-based research, and the framework of QuantCrit to address three notable gaps: 1) The gap between what works in research and what works in practice, 2) The gap between valuing what we can measure and measuring what we value, 3) The racial/ethnic and socioeconomic gaps in developmental and educational outcomes that are rooted in longstanding structural and systemic inequities. El Mallah regularly engages in research-practice partnerships intent on interrupting inequitable practices, policies, and research, as well as explores communication and dissemination strategies that facilitate the use of evidence. She is committed to working with and for underrepresented, marginalized, or systematically minoritized groups to leverage both quantitative and qualitative data in challenging dominant narratives.

Youth Voices in YPAR

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This post is the 3rd publication in a YPAR series, which aims to explain participatory research, youth-led measurement and evaluation approaches, and strategies for youth-adult collaborations in YPAR.

By: Mykei & Angel, 11th graders

Highlights:

  • Previous posts in the YPAR Series explained what participatory research processes are, and why youth should be engaged in research.
  • This post showcases two high school students who are engaged in YPAR, and currently designing research projects.
  • Mykei and Angel talk about what they learned in YPAR and how it has helped them.
Learn more about one of last year’s YAL YPAR projects, led by LMA students, through this award-winning documentary.

Starting in 2021, Lugo-McGinness Academy (LMA) and Youth-Nex’s Youth Action Lab (YAL) partnered to introduce students to youth participatory action research (YPAR). YPAR is a research approach that engages young people in identifying problems relevant to their own lives, conducting research to understand the nature of their problems, and using findings to advocate for change.

LMA classroom teachers and Youth Action Lab team members co-facilitate YPAR projects to support student leadership and uplift student voices in a school setting. The current YAL facilitators, Dr. Jessica Forrester (a postdoctoral researcher) and Olivia Burke (a grad student), sat down with two students from LMA to ask about their experiences in YPAR.

Question: Tell me about the current YPAR project you’re working on.

  • Mykei: I am working on creating interview questions on what sparks adults’ career interests and why they went into that field of work. I just want to see what people say, to be honest, like what their different experiences are. So far, I have interviewed my history teacher, Mr. K. He told me that he went to law school but realized teaching was his calling. I am excited to interview Mr. K’s father-in-law who is a nurse.
  • Angel: The overall question of my project is “Do high school students have enough resources for jobs, and internships after completing high school?”. My current project started off as research looking into career-based classes. It then led to looking into internships for high school students, in- and out-of-school. I have now expanded my project into a focus group for 11th and 12th graders; asking for their opinions on what kind of internships they wish they had and if they feel that high school successfully set them up for success in their career choice. The focus group will be recorded and sent out to businesses that are open to interns so that they may use the data to edit intern interview questions for high school students. During the focus group, we will give the students information on businesses open to internships.

Question: What have you learned while working with Youth Action Lab and YPAR?

  • Mykei: What sparks people’s interests. I also learned how to word questions to get a better response from the people I interviewed. I also learned a lot about the research process, like what to look for on the internet, especially when I was searching for different people in the community to interview.

Question: In what ways has your YPAR project been helpful for you and your future?

  • Angel: It has benefited my mentality. I now feel a need to strongly take initiative towards my future, while using the skills my project has taught me; such as reaching out when help is needed, looking into resources in my community, and looking closer at the people around me who could possibly bestow more knowledge upon me.

Question: What do you want to do after high school?

  • Mykei: I want to become a traveling nurse. They make a lot of money and it seems really fun. My aunt, grandma, and mom were all nurses. They all loved it. My grandma was a nurse for 40 years. I take care of my mom and little brother, so I am used to taking care of people.
  • Angel: After high school, I will continue my nursing program until it is time for me to head off to college. While in college I plan on majoring in Chemistry or Biology while doing nursing on the side so that I still have an income. Hopefully studying abroad at some point, and after many years of school, achieve my dreams of becoming an anesthesiologist.

Missed a post in the YPAR series? Check out all the tips and resources:

  1. The Benefits of Engaging in Participatory Approaches to Research
  2. Why Young Investigators Are Important
  3. Youth Voices in YPAR (includes youth)
  4. Strategies for the YPAR Collaboration Process (includes downloadable resources)
  5. How Can Youth Voice Amplify Research? Listening & Leadership Are Key
  6. 4 Universal Facilitation Tips for YPAR Collaboration
  7. Asset & Power Mapping as Tools for Youth-Led Research (includes downloadable resources)
  8. Why YPAR Matters: Youth Are “Looking at the World Differently” (includes youth)

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Mykei is an eleventh-grade student at Lugo-McGinness Academy and is joining the YPAR team for the second year in a row. In addition to YPAR, Mykei works part-time at a local business and has caretaking responsibilities for his younger sibling. Mykei’s education research interests are rooted in his commitment to education. In particular, he wants to increase the variety of class options for LMA students, such as advanced placement, career, and technical opportunities.

Author Bio: Angel is an eleventh-grade student and one of the YPAR team’s newest members. Angel is interested in transforming school classes to focus on students’ strengths in order to build their confidence. In addition to making a difference in educational spaces, Angel wants to shine light on business opportunities for high schoolers because of her own entrepreneurial spirit.

Youth Engaged in Research: Why Young Investigators Are Important

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By: Shereen El Mallah

This post is the 2nd publication is a YPAR series, which aims to explain participatory research, youth-led measurement and evaluation approaches, and strategies for youth-adult collaborations in YPAR.

Highlights:

  • Participatory research is an approach to research, rather than a single research method, that intentionally considers power and equity with respect to both processes and outcomes.
  • The added value of participatory research for both academic and nonacademic partners can be seen at each and every phase of the research process.
  • In this blog, I share more about why youth involvement in research is essential and how having youth researchers working with youth participants can improve the quality of data collection efforts.
Source: Canva

In a recent Q&A I described what participatory research is, how it is important, and why more researchers should be using it. In this second publication of the series, let’s examine why engaging youth in participatory research can change the existing researcher-subject power dynamic as well as amplify the voice of under-researched groups through meaningful involvement in the research process.

Youth Expertise in Research Processes

Typically, adults conduct research on youth and youth serve as the data source. Accordingly, adult researchers are considered the experts and hold ownership over the research process and data use. However, we know youth have unique insight into their own needs and lived experiences.

Engaging youth in the research process can leverage their expertise on how best to support their own learning and development. By incorporating their voice in the design, implementation, analysis, and/or dissemination stages of research, we are likely to increase the accuracy and validity of research findings, as well as enhance research translation.

Additionally, engaging young people in participatory approaches during adolescence is a developmentally responsive practice.

By collaborating with adults throughout the research process and actively participating in group decision-making, adolescents develop the skills, knowledge and dispositions to be active and engaged community members.

This includes cultivating a sense of self-efficacy and belonging, inspiring a sense of purpose, generating psychological empowerment, promoting strategic thinking…all of which helps to bridge the “civic empowerment gap,” and pushes both adult and youth researchers to more accurately consider how the lives of marginalized individuals are often shaped by their culture, their communities, and the social, political and economic systems they live under.

Young Researchers Engaging Other Youth

When adults interview youth it tends to be a unidirectional process in which the interviewer asks questions and the participant responds. In this case, the power imbalance tends to be two-fold: first in the researcher-participant paradigm and again in the power and social imbalance between adults and youth.

Having youth researchers interview youth participants through peer interviews recognizes that interviewing is a more dynamic social process that involves co-construction of knowledge. It helps to minimize or eliminate a number of factors that can influence adult-youth interviews including:

  • power imbalances,
  • insider/outsider status,
  • language and ways of using language,
  • ways of knowing,
  • the socio-cultural environment, and
  • societal and economic status.

In a recently published study, it was very easy to see how the use of peer interviews between youth researchers and youth participants facilitated the development of rapport and increased the level of candor, both of which ultimately reduced potential bias and improved the quality of data collection.

Challenges to Note

There are many benefits to engaging youth in the participatory research process, but there are also challenges to the collaborative process that are important to note.

The reality is that youth sometimes struggle to appreciate their own expertise (or accept the idea that adults may not have the “best” or “smartest” answers). This can make it challenging to break out of the typical “adult as authority” and “student as subordinate” patterns of interaction. So, it will likely take time and some trial and error to identify the most effective ways to empower youth researchers and to uncover the right strategies to promote hierarchy flattening.

Youth researchers can also be lose interest when they do not see concrete progress or tangible outcomes related to their efforts. This can be the difference between participatory studies seeking ameliorative change—creating change within a system and transformative change—changing the system itself. The latter takes more time so it becomes important to celebrate early and small “wins” with youth researchers along the way.

Missed a post in the YPAR series? Check out all the tips and resources:

  1. The Benefits of Engaging in Participatory Approaches to Research
  2. Why Young Investigators Are Important
  3. Youth Voices in YPAR (includes youth)
  4. Strategies for the YPAR Collaboration Process (includes downloadable resources)
  5. How Can Youth Voice Amplify Research? Listening & Leadership Are Key
  6. 4 Universal Facilitation Tips for YPAR Collaboration
  7. Asset & Power Mapping as Tools for Youth-Led Research (includes downloadable resources)
  8. Why YPAR Matters: Youth Are “Looking at the World Differently” (includes youth)

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Dr. Shereen El Mallah is interested in the intersection of applied science and social justice. As a scholar-activist, her work draws heavily on rapid cycle evaluation, participatory approaches, design-based research, and the framework of QuantCrit to address three notable gaps: 1) The gap between what works in research and what works in practice, 2) The gap between valuing what we can measure and measuring what we value, 3) The racial/ethnic and socioeconomic gaps in developmental and educational outcomes that are rooted in longstanding structural and systemic inequities. El Mallah regularly engages in research-practice partnerships intent on interrupting inequitable practices, policies, and research, as well as explores communication and dissemination strategies that facilitate the use of evidence. She is committed to working with and for underrepresented, marginalized, or systematically minoritized groups to leverage both quantitative and qualitative data in challenging dominant narratives.

The Benefits of Engaging in Participatory Approaches to Research

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This Q&A is the 1st publication is a YPAR series, which aims to explain participatory research, youth-led measurement and evaluation approaches, and strategies for youth-adult collaborations in YPAR. This Q&A was originally posted on the EHD website.

Source: EHD

Shereen El Mallah, an assistant research professor with the UVA School of Education and Human Development’s Youth-Nex and CASTL research centers, argues it’s time to rethink how academics engage with the people affected by their research.

In a recent publication, El Mallah wrote about an approach called youth participatory research, the importance of engaging historically marginalized populations, and tips on how facilitate the adult-youth collaborative process. 

El Mallah is interested in the intersection of applied science and social justice as both a scholar and activist, and regularly engages in research-practice partnerships intent on interrupting inequitable practices, policies, and research. We sat down with El Mallah to learn more about participatory research.

Q: What is participatory research?

A. Participatory research is an approach to research, rather than a single research method, that aims to co-create knowledge and solutions with individuals or communities directly affected most by the research issue. It draws on their “insider expertise” that can improve the rigor, relevance and reach of developmental science. 

Those who were previously identified as “subjects” of the research are involved as partners in the process of inquiry. Together, researchers and their collaborators develop or shape the research questions, design the study and/or execute implementation. 

Q: How does participatory research differ from traditional research approaches?

A. Participatory research often involves going beyond fact gathering and report writing to using local knowledge to guide and energize collective change in programs, organizations or communities. Participatory research is typically achieved through iterative cycles of inquiry and action, rather than a sequence of linear steps. It is also grounded in principles of equity, so it is oriented toward reducing hierarchical power dynamics between the researcher and researched. All of this moves us away from the longstanding assumption that only the researcher holds expert knowledge, which is embedded in more traditional research approaches.

There is growing consensus that existing measurement approaches in academic research have been found to reinforce stigma and sustain power imbalances. More specifically, many measures are White normative and adult centric meaning they are largely constructed through a narrow White adult lens, with the perspectives and real-life experiences of diverse and under-researched youth populations overlooked or undervalued. Moving towards culturally sensitive measures requires challenging generational and cultural notions of power and control—and participatory approaches are rooted in self-determination: The capacity of individuals and groups to chart their own courses. 

Q: What are the benefits of participatory research?

A. Participatory research adds value for both academic and non-academic partners which can be seen at each phase of the research process—from identification of what to study, to enhancing the quality and validity of data collected, to ensuring more accurate interpretation and wider dissemination of results. 

For example, when determining the purpose and scope of the research, there is consistent evidence demonstrating that “insider knowledge” helps researchers acknowledge and consider cultural assumptions and norms, the community’s history and context, and the reality of structural inequities. For non-academic partners, active participation in the early stages of the research process initiates ownership, empowerment and capacity-building.

As the research is being implemented, there are contextual advantages on both sides. Non-academic partners can help researchers develop more appropriate study designs and methods for the population and setting under study. This includes working together to determine which measurement tools should be used to gather information, how information should be shared in the community, and whose information needs to be prioritized. Take for instance a community that relies heavily on narrative and storytelling. Non-academic partners may recommend qualitative data collection rather than surveys. In return, academic partners offer specialized research knowledge, skills and experience that can help non-academic partners address concerns and engage in problem-solving they determine are important for their community.

Read more from the original Q&A.

Missed a post in the YPAR series? Check out all the tips and resources:

  1. The Benefits of Engaging in Participatory Approaches to Research
  2. Why Young Investigators Are Important
  3. Youth Voices in YPAR (includes youth)
  4. Strategies for the YPAR Collaboration Process (includes downloadable resources)
  5. How Can Youth Voice Amplify Research? Listening & Leadership Are Key
  6. 4 Universal Facilitation Tips for YPAR Collaboration
  7. Asset & Power Mapping as Tools for Youth-Led Research (includes downloadable resources)
  8. Why YPAR Matters: Youth Are “Looking at the World Differently” (includes youth)

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Dr. Shereen El Mallah is interested in the intersection of applied science and social justice. As a scholar-activist, her work draws heavily on rapid cycle evaluation, participatory approaches, design-based research, and the framework of QuantCrit to address three notable gaps: 1) The gap between what works in research and what works in practice, 2) The gap between valuing what we can measure and measuring what we value, 3) The racial/ethnic and socioeconomic gaps in developmental and educational outcomes that are rooted in longstanding structural and systemic inequities. El Mallah regularly engages in research-practice partnerships intent on interrupting inequitable practices, policies, and research, as well as explores communication and dissemination strategies that facilitate the use of evidence. She is committed to working with and for underrepresented, marginalized, or systematically minoritized groups to leverage both quantitative and qualitative data in challenging dominant narratives.