2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Research frameworks are often utilized to provide structure to educational projects. Beyond articulating clear expectations, they provide organization for projects frequently characterized by multilayered data streams and high contextual influence. Participatory Action Learning and Action Research (PALAR) is a relatively new research framework that combines existing paradigms to tackle complex, dynamic social issues. Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt (2011) created PALAR for use with community engagement projects, aiming to establish a structure that is both comprehensive and dynamic. It is not usually attributed to engineering research but provides an interesting and unique approach that acknowledges contributions from research participants and impacted community members. The project analyzed in this paper involves multiple institutions, disciplines, communities, and research taking place on multiple levels by undergraduate, graduate, and faculty participants. Communication on so many surfaces creates complications and delays that can be difficult to address.

The ‘P’ in PALAR stands for participatory, indicating the researcher’s role. Participatory research deliberately requires research subjects to be involved in the project. This process encourages increased levels of understanding and personal investment in project outcomes. This project also demonstrated that participants felt increased personal agency, communication, and problem-solving skills. Participation has also emphasized contributions to the next piece of PALAR, Action Learning (AL). AL refers to a problem-solving approach centered around “learning by doing,” in which investigators take action and then reflect on results afterward. This action-based analysis allowed student participants to feel their contributions were meaningful while simultaneously focusing on collaboration and critical reflection. Once again, the participatory nature encouraged researchers on all levels to challenge existing understanding and maintain dynamic assessment. Finally, Action Research (AR) provides a more systematic aspect to PALAR, intentionally cycling through a series of techniques seeking to achieve transformative social change. This cycle involves the following steps: taking action, observing, reflecting on those results, and then retaking action with reflection-based reevaluations. Repeating reflective cycles provide organization to the approach as a whole, articulating steps to take while maintaining adaptability and cumulative knowledge building.

PALAR combines techniques to create a research method that is highly flexible, collaborative, and involved while providing the structure and organization that is important to the success of large projects. This paper analyzes the success of each technique and how they worked together to blend and encourage participation on multiple levels. Testing and analyzing this framework in an engineering context is vital because it is rarely extended beyond social community engagement issues. PALAR is explicitly designed to provide structure and flexibility, and will encourage the contextual adaptability many engineering education projects struggle to achieve.