PUB TYPE Reports Evaluative/Feasibility (142) Speeches /Conference Papers (150) Tests/Evaluation Instruments (160)

An approach to educational research that is receiving renewed attention is participatory action research (PAR), which emphasizes a bottom-up approach to research as well as useful outcomes. PAR is a philosophy, and not a methodology per se. It is a deliberate, goal-directed, structured, and applied means of obtaining information that looks to informants as active participants in the evaluation and research process. The generalizability of findings is deemphasized in favor of localized, individually meaningful action outcomes. PAR emerges from sociology and socill/cultural anthropology, and can use mixed methods and any design in which evaluation/research is participant directed. Several examples are given of the PAR approach. Appendix A describes a program evaluatio