Participatory Action Research and Evaluation: A hands-on learning event 

Learn and apply new approaches to participatory action research and evaluation.

Originating with the pioneering work of Kurt Lewin and the Tavistock Institute, participatory action research (PAR) is a well-documented tradition of collective reasoning and evidence-based learning for social change. Taken together, the various formulations of PAR constitute a robust alternative to positivism’s denial of human agency and justice in the global era.

This three-day workshop in Ottawa (Canada) engages people in hands-on learning and practice using concepts and flexible PAR tools developed and tested by the instructors in settings around the world. The lead Instructor is Daniel J. Buckles, co-author of Participatory Action Research: Theory and Methods for Engaged Inquiry (Routledge, 2013). The fee for individuals is $690.00 plus HST ($780 , inclusive). A student fee and group fee (3 or more people from the same organization) is available (see Registration for details).

The workshop is designed for people in the voluntary, academic, private and government sectors who are involved in community-based research and evaluation, workplace training and organizational learning and multistakeholder facilitation. By the end of the workshop all participants will have:

• Examined the fundamentals of PAR;
• Practiced the use of basic and advanced tools to assess problems, actors, and options and to engage people in evaluative thinking;
• Applied PAR concepts and tools to real-life situations (including evaluation);
• Discussed challenges and ways to manage them.

The agenda is organized into four modules: Planning systems that learn, Exploring problems, Knowing the actors, and Assessing options. Some tools are practiced in depth while others are introduced as a ‘window’ for self-study.

You can download the modules at: http://www.participatoryactionresearch.net/skillful-means.

Click here for a detailed agenda.

For testimonials, background and details on the approach, see www.participatoryactionresearch.net.

Your instructor: Daniel Buckles is the Co-Director of SAS2 Dialogue and an Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. He is co-author, with Jacques M. Chevalier, of Participatory Action Research: Theory and Methods for Engaged Inquiry (Routledge, UK. 2013). Other recent publications focus on the experience of inequality among India’s adivasi communities (Fighting Eviction: Tribal Land Rights and Research-in-Action, Cambridge University Press, 2013) and research with farmers in Bangladesh trying to break their dependency on tobacco production. As senior staff at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) for 10 years Dr. Buckles scouted research talent and helped design more than 60 research projects on rural poverty, biodiversity conservation and urban environment. Previously, he was a Senior Scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in Mexico and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow. 

A second instructor (Jacques Chevalier) will join if the number of registrants goes beyond 18.

Become part of a worldwide community of researchers, facilitators, activists and evaluators that bring a shared vision of dialogue and action learning to life in communities, workplaces, educational institutions and the public sector.

Participants are encouraged to bring real-life proposals and projects to the workshop so they can learn-by-doing and create useful results along the way. Include local stakeholders in your workshop group to make the experience even more meaningful, useful and evidence-based.