Hi Mike. I have not used this method but have recently been working with an institution that does in the Jacksonville, FL area where I live. I have done a little bit of pre-lim work on this and found that George Mason U has some good information posted.
My doctoral research is part of a CBPR project. I've published an article in the JERHRE about the process of developing the research. Overall, an amazing and rewarding experience.
For some reason, the links that I added did not show so I am embedding them into this text. GMU: http://gse.gmu.edu/research/lmtip/arp/ex and the other one is located at Pepperdine: http://cadres.pepperdine.edu/ccar/.
I used a PAR approach (photovoice) with park rangers, teachers, and other land managers in a conservation context in Kenya, East Africa (article attached, if interested).
Article Legitimizing Local Perspectives in Conservation Through Comm...
Hopefully these two articles are useful for your research. The first article may be particularly relevant because it is all about PAR and was published in the Journal of Urban Affairs.
Article Participatory action research for environmental health: Enco...
Article The grassroots and New Urbanism: A case from a Southern Cali...
Use of the PAR depends on the objective of your study. In the ICT studies if you are working with communities the approach will be perfect. I have used this approach in a study of access to information for farmers using ICT tools in Uganda. The design was to involve communities in the research study to collect data as they use the ICT tools. More important is the principles of PAR if they are applicable to the study you want to apply the approach to
Hi Mike, if you are interested then I would like to work with you on "alienation and ICT". I have one published book chapter on PRA/PLA (see link below). Recently, my students have succfully applied the approach in Scandinavia and hopefully some of those will be published in near future.
Chapter Application of PLA Methods in Educational Technology Researc...
Hi Thanks for the reply. It would be interesting to do some joint work. I am retired now but have just finished my PhD..awaiting a viva...I can send you a copy of the thesis so you can properly assess whether we could engage in joint activity.
You can take a look to Handbook of Action Research. Participative Inquiry and Practice, edited by Peter Reason & Hilary Bradbury. There is the First and Second Edition (Sage Publications). In both books you can find some very interesting and helpful chapters about Groundings, Practices, Exemplars and Skills. The third edition is in the oven! Hilary Bradbury is the editor. In both Handbooks is a Chapter co-authored by me sharing our experience with Action Research.
You can look Action Research journal (Sage) and visit AR+ (http://actionresearchplus.com/who-we-are/ar-editor-mentors/)
I hope you decide to experience how great is working with AR. Cheers!
I project managed and researched with a large collaborative team for the defunct Australasian CRC for Interaction Design and we applied action research looking at people who work at home and other topics. I suggest contacting one of our team members who still works in these kinds of areas: Ingrid Richardson — http://profiles.murdoch.edu.au/myprofile/ingrid-richardson/ — I don't think she has an entry on ResearchGate but her works cite others who do. (Most of my PAR publications are in community-based forestry or other land management.) Other team members who remain across your kinds of areas are Cameron Tonkinwsie (check out his university entry directly as he has obviously only just started putting a couple of things on here — https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cameron_Tonkinwise) and Ian McColl, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ian_Maccoll