A Taste of Participatory Learning and
Action
Eileen Kane
for the
Dublin City University
School of Nursing, Research Seminar Series
all rights reserved; materials may not be reproduced without written permission of
GroundWork
2009
Contents
IMAGINE THIS… ............................................................. 3
BASIC PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH TECHNIQUES ....................... 4
What is participatory research? ...................................................................................... 4
Overview of participatory research techniques ........................................................... 7
Some common myths and misconceptions about participatory research and
action: ....................................................................................................................................22
REFERENCES ................................................................ 23
Photo, front cover: Mary O’Reilly de Brun. (Participatory research trainee from Uganda working
with children in Kiltiernan National School, Ardrahan, County Galway)
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Imagine this…
Your institution or organization wants to provide support for the health needs of
ethnic communities, maybe at home, or maybe even on a project abroad. It wants
to help make the services more relevant, affordable and accessible.
People from other cultural backgrounds may have very different ideas about what
constitutes health and well-being. Perhaps they have different ideas, as well,
about which illnesses are serious and which are not; about the causes of illness,
about what is cured by conventional medicine, what is cured by prayer, by diet, by
alternative practitioners, etc. The family may have a bigger role in deciding
whether someone is ill, and what treatment is acceptable. Who is responsible for
paying? Who should get priority, when there are several medical problems in a
family? All of these are important to know about, and to address. How can this be
done?
This booklet will introduce you to an approach that allows people to take a bigger
role in matters that affect them. The approach is called participatory research
and action.
The booklet will give you only a “taste” of participatory research approaches. It
covers only two out of the thirty-plus techniques that are used in participatory
research.
I’ve chosen these two techniques to share with you today because they have many
uses, and are easier to practice in a short session. We’ll probably carry out only
one. Remember that each has a function, and the problem or task determines
which one you use—you don’t use a particular research tool simply because you like
it, or it’s the only one you know. You will need to know many more of the
techniques on page 7 to use them successfully.
Notice that I often use the word “you” --for example, “When you have made the
matrix….” This makes the workbook simpler to read, but remember that in
participatory research “you” always includes “the community” or “the group”;
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“you”, the researcher, are only a small part of the whole effort. In fact, one aim
is to pass the techniques on to the group, so that they can use them
independently in new situations.
Basic participatory research techniques
What is participatory research?
Participatory research and action is an approach and a set of tools for helping
groups of people to identify their own problems, work out options for handling
them, create an action plan and organize to carry out the plan. Participatory
research was first used in developing countries such as Kenya and India to help
communities and groups tackle their problems.
Since then, it has been used all over the world, in both rural and urban areas,
North and South, in communities and organizations, even in jails, to help people
work on issues related to health, gender, education, agriculture, water, the
environment, conflict, good governance, organizational problems, basic human
rights, and many others. Non-literate and literate people can each use these
techniques, as can both adults and children. Communities that have used them can
pass them on to new communities.
Participatory research works: national education, health and agricultural programs
have been improved, sometimes even changed radically, because of participatory
research programs. However, these programs only work in situations where the
group’s insights and participation can make a difference: for example, working out
how to make a local HIV/AIDS clinic more accessible. It won’t work on issues
such as establishing a system for improving national financial rectitude.
Once you know how a participatory process works, you can adapt, amend and add
to it, depending on your group, the topic, and the purpose, whether it be to meet
the needs of people in homeless shelters, look at the conditions of trafficked
women, or help a school of nursing adapt its professional training programme to
meet the needs of new immigrant groups more effectively.
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A word about the terms used in participatory processes: Participatory research
includes Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA), which was first used in the 1970s, and
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), which evolved out of RRA in the 1980s. PRA
places more emphasis on the “participatory” than RRA does: the stakeholders and
others in the situation work with the research team, identifying needs, assessing
options, and helping to move from information to action. Participatory Learning
and Action (PLA) refers to the whole family of approaches that includes PRA and
RRA, among many others. Knowing these terms isn’t important, but understanding
the assumptions and principles that underlie them is.
These assumptions shape all participatory approaches:
all the people involved in a situation have insights and perspectives to
contribute


stakeholders can participate in the process of producing useful information
the role of the professional researchers vis-à-vis the other participants is that
of a learner, not a teacher or sensitizer

the techniques are primarily aids to group discussion, and are visually
accessible to literate and non-literate people alike

the resulting research should be tied to action; the role of the practitioner is
to co-facilitate action, in partnership with the community or group.

 those who might ordinarily be excluded in the development/research process,
e.g. the poorer, women, marginal peoples, non-participants, etc. are deliberately
sought out and involved
 the user’s attitude and behavior are at least as important as the methodology.
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The basics steps in the participatory process are to
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
identify the group’s problems
come up with possible solutions
assess the solutions
create an action plan
mobilize for action
monitor and evaluate the results
Some principles that shape participatory research
We need to offset biases from the more articulate and powerful, the more readily
accessible, and the more comfortable to work with.
We need to increase validity by triangulating—using multiple methods and sources, and a
team mixed in gender, age, insider/outsider, and discipline.
We need to be flexible and plan through an iterative process.
We should learn from our errors and share the lessons.
We don’t need to know everything to know something useful.
It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.
We should “hand over the stick” to the people we are working with: let them do it.
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Overview of participatory research techniques
Participatory research uses a wide range of qualitative and visual tools and techniques that are implemented by the community members themselves.
Many of these are aids to group discussion; for example, group interviews. Please remember that in most cases, the aim is group consensus, so
allowing people to “vote” individually defeats the purpose, and often gives a different result.
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Secondary Data Review
Pie Chart and 100 Seeds Distribution*
Direct Observation, Observation Indicator Checklists
Focus Group Discussions
Preference Ranking and Scoring*
Ranking by Voting
Pairwise Ranking
Matrices*
Forced field analysis
Mapping and Modeling
Participatory Mapping
Historical and Future (Visioning) Mapping
Mobility Mapping
Social Mapping
Card Sorts
Construction of Diagrams
Seasonal Calendar/Daily Timetable*
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Historical Seasonal Calendar
Time Trends
Historical Profile
Livelihood Analysis
Flow/Causal Diagram
Venn/Institutional Diagram
Systems Diagram
Semi-structured interviewing
Participant Observation (do-it-yourself, learning by doing)
Oral Histories
Stories
Case Studies
Proverbs
Local Categories and Terms, Taxonomies, Ethno-classifications
Mini-surveys
Options Assessment
Community action plans
*items covered in this workshop
Of course, any participatory research exercise will not use all of these techniques. The research team selects the most appropriate
and useful set of techniques each time a participatory research exercise is done. They will experiment with, invent, and adapt
methods as necessary. Whatever you are using participatory research for (identification of needs, social assessments, monitoring and
evaluation, conflict resolution, etc.) the principles and the methods are the same in all cases. It is how you tailor them to your task
that makes the difference.
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How do participatory approaches compare with other methods?
For example….

Technique

What It’s Good For

Survey

tells you what people say they do
and think
good for large groups


may not tell you what they really do and think
you need to know the group, and the exact questions


But...

interviews

same, but greater depth and
flexibility, because they are faceto- face

can’t use with large groups--takes too long and is too expensive

observation

lets you see what people really do


they won’t let you see everything
can’t use with large groups--takes too long and is too expensive

documents

tell you what people were recorded
as doing


may be wrong
records may be gathered for a purpose different from yours,
so can mislead

projective tests and
measures

are supposed to tell you what people
really think and feel

they usually don’t work outside the US--are culturally biased

All other methods are types of these (focus groups are types of interviews) or they are combinations of these (case studies,
ethnographies, participatory research). An experiment is a one kind of plan for using techniques
The technique is the tool. You decide how the tool will look for your project. This is the instrument.
The Basic Techniques
In this section of the workbook, we will be looking at two techniques: the pie chart and the matrix.
A pie chart is a diagram that can be used to illustrate relative sizes or relative importance of
things. It can be used with individuals or groups, to show
 income sources for a family, organization, community
 expenses: how much for food, rent, schooling, medicine, etc.
 social groups in a community, such as ethnic/language/occupational groups, religious groups,
social classes, users vs. non-users of health programs
 components of any groups--for example, types of local people least likely to adopt a new
health programme
 time—how people divide up their day, week, year in terms of labor, recreation, migration,
etc.
 relative importance of items: for example “What are the major elements in a healthy life?
What does a child need to be healthy? Which of these is most important? What is next?”
etc.
 sources of medical help, such as nurses, doctors, TBAs, healers, religious practitioners. How
important is each one in relation to a particular issue, such as cancer or HIV/AIDS?
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Many of the techniques in this workbook are done on the ground, using symbols. The pie chart is one. Working on the ground or on a
big open space has many advantages:





people can see the large diagram more easily
it can be rubbed out and changed. (It is important, when working with literate people, to mention that the reason you are using
changeable media and moveable objects rather than writing is to allow people to change their minds.)
people feel free to do it themselves (often, they don’t in a more formal setting, like a school)
people can participate more casually, and can be drawn into the process
people who are not comfortable with reading and writing can participate
How to do a pie chart:




(this example shows what people think are major causes of illness in a community)
Draw a circle on the paper. If you are working on the ground, draw with a stick, or use flour or ashes, or string
Ask people to name all the sources of illness that they feel are relevant to their community. Pick symbols to represent each
source (e.g.: a leaf for air pollution, a coin for water, etc.)
Hand over the stick or the pen. Ask people to divide the pie into sections that show the relative size of these sources of illness.
Check that people are satisfied with the sections, and that no source of illness has been left out.
Then record the pie chart on your recording form. Fill in the name of the community, the date, time, what group provided the
information, the names of the local experts who worked on the pie chart, and the researcher's name/s. Fill in the legend, drawing the
symbols and writing in the meaning of each.
NOTE: Suppose you are working with a community and when you ask them what their problems or issues are, their pie chart shows that people
think they have much bigger problems than health-related ones. Maybe bad housing is their biggest problem, and their second problem is
police harassment. It’s good to know this. You may still have to focus on health-related problems, because that is your organization’s
mission. But why is it important to know local priorities? Think about this question; it has practical consequences.
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100 seeds technique
You can accomplish the same task by giving a group 100 seeds or similar objects. Ask the group to discuss their issues, and then, either
in writing or by using symbols, indicate on the ground what they are. Ask them to discuss the importance or size of each issue, and to
distribute the seeds among the issues. This is a group activity, made by consensus, not by individual voting.
You can also use stones, rocks or cutout circles of various sizes for this activity. Ask people to list their issues in order of importance,
and then show relative size of the issue by placing a stone or circle of the appropriate size beside each. If people can’t decide on the
order of importance, you can use a technique called pairwise ranking, not covered here.
Pie charts: some applications in various sectors
agriculture: crops; subsistence activities; threats to farming; farming expenditures
education: levels of education or literacy in a group; obstacles to attending school; time spent on activities at school; time spent on study
vs. other activities at home
environment: dangers to water supply; forest resources; sources of pollution
gender: how time is used each day; obstacles to reaching a goal; opportunities for reaching a goal
health: threats to health in a community; major ailments; sources of infection; sources of impregnation of school girls; relative use of
various health services
microfinance; sources of debt; sources of credit; expenditures
Here’s a second exercise:
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Matrices
A matrix is probably the most common diagram form used in participatory approaches. It’s used at every stage in
participatory research.
Matrices can be used to assess any set of items against another set of items. A matrix looks like this:
It can contain as many cells as necessary.
Here are some examples of items you could put on a matrix:






types of health organizations (down) and needs that they meet or don’t meet (across)
stages in drug rehabilitation (down) and ways of handling each stage (across)
health needs (down) and which local organizations meet them (across)
health aspirations for children (down) and how they can be met (across)
resources to meet basic needs, such as education, health, food (down) and who has access to them: for example, men and
women (across)
problems that different categories of people , such as lone parents, older people, migrants, the homeless (down) have with
health services (across)
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Here’s an example of a matrix. What are the health needs of a particular group or community, and what would help
them to meet those needs? The example below focuses on women’s health needs.
Down the left side, we’ve listed the health needs that the women have identified for themselves.
Then they discuss what might help them meet their needs. Across the top of the matrix, they list some possible
ideas. They allocate twenty objects (coins, seeds, etc.) for each need (the items going down) and they then decide
which kinds of help are best for each need. They distribute the twenty seeds across a row, giving more seeds to
those ideas that are best, and fewer or none to those that are not useful, or are irrelevant. They repeat this
process for each row, starting with twenty seeds each time.
Here’s an example of this kind of matrix: we’ll call it a “problems and solutions” matrix.
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The most important health problems women have in our community (down), and How they
might be met (across)
mothers dying in
childbirth
family
planning
counseling


girls marrying too
young
pre-and
post-natal
services


schooling
for all girls



Child
immunizations
meetings with
fathers






more children
than we can care
for





©GroundWork
support for
families of
AIDS sufferers


infant mortality
clean
water



malaria
older women’s
burden of caring
for AIDsorphaned
grandchildren
clear
swamps










14
The group can take this another step: having identified some ways of meeting their health problems, where might
they get some help with them?
Ways of meeting our health needs (down), and Some sources of help (across)
Doctor
health center
family planning counseling



pre-and post-natal
services

traditional
healer




child immunizations

meetings with fathers

clear swamps


clean water


©GroundWork
the nuns
change the
law
the elders




schooling for all girls
support for families of
AIDS sufferers
local NGOs
















15
People’s choices in the matrix are not self-evident, so when you’ve made the matrix, you “interview” it. For example,
why don’t people think the doctor and the traditional healer are able to provide AIDS information? You find out
that people have been attending them and there are still large numbers of deaths. People have now decided that
the doctor and the traditional healer have secret knowledge that they are not sharing, and for which they charge
extra money. Why should the traditional healer be involved in clearing the swamps? What has the doctor got to do
with “meetings with fathers”? You won’t know until all of this is probed. “Interviewing” the matrix helps to get a
fuller picture of what people think.
You may ask “But why do we care what people think? Often they are wrong, and their views aren’t ‘scientific’.”
We care (and need to find out what they think) because people make important decisions based on what they think,
just as we all do. And of course, they have local knowledge, and odd as the matrix may look, it probably reflects the
real situation.
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How to make a matrix:
1. Select the topic. In this example, we will look at health services, and what stops people from using them.
2. Ask people to list the most important health services (about 3-8 items—you can use more, but takes a long time to
do the matrix).
3. Draw a box on paper or on the ground. Write the names of the health services down the left side of the box.
(Leave a little space at the top—look at the matrix in this example.) You might use objects instead of words, if
people have trouble reading, or if they cannot see the words because the box is too small.
4. Discuss each service. Ask the same questions for each one. One way to start is to say “Tell me about this service.”
Other things you could ask:
"Why do people use this service?
“Why do people not use this service?”
You are really interested in why people do not use the service. Write down the reasons on a piece of paper.
Read the list out to people, saying “Here are some reasons we’ve mentioned about why people don’t use the health
services. Can you think of any others?” If they think of others, write those down, also.
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5. Now use the box you drew to start making a matrix. On the left side, you have already listed the health services
(going down the matrix). Now, across the top, write the reasons why people don’t use the health services. Put each
reason in a box of its own.
6. Now people will score the health services. Take health service #1, at the top of your matrix. Give people some
seeds or other objects (twenty is a good number). Ask them as a group to look at each reason, and decide how
important that reason is for preventing people from using that health service. If the reason is very important,
people should give it more seeds. If it is not important, they should give it fewer seeds, or none.
6. Move on to the next health service. Use 20 seeds, in the same way. Continue with each health service, using 20
seeds for each one.
When you are finished, everyone will be able to see what are the biggest problems that each health service has.
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Here is an example. This was done by a group of people in a Hispanic community Washington, DC.
too
expensive
too hard to
get an
appointment
pre-natal
clinic
Dentist





eye doctor



children’s
too far
away
the staff
don’t speak
Spanish
wrong times
too public












clinic
HIV/AIDS
Clinic
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




19
The last matrix does not tell you which one is the best health service. What does it tell you?
What would you have to do to see what people thought the best health service is? What would the
matrix look like? Try to make one u
Now try a health-related matrix yourself. Here are some categories that you
might use:
Going Down
people’s health needs
access to basic needs, such as health
care, food, education
various illnesses
dangers to health
health practitioners
needed heath information
men/women
resources: income, ownership of goods
©GroundWork
Going Across
which the local health services meet them
Who gets what? men/women
Which remedies are best: traditional,
modern, etc.
how to avoid them
what each kind can be used for
who provides it?
who discusses, who decides on various
matters
men/women
20
agriculture: what crops are grown locally, and what are their uses (market, subsistence, seed,
medicine, etc.)
education: what are the problems of building a local school, and what are some solutions? /what
are the solutions, and where might people get help with them?
environment: what problems do people have getting fuel, and what are some solutions?/what are
some solutions, and where might people get help with them?
gender: what problems do women have about attending literacy classes at night, and what are
some solutions/ what are some solutions, and where might the women get help?
health: what family planning methods do people know, and what are some of the problems
associated with their use?/ what are the problems, and how might people get help with them?
microfinance: what are the problems of getting credit for small enterprises, and what are some
solutions?/ what are some solutions, and where can people get help with them?
In this short workshop, we’ve tried only two of the many techniques that people
working in participatory research use. When you’ve learned more techniques, and
how to apply them to identify issues, assess options for addressing them, create an
action plan, and monitor and evaluate the activities, you’ll be ready to use them in a
practical and constructive way.
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Some common myths and misconceptions about participatory research and
action:
Myth: You can only use these techniques in developing countries-they are really only suitable for
rural, non-literate people.
Why do people think this? Because seeds and symbols are often used. However, these are used to
allow people to change their minds, alter their priorities, remove and add ideas. If you write these
changes you could produce something unreadable. (Of course, the use of symbols does indeed allow
non-literate people to participate.)
Fact: These techniques can be used in developed countries, in rural and urban settings, and even
inside large organizations and corporations, to address internal problems.
Myth: You can get a wonderful “in-depth” picture of one community, but what good is that? You
need large-scale results to do anything useful—shape a major program, impress bureaucrats with
numbers, etc.
Fact: you can do participatory research in many communities, and if you have recorded the results
of each community in the same way, you can aggregate the results. As many as 60,000 people have
been covered in participatory studies.
Myth: participatory research is “warm and fuzzy”—you just run around playing with fun tools and
beans. Everyone is then happy, and you go away.
Fact: the tools are the least important part of participatory learning and action. What are
important are
 your attitude
 the problems or issues you want to study
 the sequencing process—starting from identifying the issues to coming up with an action
plan. This is a creative process, in which you base each new step on what you learned
from the last one, and choose your next technique accordingly.
Myth: in the end you just get the people together and hope they come up with some action.
Fact: there is a rigorous process for working from the issues to the identification of possible
options, and from there to the creation of a community action plan. Various practitioners may do it
in different ways, but there are well-known procedures that you should consider, and adapt.
Myth: Participatory approaches aren’t “scientific”.
Fact: This is based on an outdated positivistic notion of science. “New” hard science, such as
relativity theory, quantum mechanics, chaos theory, complexity theory and various even newer
emerging theories all share a set of assumptions about the nature of the world, the nature of
reality, and the role of the observer which are common today in most of the social sciences,
including participatory research.
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References
Chambers, Robert. 1983. Rural Development: Putting the Poor First. London: Longmans.
_________. 1997. Whose Reality Counts?
Gill, G. J. 1993. “OK, the Data’s Lousy But It’s All We’ve Got. (Being a Critique of Conventional
Methods)”. Gatekeeper Series No. 38. London, International Institute for Environment and
Development, Sustainable Agriculture Program.
Kane, Eileen. 1995. Seeing For Yourself. Washington, DC: the World Bank.
Kane, Eileen and Mary O'Reilly deBrun. 2000. Doing Your Own Research. London: Boyars.
Salmen, Lawrence and Eileen Kane. 2006. Bridging Diversity. Washington DC: the World Bank.
Some useful email addresses:
GroundWork: [email protected]
Also… Institute for International Environment and Development (IIED) (publishers of PLA Notes):
[email protected].
GroundWork
©GroundWork
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