Divergence of values and goals in participatory research

Abstract

Public participation in scientific research has gained prominence in many scientific fields, but the theory of participatory research is still limited. In this paper, we suggest that the divergence of values and goals between academic researchers and public participants in research is key to analyzing the different forms this research takes. We examine two existing characterizations of participatory research: one in terms of public participants' role in the research, the other in terms of the virtues of the research. In our view, each of these captures an important feature of participatory research but is, on its own, limited in what features it takes into account. We introduce an expanded conception of norms of collaboration that extends to both academic researchers and public participants. We suggest that satisfying these norms requires consideration of the two groups' possibly divergent values and goals, and that a broad characterization of participatory research that starts from participants' values and goals can motivate both public participants' role in the research and the virtues of the research. The resulting framework clarifies the similarities and differences among participatory projects and can help guide the responsible design of such projects.

Theorizing Participatory Research

“…Members of the public participating in PR can be expected to have different intentions, aims, and agendas than the scientists pursuing PR (cf. Dunlap et al 2021). Projects that pursue social change will benefit from taking on board perspectives of the participating public in order to achieve community goals.…”

“…Returning to PR as social change and PR as knowledge gathering, we can see that the former is sociopolitical in nature, while the latter is epistemic. Dunlap et al (2021) similarly distinguish between epistemic, practical, and ethical goals of participatory research. Their category of ethical goals is similar to what we have termed sociopolitical goals, while practical goals is a helpful third category.…”

“…Goals that are politically valanced or the priority of which is disputed, such as ending fracking or decreasing reliance on coal and oil. Table 1: Based in part on the discussions of Cooper and Lewenstein (2016), Eitzel et al (2017), andDunlap et al (2021), we propose these five categories of goals participatory research may aim to advance.…”

“…See Vaughn et al (2020) for a fuller discussion of the variety of terminology and participatory practices. We follow Dunlap et al (2021) and use the term "participatory research," or PR, as an umbrella term for any scientific research involving public participation.…”

“…In section 4, we consider different typologies of participatory research. One typology categorizes projects by level of community member involvement (Shirk et al 2012), while others take virtues of participation into account (Kimura and Kinchy 2016;Dunlap et al 2021). In section 5, we explore how these theoretical resources apply to participatory research occurring in health contexts.…”