As a fellow for the Research Justice Shop, it was interesting to hear the various approaches researchers across disciplines used to conduct community-based research. Though many attributes and methods were similar, there were apparent differences that emerged in discussions during fellows’ meetings, as well as the community-based research workshops in the Research Justice workshop series in which the fellows participated. In particular, during a workshop titled Creating Conditions for Research Justice: Establishing Agreements with Community Partners I noticed a distinct difference in approaches to community-based research, including how researchers begin to build connections and trust within an organization, as well as how projects are formed either for the community or with the community. In this blog post, I discuss two types of community-based research that I have seen throughout the span of this fellowship. I also discuss my thoughts regarding the pros and cons of each approach, as well as reasons for conducting community-based research in each way.
Variations of Community-based Research
The Consultant:
“We (the community) have a problem that can use your expertise. Can you support us in solving it? ”
Some researchers have communities that they want to impact using various expertise. The researcher engages with the community organization as a consultant that directs the conversations towards the researcher’s expertise. In this approach, the researcher will ask questions to understand the specific needs and wants of an organization based on researchers’ research interests and experience. The researcher and community organization will work together to define a project that would best support the community organization.
Example:
 Roxie |  Keith |
| Title: Graduate Student Researcher Concentrations: Informatics & Human Computer Interaction Interest: Design technology to support the needs of a community organization | Title: Community Organization Leader Needs: Technology to help older adults live healthy lifestyles |
Roxie is interested in designing technology to improve active aging of older adults. Roxie found an organization whose mission supports her interests of helping older adults live healthy lives. She set up an initial meeting with Keith to understand the organization on a deeper level.
Although we can gather a lot of insight on the organization from their website, it is often difficult to find the organization’s current needs and challenges.
During the meeting, Keith provided Roxie with information about the various programs their organization has to support older adults living alone. Keith mentions a need for using technology to keep older adults aware of their various lifestyles.
After the meeting, Roxie conducted a literature review on how technologies have been used to help older adults keep track of their varying health lifestyle. Lifestyles is a very broad term, so it’s important that Roxie explores technologies for various components of a healthy lifestyle including social awareness and health tracking.
Your community partner may give broad terms, but as a researcher it is your duty to go into detail about words that may seem common because they may mean something different in their organizations.
Once the literature review was complete, Roxie created a handout for the organization that gave the positives and negatives of various technologies for tracking healthy lifestyles. This handout was presented at the next meeting scheduled between Roxie and Keith’s team. The handout was discussed in detail, and Roxie asked questions to the community partner to probe their interests in the type of technology they think would be most useful for older adults within their organization.
During this “define the project” phase, Roxie volunteers at the bi-weekly laughing yoga the organization has to promote wellness for older adults. This allows Roxie to begin building connections with the older adults and families who often participate with the organization.
* Though this is an example of how someone would define a project with a community organization, this is the exact framework I used with my current research partner in aims of designing technologies to supplement support groups for people with dementia and their caregivers.
Authors Perspectives on the Consultant Approach:
- Pros:
- Topics, ideas, and methods are flexible in the early stages
- Research is driven by the community partner and the communities needs
- Cons:
- Time constraints: This process thrives on relationship building which in the above example took a year. This process may not fit into the time constraints some researchers may have in place.
- Defining your project with an organization takes trial and error. It is important that you trust the organization as well because you don’t want to be stuck working with an organization whose mission does not align with the practice or your interest. You could end up working on a project that is far from what you intended.
Why might one conduct community-based research this way? Researchers may want to use this approach to community based research if:
- You want to address communities’ needs directly.
- Your research plan is not restricted to a specific project due to various reasons (i.e. funding).
What are the first steps to getting started?
- Define your general area of interest
- Who do you want to be impacted by your work?
- How can your expertise aid in positively impacting this community?
- Research community organizations in your area
- Check out their website: does your vision match theirs in some way?
- Are there ways to get involved through volunteering or attending meetings?
- If so, before contacting the community partner to discuss research, volunteer with their organization. This will allow you to see first hand how the organization works and allows you to begin the process of building a relationship and trust with the organization.
- If you need to conduct research within a strict time frame (less than 1 year), then reach out to the organization directly.
- Have fun!!
Project First:
“I (the researcher) have a defined project, but I need a community that I can help impact through this research”
Some researchers may have a defined project, but need to a find community that could be positively impacted by the research. In this role, researchers engage community partners to understand how the research can best benefit the organization as well as fit the needs of the defined research project.
Example:
| Rachel | Cameron |
| Title: Graduate Student Researcher Project: Designing virtual reality technology to support the needs of a community organization | Title: Community Organization Leader Organization meets researchers needs |
Roxie is being funded by a grant to conduct research on developing mobile support groups for people with mental illnesses. This grant does not allow much flexibility, so Roxie must follow the protocol given by the funding agency. Before Roxie searched for a community organization with which to partner, she began writing her Institutional Review Board (IRB)- necessary for human subjects research application. This way, the IRB can be under-review during her search process.
Roxie needs to find an organization that caters to the specific research needs including age group. The organization must also serve individuals with mental illnesses and pass other forms of her pre-screening process. This may not be determined by just viewing the organization’s website, but a pre-screening phone call with the organization would allow Roxie to ask general questions about the organization to see if they are a fit for the research being conducted. Roxie determines the organization Cameron works with to be a great fit for developing a mobile support group for people with a mental illness. This was confirmed through their first in-person meeting, where Roxie discussed the research project with the community partner. The next step for Roxie is to begin building a relationship with the community partner and their clients.
Authors Perspectives on the Project First Approach:
- PROS:
- Researchers already know the project they will be working on.
- CONS:
- Community partner is not engaged in the beginning stages of the research project.
- May be difficult to build a connection with community partners due to the idea of only wanting to do research with them.
- Why might one may conduct community -based research this way?
- Researcher may consider this way of going about conducting community-based research for various reasons including:
- Research time frame to complete the study.
- Funding constraints: If you’re a student, sometimes your research project is defined for you before you arrive possibly due to various grants that fund you and your work.
- You have a very specific project idea and research interests.
- Researcher may consider this way of going about conducting community-based research for various reasons including:
- HOW TO GET STARTED:
- Define your research project.
- Beginning writing your IRB, so that you can present it to community partners during a meeting.
- Research community partners that engage with the population you are interested in studying
- Have fun!!
Jazette’s Bio
Jazette Johnson was a third year Ph.D. student in the department of Informatics at the University of California – Irvine. Her primary research work focused on designing virtual support groups for people with dementia. She was a 2019-2020 Newkirk Fellow. To learn more about Jazette and the community based research she was conducting visit her website at www.jazettejohnson.com
For more information contact: researchjustice@uci.edu
Follow us