‘It opened my eyes’: reflecting with stakeholders on the personal impact of a participatory research project

Introduction

In recent years, researchers have become more aware of the importance of involving people with lived experience at each stage of a research project. A range of different terms have been used for this process, including co-design, co-creation, co-production and participatory research (Slattery et al., 2020). While each term has a slightly different meaning, in essence all are focused on doing research with the people whose lives are impacted by the research topic and its outcomes.

This case study stems from such a participatory research project in the UK, where, in partnership with a local community organisation and four community researchers, we – two university researchers – set out to explore financial resilience in the context of their neighbourhood, and together develop ideas to help improve it. One of us had previously worked with the community organisation in a volunteering capacity, and, together with the organisation, developed the research proposal. The community organisation then reached out to (former) clients and volunteers to recruit community researchers – encouraging those they thought would be interested and a good fit due to their own experience and connections in the community. Four researchers – two men and two women, all residents of the neighbourhood we were working in – joined the project.

Over six months, community researchers recruited participants, led semi-structured interviews with participants exploring their financial lives, shared reflections via voice notes, and participated in co-analysis sessions where we collaboratively induced key themes and insights. Following analysis, the group held several sharing and design sessions where community researchers presented their findings to participants, suggested opportunities for change, and brainstormed and prioritised ideas for action with members of the partner organisation.

As university researchers, we were aware that reflexivity would be key at all stages of the research process in order to address power imbalances, the personal impact of research and other ethical issues (Von Unger et al., 2022). Reflective activities were built into the project at several stages, including an opportunity to collectively evaluate our experiences of the project and its impact on each of us as individuals.

At the end of the process, we sat down with the two community researchers who had stayed engaged throughout the whole project and the local community organisation representative to reflect on our experience. (Two community researchers dropped out of the project due to personal reasons – one mid-way through the interview phase and one after analysis.) We used a semi-structured focus group format to do so – loosely following Gibbs’ (1988) reflective cycle: to set the scene and put everyone at ease, we began the discussion by each stating what our role had been in the project (description). We then went on to reflect on our feelings – how each of us felt at the beginning and end of the project. The evaluation and analysis components of the reflective cycle were covered next, as we discussed what had been the best and the most difficult part of taking part in the project. Finally, we talked about what we had learned and what we would do differently next time, in line with Gibbs’ (1988) conclusion and action plan. One of us played a double role – asking the guiding questions while also sharing her experience and thoughts – while the other took part in the discussion as a participant.

The next sections explore three themes that emerged through this discussion, summarised by us as university researchers. We asked community researchers and the community organisation before the focus group if they wanted to co-author this piece or if they preferred to share their views only as focus group participants, and they opted for the latter. We have thus tried to stay as true as possible to the discussion we had in person and recount what was said, rather than add our own meaning, but we acknowledge that, nevertheless, the choice of what to highlight was driven by us rather than by the whole group.

Building and strengthening relationships

The project only came to be because of relationships. As a former volunteer, one of us had already built a relationship with the partner organisation, and together developed the research proposal which helped ensure that the research resonated with the needs of the community. In turn, the partner organisation already had a strong relationship with community members that they built on when recruiting community researchers. The four community researchers who joined were all local residents, had come to the UK as migrants, and had themselves experienced difficulties building financial resilience – representing both the economic situation and diverse make-up of the community we were researching, and having direct ties to the research topic of financial resilience.

The community researchers noted that they had been anxious during the early stages of the project, and some of them were initially unsure about taking part. Because of the relationship and trust in the partner organisation, its team members were able to encourage the community researchers and dispel any feelings of self-doubt:

[We] had existing relationships with most of the community researchers … Where there’s that doubt of, oh I couldn’t do that, it’s like, I’d say, no, actually we think you’d be great at doing this.

As the project involved regular meetings over a period of several months, this helped to build a connection and establish trust within the group. As university researchers, we appreciated having the opportunity to meet people from a new community, outside our usual circle of peers:

It’s different from the people I would maybe usually meet where I live, and so it was really nice to just have that community in a way, I really enjoyed that, and I thought we came together as a group quite well.

Developing confidence and skills

For both university and community researchers, many aspects of the project were new experiences for us, and we both reflected on feeling nervous during the early workshops and interviews:

I’d done something about research ethics and that was my part of the workshop, so I was a bit nervous about doing that.

Oh my gosh, I was thinking, how it’s going to be? Please, please don’t be nervous. You, you can make it! [laughter], and I was like shaking when I need to do my notes.

However, over time, both community and university researchers grew more comfortable and confident in our abilities. One community researcher described how she had grown in confidence as she conducted more interviews and talked to a range of different people about the project:

You got, you’re talking [to] a lot of people, you see a lot of people’s coming and then, and you see your progress.

For the community organisation, and for us as university researchers, this was one of the most positive outcomes of the project, as we saw the community researchers grow in confidence, both in their own abilities and in expressing their opinions. The community organisation shared:

I think I saw you guys as community researchers be a bit more confident, and maybe owning the project a little bit more than you did at the beginning.

Another positive impact of the project for community researchers was the opportunity to gain new skills. For example, one community researcher described having the chance to improve her English as one of her main motivations to participate:

English language, is good for me to be around people to talk more in English than to speak in my native language. That’s why I choose to take part in this project.

For the other community researcher, the project had provided her with the confidence and transferrable skills to apply for additional jobs and opportunities in the future:

When I starting the community researcher, it opened my eyes. Now if something happened, like something, like community research, then I can go again. Do something. Yeah, do something again, yeah. I’m feeling confident. I’m so happy, yeah.

Both community researchers felt that the project was important for them in terms of gaining personal skills, but also having the opportunity to do something for themselves. They reflected on why this was important for them as busy mothers of small children:

We are mums, and it’s good for us to go out, to do something new for us.

Come out for home and meet people or something like that … yeah, it’s improving your brain, and you meet a lot of people and ask their problems. If it’s not, it’s good for, for personally, it’s good for me.

We also reflected on our own learning as early career researchers. We discussed the new opportunities that we had in terms of leading a research project and learning to be an observer rather than an interviewer. In addition, we both reflected on what we had learned about the processes and systems of research. Seeing these processes through the eyes of community researchers helped us to reflect on their accessibility and inclusivity:

It made me realise again how much in the research we do, like all of the methods we use are based on this assumption that the people who use them speak fluent English and have university education and are really, like, comfortable with a certain type of language … I think that’s a really important learning for me to take that back and say, if we wanna do research with people, we need to change how we do it.

Navigating research as insiders

The community researchers discussed their experiences of conducting research within the community where they lived and worked. They were positive about having the opportunity to give something back to their local area:

You can do something, like, you’re gonna help your community.

They also described having the chance to learn more about the experiences of their friends and neighbours. For example, one community researcher reflected on learning about her local community, despite having lived there for many years:

It opened lot of things I didn’t know before. I lived in this area for 22 years, I didn’t know more things in there.

One of the benefits of participatory research is the possibility of reaching participants who may be less responsive to attempts at engagement by university researchers. However, the community researchers also described a number of challenges when conducting research within their own community. One pertinent example was the emotional burden of listening to participants’ stories of their financial struggles. This example reflected our contrasting experiences as insiders and outsiders in the community. The emotion of hearing these stories was heightened for community researchers, who were interviewing their acquaintances or neighbours:

Sometimes when I’m thinking about myself with my problems, and then when I heard these people’s stories, I was thinking, oh my gosh, [I] don’t have any problem!

Another challenge of interviewing within their own community was the difficulty of approaching potential participants, particularly due to the sensitive nature of the topic. Community researchers felt that while some people may be more open when talking with someone from their own community, this largely depended on the individual:

It depends [on] the people. For some people they don’t want to talk about more, but well, and some people they tell you more about – it depends [on] the person who you got meeting.

One community researcher described how in some cases, people within the community would be more comfortable talking to someone who they were less familiar with. Her most successful interview had been the only one where she did not already know the participant:

It was just one person which I didn’t know her, like … and, uh, she was more open than my neighbours.

In addition, community researchers described experiences where participants expected greater reimbursement than was offered:

Some people, they think if they don’t get something, they don’t want it.

In contrast, the other community researcher’s experience of interviewing in the community was quite different. She had positive responses from most of the people she asked, and she described how most of them were not motivated by monetary reimbursement:

The people which I interviewed, they didn’t care about money and, also, I didn’t tell them about money, about the voucher, I forgot to tell them about the voucher.

Community researchers also reflected on the limitations of interviewing people from similar cultural backgrounds to their own, as this restricted the diversity of participants in the study. They felt that it was important to find both community researchers and participants who represent a wider range of backgrounds:

Maybe they can interview their own community, they’re gonna be flexible or they’re gonna be open. That’s what I think. Need another, different background.

In relation to the impact of insider/outsider status, we also reflected on the role of the observer in the interview. When we observed interviews as university researchers, although we did not talk, our presence may have impacted the rapport established between participant and interviewer. For example, in one interview, the community researcher and participant conducted the interview in English despite their joint language being Somali. This led us to recognise the potential influence we have as outsiders, as much as we might attempt to be neutral observers:

If I’m sitting in interviews, even if I say ‘ignore me’, people won’t ignore me, they will try to be polite.

Discussion

Evaluations of participatory research have often focused on impact in terms of research outcomes, rather than the personal impact on those involved (Pallesen et al., 2020). When articles do consider personal impact, these are often commentaries or opinion pieces based on academic experiences of participatory research, rather than the experiences of community researchers (Smith et al., 2022). In this reflective account, we have discussed the personal impact of being involved in participatory research with our community partners. Our discussion revealed three key areas of impact: relationships, development of confidence and skills, and experiences of undertaking research in one’s own community.

In terms of relationships, we have reflected on the benefits of having an extended period of time to get to know one another, which helped to establish trust and rapport within the team. In addition, existing relationships between the community organisation and community researchers were advantageous in establishing trust more quickly. Taking time to build relationships and trust among the team has previously been reported as an essential component of effective participatory and co-design projects (Ní Shé and Harrison, 2021). At a personal level, the positive impact of building relationships has also been described in a study of inclusive research by Strnadová et al. (2014). Participants in their study reported that becoming a research team was a process of getting to know one another and becoming friends.

The project also had a positive personal impact in terms of building confidence, both for us as university researchers and for the community researchers. Similar findings have been reported in previous studies, which describe the potential for participatory research to empower those involved and increase their self-esteem (Manafo et al., 2018; Scheffelaar et al., 2020). In this project, community researchers also valued the opportunity to gain transferrable skills, which they could take forward into future work or volunteering roles. Previous studies reported the benefits of participatory research for providing community members with new skills, for example, in leadership, public speaking and moderating group discussions (Amico et al., 2011; Powers and Tiffany, 2006). Often, studies have focused on training researchers in the skills necessary to conduct research, such as ethics and interviewing skills (Strnadová et al., 2014). While this project included training in research skills, community researchers spoke more about the value gained from transferrable skills that were not directly covered in training – such as opportunities to practise English. To ensure that community researchers gain the most benefit from being involved in research, when planning participatory projects, it may therefore be useful to build in opportunities for consultation with community researchers about the skills they hope to gain, and then schedule regular check-ins and opportunities for feedback as their skills develop throughout the project.

Finally, a theme that came up throughout our discussion was community researchers’ experience of conducting research in the place where they lived and worked. They described the positive personal impact of giving back to their own community, but also experienced challenges of conducting research as insiders. In particular, they discussed the emotional burden of hearing people’s stories, and the challenge of recruiting participants from among their acquaintances. Our discussion reflected the complexities of what Herr and Anderson (2014) describe as the ‘continuum of positionality’, where our positions as insider or outsider vary depending on organisational and social hierarchies. The immediacy of the relationship between community researchers and participants was an important consideration. One option for the future would be to find some middle ground when pairing interviewer and interviewee, for example, interviewing people from the local community but who are not directly friends or neighbours. This would enable the advantages of insider status, without the detraction of being overly familiar. We also reflected on our own role as university researchers, and how our presence may have affected the research. When doing participatory research, it is important that we acknowledge the potential for power imbalances, and engage in self-reflexive practice (Von Unger et al., 2022). Ní Shé and Harrison (2021) report that engaging in open, reflective communication as a research team is particularly important when working with under-represented populations, to guard against the potential for unintended negative consequences as a result of involvement in research.

In summary, this case study reveals that participatory research can lead to positive personal impacts for both community and university researchers, such as making new friends, learning new skills and giving back to the community. To maximise these positive impacts, we suggest that participatory research teams build in opportunities for both self-reflection and skill development throughout the project. We also saw that participatory research is not without its challenges, particularly in relation to our status as insiders or outsiders. As part of self-reflection, we should therefore consider how comfortable each person feels with their role at each stage of the project, and be flexible in adapting the research design in response to this.

Declarations and conflicts of interest