RETOS Y DESAFÍOS

The third and final RGM focused upon debriefing and reviewing project’s findings, with everyone involved. An invitation e mail was sent to all participants, whether they belonged to the working or research group, to come and attend the debriefing event.

Seventeen students, out of twenty, came to attend the last session. One staff member, attended part of the debriefing. The ECRR Room administrator was unable to attend the event. The session lasted for about 1.5 hours. The debriefing consisted of sharing of the project findings with everyone, identification of any dissemination opportunities within and outside of the faculty, as well as the completion of a semi structured questionnaire by the students to evaluate their participation in the project. Students were given a choice to either return the completed questionnaire to me in a hard or soft copy or to leave their response at the department reception desk, in an already given envelope, within a period of five working days.

The questionnaire was anonymous, with eight semi-structured questions (see appendix 8). The questions focused upon students’ initial reaction to invitation to join a participatory project; any added value that they thought students’ involvement may have had on the project; impact on their learning and personal development; any special benefits that they thought they could take away from the project; their response to the participatory format of meetings; any changes that they would have liked to suggest for improvement; any further information that they would have wanted to include in the questionnaire and any other open comments that they would have liked to make about the project, overall.

8.2.2.3.1 Project debriefing

Debriefing started with a display of all the data, and included recruitment leaflet and poster, note cards, flip charts, meetings written summaries, the tables showing group’s

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agreed resources and activities for ECRR Room, and video recorded minutes of the meetings. The participants were free to revisit any of the data and documentation and ask any questions or make any comments. The participants showed interest and excitement in looking back at what they had produced and also played mini excerpts of video recordings. Figure 8.4 shows the documentation and data that was shown back to all participants at the debriefing event:

Figure 8.4: All data from the project brought to the debriefing event

Students had already taken a tour of the physical space and were happy to see the final agreed outcome of the project, table 8.4, which was blown to a bigger size for easy readability. The participants were advised that a display of the project findings will be included in the ECRR Room, especially at the initial stages of its opening, to remind everyone of the democratic and participatory ethos of the room.

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While revisiting previous documentation, participants were asked to fill in a note card, similar to what they did at the beginning of the project (see Chapter Six, section 6.2.1).

Unlike the note card activity 1, which was used as an ice breaker, the last one was used to close the loop of the project by asking them to express their interest (or not) in any further work for the ECRR Room. All 17 participants expressed their interest in some form of involvement in the running of the ECRR Room.

Table 8.5: Note card activity 2

Figure 8.5 shows example note cards, written by participants from different levels of ECS courses. The intention was not to analyse the note cards further but contact the students, if needed, in future, for their further engagement.

Name………..

Course detail ………..

I would like to be involved in the following way(s) in the participatory project and/ or the running and organisation of the ECRRC

………

………

………

I would not like to be further involved in the participatory project and/ or the running and organisation of the ECRRR

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Figure 8.5: Example note cards to record participants' expression of interest in the future running of the ECRR Room

The content of the note cards was similar to what the students had said about the ECRR Room in previous meetings, for example, some participants said that they would like to actively contribute in the international aspect of the course, both, in terms of theorists and curriculum; to be involved in combining critical theory with early years; in the development of resources; and so on.

8.2.2.3.2 Dissemination opportunities

To facilitate a collaborative partnership in all phases of research, participants were invited to get involved in the dissemination of the project findings (Goins, et al., 2011).

An opportunity to select what they wanted to present to an audience was anticipated to share the research control with participants (Baum, et al., 2006), recognising students as empowered active participants rather than passive recipients. Two postgraduate students presented the project findings with me, internally, in a research ‘brown bag’ seminar, which was attended by faculty members. The audience was a combination of academics, research assistants and postgraduate students. Two undergraduate students later

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presented ‘the benefit of students’ participation in the project’, beside me, to an internal and external audience in an HEA funded research seminar, hosted by the Department of Education, in the university.

8.2.2.3.3 Students’ evaluation of their participation in the project

Towards the end of the RGM 3, we all had an informal discussion about students’

participation in the project, especially recapping the use of different participatory approaches, descriptive and critical analysis and also the benefits of students’

participatory work within an HE context. The discussion soon became a natural summative conversation that further led to the completion of an evaluation questionnaire by the students. The questionnaire gave an opportunity to the students to evaluate their participation, individually. The informal discussion that they had after revisiting the data, including some video recordings, allowed them to reflect on their activities, collectively.

The evaluation questionnaire consisted of key questions to provide participants with some prompts and reference points (Newton, 2010) and also guidance on what to discuss (Gill, et al., 2008), which many found helpful. The semi-structured nature of the questions allowed for the elaboration of any information that may have been important to students but may not have been previously discussed in the meetings (Gill, et al., 2008). The format of the questions was also anticipated to allow the participants frame answers in their own terms and in depth, if they wanted to, which was in alignment with the open and participatory context of the research. Leading or rigid questions, on the other hand, may have represented my preconceived ideas on students’ participation, influencing the validity of the tool (Newton, 2010). The questions were adapted from Campbell, et al., (2007) and students were given a choice to either complete the questionnaire within the RGM 3 or to do it at a later stage (see above).

Table 8.6 shows results from student evaluation questionnaire. Out of 17 participants who attended the debriefing event, all 17 completed the questionnaire and returned it to me, either in person, or as a scanned attachment; or through the reception help-desk.

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Students were not involved in the analysis process of the questionnaires. The main analysis was drawn by me by writing key points at the margins of each questionnaire in the form of short phrases or ideas (Andrews, et al., 2012), which were added as example themes to the already existing evaluation categories or concepts of the questionnaire.

All similar responses were grouped together, under each category, and descriptive statements were formed (Andrews, et al., 2012). Some students’ responses fitted more than one category. A sum of the students’ number may therefore be more or less than seventeen in some cases.

Total responses= 17 (out of 20)

S.

Opportunity to learn about PR.

Excited and happy that students were being approached.

Great idea to fill in my gap of learning about research.

Couldn’t believe that students were being given this opportunity to participate in institutional decision making.

Meet precise needs of students. 10 4