Developing and refining a participatory educative model with Health Science students – A case study of practice
Abstract
Critical
tertiary educators have a responsibility to facilitate awareness in their
students of the manner in which hegemonic societal structures of power are
perpetuated throughout society. Modelling and participatory engagement with
students is fundamental to redesigning our world for the better and building
their capacity. This paper focuses on a
participatory education research model being developed by a team of academics
who teach in the field of health promotion. Core to this area are concepts of
community empowerment and participation. As educators we operate from the
premise that unless we are able to share the construction of knowledge with our
students, we impoverish both teaching and our (educational) research. This said
we operate in an environment where participatory ethics are trumped by models
of objective non-participatory research; with barriers to shared explorations
needing to be overcome. This paper explores the development of a participatory
education research (PER) model. One project focuses on students beginning to
develop an understanding of their own learning styles. The second project
involves students developing understandings of the negative and often damaging
impact of weight bias particularly by health professionals. In both cases an
experimental design has been used with some adaptions to include students as
co-participants. Four core principles of a participatory educational research
model are emerging. These are that both teachers and students are “researched”;
individual feedback of results of research is provided; and linear integration
of learning from co-participation spans across the degree with levels of
co-participation deepening from first to final years.
Keywords
Thanks
Many thanks to Kim Dell (undergraduate research assistant) for her assistance in completing this manuscript
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