Understanding Effective Development: Using a Community–Academic Partnership to Create a Workshop and Interactive Toolkit for Parent Education

Abstract

A paucity of research exists on using action research with parents, particularly within the framework of parent education. The current study explores the development phase of a community-academic partnership (CAP) that designed a workshop and interactive toolkit to educate mothers on how to navigate social networking sites. The CAP (N = 10) was comprised of researchers, a community organization, and a group of mothers interested in the development of the parent education program. Participants completed an online survey wherein they endorsed and ranked the importance of facilitating and hindering factors present in the formation of the collaborative process, as well as provided formal feedback on the CAP. Although both collaborative processes (interpersonal and operational) were referenced as influential facilitating factors during the CAP’s development, operational processes were expressed as facilitators more often. Similar to other action research it appears that hindering factors are commonly not experienced during the development phase. In addition, it appears a quality action research project was conducted based on the successful fulfillment of partnership and participation, action, reflection, and significance. Overall, this study specifically makes a significant contribution to action research as it pertains to the development of parent education.