Participatory Action Research and Information Literacy: Revising an Old New Hope for Research and Practice

Abstract

This paper is a starting of a research which points toward constructing the basis for a research agenda integrating Participatory Action Research (PAR) into Information Literacy (IL) research and practice. In order to achieve this goal: a) we enumerate some pros and cons of using such methodology on IL with the pertinent literature and our own practice as IL researchers; b) we have developed a questionnaire to gather some insights from the research community in this matter; and c) we will start to seek an understanding of the possible contributions that a PAR-IL research agenda can bring to the field. The integration of PAR into IL research and practice is discussed from the three possible methodological stances: quantitative, qualitative, and a mixed methods perspective. Furthermore, we enumerate some of the pros, cons, hesitations and eagerness that researchers might have toward the idea of using PAR. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013.