Experiencia del estudiante de primer ingreso sobre el conocimiento previo de la carrera de Bibliotecología y Gestión de la Información de la Universidad Nacional (Costa Rica)

In order to improve the information retrieval and resource sharing abilities of the library and establish an intelligent library information management system, alibrary management system based on data mining and clustering algorithm is proposed. The system development is divided into two modules: library mining algorithm design and information management system software development. Library data mining design and clustering algorithm of library management system development. System development is divided into two modules: library mining algorithm design and information management system software development. Big data fusion and feature clustering methods is used to design intelligent information retrieval algorithms in library information management to establish library management database. Realizing the development and design of library management system under embedded environment, and finally experimental test analysis is carried out. Results show that the use of the proposed method for library information management can improve the accuracy of book recommendation, which is 16.7% higher than traditional methods on average. It has good data mining, and has good performance indicators in data recall and precision. Therefore, this algorithm is not only a means of automated management of library systems, but also an effective means to realize library information modernization.

The varying literacy standards that undergraduate students represent are a reflection of their interim grasp of academic literacy (Paxton 2007). The aim of this study is to analyse a small group of undergraduate first-year students’ depiction of their interim grasp of academic writing and to reflect on how lecturers use formative feedback to respond to specific issues regarding students’ academic transitions within their discipline. Using an emancipatory methodology, this study was designed as a participatory action research. Qualitative data from focus group interviews with lecturers and photovoice presentations by first-year dental technology students were used to explore how students demonstrated their interim grasp of academic essay writing in a Health Science department at a university of technology. However, this article, which is part of a broader study, analyses a small class of first-year students’ depiction of their interim grasp of essay writing and reflects on how their lecturers use formative feedback to respond to these students’ academic transitions within their discipline. Using activity theory and morphogenetic realist theory to analyse essay writing activities during an intervention, the study reveals that images are potent artefacts that students and lecturers use to build meaningful dialogue during essay writing in an uneven terrain.

A Study of Local Government in Africa through Participatory Action Research (PAR)

This research paper discussed the adjustment dynamics of first-year students to university life. Registering for the first time at the university seems to impose various challenges on newcomers. Most first-year students experience adjustment challenges in university life, which seem to lead to poor academic performance. Their performance stimulated the need to find the challenges and find ways to enhance adjustments and challenges to improve academic performance. The theory underlying this paper was Critical Emancipatory Research Theory. Participatory action research was employed in this study to collect data and a thematic approach was used to analyse data. A WhatsApp group was created to facilitate group conversations for data collection. The paper responds to two research questions: What adjustment challenges are experienced by first-year university students? In which ways can adjustment challenges be overcome? Participants in the study were ten first-year university students from two faculties. The study found that the factors contributing to difficulties in adjustment were a university workload, lack of residential accommodation, and lack of financial support. In light of the findings, the study recommends support strategies and programs that promote interaction with and among those who are newcomers at the university and the building of more residences for students. This paper contributes to the continued discussion about how newcomers can be supported to ensure they are settled in a conducive academic environment. Keywords: Workload, Residential Accommodation, Academic Adjustment, Social Adjustment.

The inventor of the term “action research,” social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1946, 1952), described action research as proceeding in a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of planning, acting, observing, and evaluating the result of the action. Lewin’s deliberate overlapping of action and reflection was designed to allow changes in plans for action as people learned from their own experiences. However, Lewin did not spell out the nature of action research in much detail. (Tandon, Convergence 21:5–15, 1988) introduced participation in action research. He identified several “determinants” of authentic participation in research: “(1) People’s role in setting the agenda of the inquiry; (2) People’s participation in the data collection and the analysis; and (3) People’s control over the use of outcomes and the whole process” (p. 13). Tandon’s reference to control over the whole process means that even the research methodology itself may be reinterpreted and reconstituted by participants. Although PAR became one of the significant methods in social science, it has been recently introduced by the Indigenous scholars (Datta, R., Khyang, U. N., Khyang, H. K. P., Kheyang, H. A. P., Khyang, M. C., & Chapola, J., (2015). Participatory action research and researcher’s responsibilities: An experience with Indigenous community. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 18(6). https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2014.927492 ; Wilson S (2008) Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Fernwood.). PAR, from Indigenous perspectives, is seen as a methodology for promoting the use of Indigenous knowledge in the negotiation of land rights and related issues (Datta, 2018). Indigenous scholars (Battiste, M. (2008). Research ethics for protecting Indigenous knowledge and heritage: Institutional and researcher responsibilities. In N. K. Denzin, Y. S. Lincoln, & L. Tuhiwai Smith (Eds.), Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies (pp. 497–509). Sage.; Datta, R., Khyang, U. N., Khyang, H. K. P., Kheyang, H. A. P., Khyang, M. C., & Chapola, J., (2015). Participatory action research and researcher’s responsibilities: An experience with Indigenous community. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 18(6). https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2014.927492 , Dei in Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes, 2011; Smith, Denzin and Lincoln (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, SAGE, 2008; Wilson S (2008) Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Fernwood.) refer to PAR differently than they do with Western qualitative research. For instance, they refer to a number of responsibilities in PAR with Indigenous communities. Such responsibilities include situating the researcher within the participants’ community (i.e., building trustful relationships), empowering participants, recognizing spiritual and relational knowledge, and taking political stands for participants’ community (Datta, Journal of AlterNative 14:35–44, 2019; Smith, Denzin and Lincoln (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, SAGE, 2008).

This chapter considers participatory action research (PAR) as an applicable research strategy for diversity management, equality and inclusion. It describes how PAR emerged from participatory research and action research and provides three examples of PAR in different fields of diversity.

This article explores and describes participatory action research (PAR) as a preferred method in addressing nursing practice issues. This is the first study that used PAR with public health nurses (PHNs) in Canada to develop a professional practice model. Participatory action research is a sub-category of action research that incorporates feminist and critical theory with foundations in the field of social psychology. For nurses, critical analysis of long-established beliefs and practices through PAR contributes to emancipatory knowledge regarding the impact of traditional hierarchies on their practice. This study used participatory action, a non-traditional but systematic research method, which assisted participants to develop a solution to a long-standing organizational issue. The stages of generating concerns, participatory action, acting on concerns, reflection and evaluation were implemented from 2012 - 2013 in an urban Canadian city, to develop a professional practice model for PHNs. Four sub-themes specific to PAR are discussed. These are "participatory action research engaged PHNs in development of a professional practice model;" "the participatory action research cycles of "Look, Think, Act" expanded participants' views;" "participatory action research increased awareness of organizational barriers;" and "participatory action research promoted individual empowerment and system transformation." This study resulted in individual and system change that may not have been possible without the use of PAR. The focus was engagement of participants and recognition of their lived experience, which facilitated PHNs' empowerment, leadership and consciousness-raising.

Participatory action learning and action research in sustainable local economic development strategies is not a common practice. In this chapter, the author firstly gives an introduction of the concept of sustainable local economic development; the importance of local economic development is outlined, as well as the aims. The author proceeds by discussing participatory action learning and action research as integrated empowering concepts. Lastly, the author describes how participatory action learning and action research were used by the Overstrand Local Economic Development Agency in partnership with the Hawston community to assist them to develop a sustainable neighbourhood development strategy. The steps of the participatory action learning and action research cycle are discussed coupled with the learning and actions taken, that emanated from the reflections during the research.

Experiences and Effects of Structurally Involving Residents in the Nursing Home by Means of Participatory Action Research: A Mixed Method Study

In order to improve the ability of library and information management in colleges and universities, and improve intelligent retrieval level of books, a design method of library information management system is proposed based on big data fusion. The phase space reconstruction technology is used to reconstruct the feature of library and information. The feature quantity of semantic concept set of library information is extracted, and the classification storage and information retrieval of library information is carried out by fuzzy clustering method. The adaptive training method is used for feature fusion, and big data fusion of library and information is realized in high dimensional feature space. The data processing center is set up under the Linux kernel environment, the application program of the university library information management system is developed under the Linux kernel, and the VXI bus technology is used to transmit and schedule the university library information management information and data. Realize the software development and design of the school library information management system. The test results show that the design of university library information management system with this method has good information storage and scheduling ability, and it improves the performance of library information retrieval. In the information recall rate and recall rate and other indicators performance has an advantage.

Participatory action research represents the convergence of two intellectual and practical traditions, that of action research and participatory research. Although participatory action research is by no means uncontentious, it has become a familiar term to social research practitioners. However, in recent years critiques of Western epistemologies by sociologists of knowledge, feminists, post-colonialists and postmodern scholars present challenges for participatory action research in Africa. This article critically examines epistemologies that support and underpin participatory action research. It particularly interrogates the dominance of Western epistemologies in supporting models of participatory action research used in Africa and elsewhere, and explores spaces for indigenous epistemologies and Western epistemologies to be performed together within participatory action research processes.

Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a qualitative research methodology option that requires further understanding and consideration. PAR is considered democratic, equitable, liberating, and life-enhancing qualitative inquiry that remains distinct from other qualitative methodologies (Kach & Kralik, 2006). Using PAR, qualitative features of an individual’s feelings, views, and patterns are revealed without control or manipulation from the researcher. The participant is active in making informed decisions throughout all aspects of the research process for the primary purpose of imparting social change; a specific action (or actions) is the ultimate goal. The following paper will contextualize PAR in terms of its history, principles, definitions, and strengths, as well as discuss challenges and practical suggestions for using PAR. In addition, it will examine focus groups and interviews as methods for data collection, the role of PAR in education, and the types of research for which PAR is best suited.

Participatory action research is a process in which researchers operate as full collaborators with members of an organization (stakeholders) in linking theory and research to acceptable and effective practice. Schools are being charged to use this approach to address the challenges of developing system-level interventions for many of their current problematic areas, such as family-school partnerships with economically disadvantaged and culturally and linguistically diverse families. Participatory action research is a means for school psychologists, as participatory researchers, to provide leadership for collaborative research within schools for the development of system-level interventions. A case study is described in which a school psychologist served as the participatory researcher in an action research process for the development of a family-school partnership program in a Chapter I, ethnically and linguistically diverse elementary school. The outcomes indicated that the participatory action research process resulted in the design and implementation of a research-based family-school partnership program that was culturally specific, was acceptable to stakeholders (parents and teachers), and had the potential for sustainability. Participatory action research is a viable means for school psychologists to provide leadership in developing research-based, effective and acceptable system-level interventions in their schools.

Participatory action research (PAR) represents an epistemological framework, pedagogical approach, research methodology, and process for collaborative social action. PAR processes connect research, education, and action with the aim of addressing inequities to achieve social justice and societal transformation. By disrupting dominant notions of who holds expertise, PAR centers the situated knowledge of marginalized groups who are directly impacted by sociopolitical inequities. Central to PAR are the epistemological questions of whose knowledge counts, what counts as knowledge, who benefits from knowledge, and the purpose and audience for which knowledge is used and disseminated. One of PAR’s central tenets is that the people directly impacted by a societal issue, who must navigate systems of oppression, hold the most knowledge and wisdom regarding the complexities of the issue—and the structures, contexts, processes, and systems that (re)produce it—and how to solve it. PAR acknowledges that those directly impacted by systemic injustices have the most to lose and the most to gain in transforming the root causes of these issues and, therefore, are best positioned to motivate and lead others in partnership to address the root causes of social injustices. While PAR does not represent a collection of discrete practices, various PAR forms and approaches represent contested meanings linked to competing ideological underpinnings, societal interests, purposes, and interpretations depending on the contexts in which it emerges. For example, in some forms of PAR the purpose is to support participants in achieving greater control over their social and economic lives through intergenerational action aiming toward structural change, transforming systemic power relations, social justice that intersects with educational, socioeconomic, gender, queer and trans, disability, and racial justice. PAR recognizes that societal institutions, including schools, typically do not support historically marginalized groups in deepening their analysis of the root causes of injustices they face. The PAR process allows coresearchers to uncover the discourses and ideologies that normalize structural violence. Informed by popular education methods and social movements, PAR employs participatory pedagogical approaches that engage marginalized people in analyzing their lived experiences and contexts to disrupt grand narratives that bolster systems of domination and structural disinvestments in marginalized people’s institutions and communities. As a research methodology, PAR can include qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods and can include creative methods such as PhotoVoice. PAR products draw on research findings and recommendations to call for new initiatives, practices, and policies and can take many forms such as a presentation to powerholders, an art exhibition, a film, an organizing campaign, or a theatrical performance. PAR allows space, opportunities, tools, and structured processes to enable marginalized groups to examine inequities and injustices and to critique the dynamics of power and neoliberal logic that may manifest in their worlds and within the research team.

This article reports on a qualitative study that evaluated first-year students’ lived experiences of attending a 12-week student support programme focused on fostering mindsets. Participants included 545 first year Engineering students enrolled for academic studies at a South African university. All participants completed qualitative narrative sketches depicting their experiences. A random sample of 300 students’ narrative sketches was included as data in the qualitative study. The data were analysed using thematic analysis, and Dweck’s theory on mindsets served as the theoretical lens through which the data were interpreted. The results indicate that the majority of students experienced significant personal growth from attending the student support programme. Additionally, the findings point to the relevance and importance of offering student support programmes focused on exploring mindsets to first-year students. The results of this exploratory study suggest that mindset theory should be considered as an essential component when advising first-year South African Engineering students. Furthermore, we make a case for the relevance of positive psychology-based development programmes for first-year students.