Participation In Development Process Research Articles

Providing Accessible Recreation Outdoors-User-Driven Research on Standards (PARCOURS): Protocol for a Multiphase Study.

BackgroundCanada’s national parks are world-renowned. However, despite recent attempts to improve access, many are not accessible to people with disabilities. With the advent of provincial and federal legislation, standards are being developed to assist with the design and management of parks.ObjectiveThe overarching objective of this study is to inform accessibility standards for federal parks that meet the needs of all park visitors, regardless of ability. The specific objectives of this study are to identify park accessibility standards that exist internationally, identify the accessibility challenges that people with disabilities face in park environments, and prioritize and recommend accessibility standards for national parks.MethodsA 3-phase approach will be used to achieve the study objectives. In the first phase, a scoping review of the existing accessibility standards will be conducted. The second phase will include objective audits of trails and features in 6 parks, 3 in western Canada and 3 in eastern Canada, as well as mobile interviews with 24 diverse participants in each region regarding their experiences of and recommendations for improving the park’s accessibility. In the final phase, a Delphi participatory consensus development process will be used, based on the data gathered in the first 2 phases, to prioritize recommendations for standards.ResultsWe expect to find gaps in existing standards that do not account for the diverse range of accessibility requirements that people with disabilities have for visiting parks. We also expect to find that existing standards, on their own, may not be enough to ensure equitable access to all the experiences and amenities that parks have to offer. Development of subsequent guidelines and best practices may be necessary to address complex scenarios for which standards may not be the best approach to ensuring accessibility.ConclusionsThe participatory and mixed methods approaches used in this study will provide rich insights for developing accessible park standards that consider the diverse needs of people with disabilities. The findings will also support the development or enhancement of park standards at all levels of government.International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)DERR1-10.2196/33611

Participatory Development of Planning Support Systems to Improve Empowerment and Localization

ABSTRACT We propose a participatory development process to address critiques of Planning Support Systems (PSS) that focus on their shortcomings of the empowerment of stakeholders and the contextualization in implementation. The process we are presenting involves stakeholders from the early stage of goal-defining and model building. We evaluate an empirical application with a coupled land-use and economic impact assessment PSS for a project in a township on its added value to two criteria: inclusiveness and contextualization. Our findings show that the process enabled improved transparency and understandability on the fitness between project outcomes and stakeholder interests, while local expertise helped to revise and improve the model outcomes and parameters.

Integrated assessment of localized SSP–RCP narratives for climate change adaptation in coupled human-water systems

The assessment of climate change impacts requires downscaled climate projections and context-specific socioeconomic scenarios. The development of practical climate change adaptation for environmental sustainability at regional and local scales is predicated on a strong understanding of future socio-economic dynamics under a range of potential climate projections. We have addressed this need using integrated assessment of a localized hybrid Shared Socio-economic Pathway - Representative Concentration Pathway (SSP-RCP) framework, through an interdisciplinary and participatory storyline development process that integrates bottom-up local expert-stakeholder knowledge with top-down insights from global SSPs. We use the global SSPs (SSP1 to SSP5) as boundary conditions in conjunction with climate change pathways (RCP4.5, RCP8.5) to create localized SSP narratives in an iterative participatory process, using a storytelling method. By using an integrated socio-economic and environmental system dynamics model developed in collaboration with local stakeholders, we explore the potential impacts of plausible local SSP-RCP narratives and quantify important socio-environmental vulnerabilities of a human-water system (e.g., crop yields, farm income, water security and groundwater depletion) by the mid-century period (i.e., by 2050). The framework is developed to inform climate adaptation for Pakistan's Rechna Doab region, which serves as a representative case of a multi-stakeholder coupled human-water system operating in a developing country. Our results suggest that even under limited socio-economic improvements (e.g., technology, policies, institutions, environmental awareness) water security would be expected to decline and environmental degradation (e.g., groundwater depletion) to worsen. Under RCP 4.5, the average projected increase in water demand in 2030 will be about 7.32% for all SSP scenario narratives, and 10.82% by mid-century. Groundwater use varies significantly across SSPs which results in an average increase of about 29.06% for all SSPs. The proposed framework facilitates the development of future adaptation policies that should consider regional and local planning as well as socio-economic conditions.

Methods for Human-Centered eHealth Development: Narrative Scoping Review.

BackgroundThorough holistic development of eHealth can contribute to a good fit among the technology, its users, and the context. However, despite the availability of frameworks, not much is known about specific research activities for different aims, phases, and settings. This results in researchers having to reinvent the wheel. Consequently, there is a need to synthesize existing knowledge on research activities for participatory eHealth development processes.ObjectiveThe 3 main goals of this review are to create an overview of the development strategies used in studies based on the CeHRes (Center for eHealth Research) Roadmap, create an overview of the goals for which these methods can be used, and provide insight into the lessons learned about these methods.MethodsWe included eHealth development studies that were based on the phases and/or principles of the CeHRes Roadmap. This framework was selected because of its focus on participatory, iterative eHealth design in context and to limit the scope of this review. Data were extracted about the type of strategy used, rationale for using the strategy, research questions, and reported information on lessons learned. The most frequently mentioned lessons learned were summarized using a narrative, inductive approach.ResultsIn the included 160 papers, a distinction was made between overarching development methods (n=10) and products (n=7). Methods are used to gather new data, whereas products can be used to synthesize previously collected data and support the collection of new data. The identified methods were focus groups, interviews, questionnaires, usability tests, literature studies, desk research, log data analyses, card sorting, Delphi studies, and experience sampling. The identified products were prototypes, requirements, stakeholder maps, values, behavior change strategies, personas, and business models. Examples of how these methods and products were applied in the development process and information about lessons learned were provided.ConclusionsThis study shows that there is a plethora of methods and products that can be used at different points in the development process and in different settings. To do justice to the complexity of eHealth development, it seems that multiple strategies should be combined. In addition, we found no evidence for an optimal single step-by-step approach to develop eHealth. Rather, researchers need to select the most suitable research methods for their research objectives, the context in which data are collected, and the characteristics of the participants. This study serves as a first step toward creating a toolkit to support researchers in applying the CeHRes Roadmap to practice. In this way, they can shape the most suitable and efficient eHealth development process.

Enhancing Participatory Development in Morocco: Analyzing the Sketch Mapping Behaviour of Men and Women and Integrating Paper and Digital Participatory Mapping Environments

Abstract. Twelve participatory paper maps by separate groups of men and women were facilitated by the High Atlas Foundation in six communities in Morocco between 2010–2020 as part of their process of participatory development. In this research, these sketch maps are analyzed for the first time. The twelve participatory paper maps underwent a gender-focused content frequency analysis. Seven communities were located using OpenStreetMap and Google Maps by a High Atlas Foundation expert. It was found that men contributed more overall geographic elements and written Arabic commentary than women, which could indicate a higher level of familiarity with their community and comfortability in communicating their opinions in writing. It was also found that there are many barriers to adding data from the sketch maps to OpenStreetMap due to language, loss of institutional memory, inconsistencies between the sketch maps of the same location, and inconsistencies between the sketch maps and satellite imagery.

Developing socio-ecological scenarios: A participatory process for engaging stakeholders

Deltas are experiencing profound demographic, economic and land use changes and human-induced catchment and climate change. Bangladesh exemplifies these difficulties through multiple climate risks including subsidence/sea-level rise, temperature rise, and changing precipitation patterns, as well as changing management of the Ganges and Brahmaputra catchments. There is a growing population and economy driving numerous more local changes, while dense rural population and poverty remain significant. Identifying appropriate policy and planning responses is extremely difficult in these circumstances. This paper adopts a participatory scenario development process incorporating both socio-economic and biophysical elements across multiple scales and sectors as part of an integrated assessment of ecosystem services and livelihoods in coastal Bangladesh. Rather than simply downscale global perspectives, the analysis was driven by a large and diverse stakeholder group who met with the researchers over four years as the assessment was designed, implemented and applied. There were four main stages: (A) establish meta-framework for the analysis; (B) develop qualitative scenarios of key trends; (C) translate these scenarios into quantitative form for the integrated assessment model analysis; and (D) a review of the model results, which raises new stakeholder insights (e.g., preferred adaptation and policy responses) and questions. Step D can be repeated leading to an iterative learning loop cycle, and the process can potentially be ongoing. The strong and structured process of stakeholder engagement gave strong local ownership of the scenarios and the wider process. This process can be generalised for widespread application across socio-ecological systems following the same four-stage approach. It demands sustained engagement with stakeholders and hence needs to be linked to a long-term research process. However, it facilitates a more credible foundation for planning especially where there are multiple interacting factors.

Participation in Higher Education Curricula Development in Armenia and Possible Effects for the Labour Market—The Case of an “Organic Agriculture” Master’s Program

Weak or unstructured stakeholder participation in higher education curricula development still remains a problem in Armenia. Change in outdated curricula development processes is needed, as they often do not meet students’ needs; do not adopt innovative teaching methods or tools; and do not fit the labour market’s demand. This paper traces the evolution of the participatory curriculum development process of the Organic Agriculture Master’s program at the Armenian National Agrarian University (ANAU). Prioritizing mainly qualitative methods of research, five relevant stakeholder groups with approximately 10–12 members each at varying levels were involved in this action research. Additionally, paper-based and online surveys were conducted with 290 ANAU students. The results focus on the conceptual mapping of the process of participatory action research, bridging its relevance to the Armenian labour market’s needs. Moreover, the results highlight lessons learned from the process—shaping them around significant theories for participatory action research—and underline the possibilities of the Organic Agriculture Master’s development process as a model program at ANAU and perhaps elsewhere.

The Group Nurturance Inventory \u2014 initial psychometric evaluation using Rasch and factor analysis

BackgroundThis paper describes the development and psychometric evaluation of a behavioral assessment instrument primarily intended for use with workgroups in any type of organization. The instrument was developed based on the Nurturing Environments framework which describes four domains important for health, well-being, and productivity; minimizing toxic social interactions, teaching and reinforcing prosocial behaviors, limiting opportunities for problem behaviors, and promoting psychological flexibility. The instrument is freely available to use and adapt under a CC-BY license and intended as a tool that is easy for any group to use and interpret to identify key behaviors to improve their psychosocial work environment.MethodsQuestionnaire data of perceived frequency of behaviors relevant to nurturance were collected from nine different organizations in Sweden. Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis, Rasch analysis, and correlations to investigate relationships with relevant workplace measures.ResultsThe results indicate that the 23-item instrument is usefully divided in two factors, which can be described as risk and protective factors. Toxic social behaviors make up the risk factor, while the protective factor includes prosocial behavior, behaviors that limit problems, and psychological flexibility. Rasch analysis showed that the response categories work as intended for all items, item fit is satisfactory, and there was no significant differential item functioning across age or gender. Targeting indicates that measurement precision is skewed towards lower levels of both factors, while item thresholds are distributed over the range of participant abilities, particularly for the protective factor. A Rasch score table is available for ordinal to interval data transformation.ConclusionsThis initial analysis shows promising results, while more data is needed to investigate group-level measurement properties and validation against concrete longitudinal outcomes. We provide recommendations for how to work in practice with a group based on their assessment data, and how to optimize the measurement precision further. By using a two-dimensional assessment with ratings of both frequency and perceived importance of behaviors the instrument can help facilitate a participatory group development process. The Group Nurturance Inventory is freely available to use and adapt for both commercial and non-commercial use and could help promote transparent assessment practices in organizational and group development.

Participatory Development Process of Two Human Dimension Intervention Programs to Foster Physical Fitness and Psychological Health and Well-Being in Wildland Firefighting.

Intervention programs designed, delivered, and evaluated by and within organizations are a critical component in the promotion of employee health and well-being and in the prevention of occupational injury. Critical for transference of findings across complex occupational settings is a clearly articulated development process, a reliance on and evaluation of underlying theoretical foundations, and the inclusion of relevant outcomes emerging out of participatory action processes. To date, there have been no documented efforts outlining the development, implementation, or evaluation of human dimension intervention programs targeting wildland firefighters. The purpose of this paper is to outline the development of two collaborative and participatory intervention programs, targeting wildland firefighters’ physical and psychological health and well-being. Two human dimension intervention programs were developed in a collaborative, iterative and participatory process following the Context–Content–Process–Outcomes Framework. First, a physical fitness training intervention program was designed to maintain wildland firefighter’s physical fitness levels and attenuate risk of injury. Second, a psychosocial education intervention program was developed to mitigate the impact of psychosocial risk factors, foster work engagement, and decrease job stress. The current study provides evidence for the capacity of researchers and organizations to collaboratively develop practical programs primed for implementation and delivery.

Enhancing demographic survey protocols to characterise household dynamics that influence health – a participatory approach from rural Eswatini

ABSTRACT Standard Western demographic survey protocols fail to capture dynamics, such as circular migration and support networks, that profoundly influence the health of non-Western domestic social groups, typically called households. Enhanced protocols are needed because survey data provide the primary evidence base for health policy and planning globally. We present the participatory development, implementation and analysis of a novel demographic survey protocol, that aimed to better capture domestic social dynamics in rural Eswatini, southern Africa. The multiple-method study incorporated participatory health research about a community affected by HIV/AIDS, of which the survey formed part, and an ethnography of the participatory survey development process. Analysis of the data revealed limitations in the reliability and validity of standardised survey questions for measuring household membership, in contexts where circular migration and polygamy are common. Standard survey protocols potentiate double-counting members and misclassifying ‘child-headed’ and ‘female-headed’ households. They neglect social and economic dynamics that are known to influence health. Our novel demographic survey protocol provides a simple alternative method for capturing core data about circular migration and its impact on health. The study illustrates the contributions participatory and ethnographic research can make to enhancing demographic surveys.

Designing an App to Overcome Language Barriers in the Delivery of Emergency Medical Services: Participatory Development Process.

BackgroundIn emergencies, language barriers may have dangerous consequences for the patients. There have been some technical approaches to overcome language barriers in medical care but not yet in the prehospital emergency care setting. The use of digital technologies in health care is expanding rapidly. Involving end users at all stages of the development process may help to ensure such technologies are usable and can be implemented.ObjectiveWe aimed to develop a digital communication tool that addresses paramedic needs in the specific circumstances of prehospital emergency care and helps paramedics to overcome language barriers when providing care to foreign-language patients.MethodsWe actively engaged paramedics and software designers in an action-oriented, participatory, iterative development process, which included field observations, workshops, background conversations, questionnaires on rescue missions, studying the literature, and preliminary testing in the field.ResultsWith input from paramedics, we created an app with 600 fixed phrases supporting 18 languages. The app includes medical history–taking questions, phrases asking for consent, and phrases providing specific additional information. Children as patients, as well as their carers and other third parties, can be addressed with appropriate wording. All phrases can be played back audibly or displayed as text. The comprehensive content is grouped into categories and adapted to diverse scenarios, which makes the tool rapidly usable. The app includes a function to document patient responses and the conversation history. For evaluation in a clinical study, the app is run on a smartphone with extra speakers to be of use in noisy environments. The use of prototypes proved valuable to verify that the content, structure, and functions discussed in theory were of value and genuinely needed in practice and that the various device control elements were intuitive.ConclusionsThe nature of the paramedic work environment places specific demands on the communication options used and need for such devices. The active involvement of paramedics in the development process allowed us to understand and subsequently consider their experience-based knowledge. Software designers could understand the paramedics’ work environment and consider respective needs in the menu navigation and design principles of the app. We argue that the development of any medical software product should actively involve both end users and developers in all phases of the development process. Providing the users with the opportunity to influence technology development ensures that the result is closer to their needs, which can be seen as crucial for successful implementation and sustainable use.Trial RegistrationGerman Clinical Trials Register DRKS00016719; https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00016719International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)RR2-10.1186/s12913-020-05098-5

Development of national physical activity recommendations in 18 EU member states: a comparison of methodologies and the use of evidence

ObjectivesThe aim of the study is to compare how member states of the European Union (EU) develop their national physical activity (PA) recommendations and to provide an overview of the...

N’KaNa-my dream: Community action towards the holistic child development in India

Every child has a right to dream for their future. Children are vulnerable and face challenges in accessing their rights, including but not limited to joyful family and community life; quality health, education, and career facilitation; and an understanding of their ecosystem. Innovations in holistic child development are essential and require child-centered and right-based approaches in the welfare system. There is a need for a customized and personalized approach to bridge the gap in the child development process and to help children explore and enjoy their rights and realize their full potential as rights-holders in society.To address this need, Trust for Youth and Child Leadership (TYCL) initiated N’KaNa, a holistic mentorship program for children living in difficult circumstances, such as institutional care and vulnerable communities such as slums and Dalit and tribal villages of Puducherry and Tamil Nadu regions of India.N'KaNa aims to build brother/sister relationships between needy children and local pre-assessed and pre-selected professional mentors. The program relationships include a mentee (child), a mentor (professional), and a student volunteer.Mentorship progress is tracked through a mobile application.This paper has been developed based on the impact measurement of the N’KaNa project. The researchers adopted a decolonizing research methodology to theorize a postcolonial indigenous way of conducting research and applied a triangulation strategy to qualitativeresearch approaches. Focused life story interviews with children ofN’KaNa assessed holistic child development indicators such as education, health, relationships with friends and family, community support, safe environment, and personal hygiene. Triangular feedback and child mentorship tracker data was used to cross-validate the qualitative data. The study found that the children's lived experiences highly influenced their career goals and that the program helps them track their progress systematically. The research also observed positive indicators of change in children's education, health, family safety, community environment, attitude, and behavior. This paper captures the model of the N’KaNa project, a participatory holistic child development process, its outcomes, challenges, and lessons learned from the process and recommendations for key stakeholders of the child welfare system in India.

Privacy-centred data-driven innovation in the smart city. Exemplary use case of traffic counting

ABSTRACT As urban areas around the world seek to transform themselves into smart cities, new technologies are being interwoven into the urban fabric that surrounds us. This process is often technology-driven and revolves around issues of quantification, cost reduction, and efficiency. This perspective is increasingly being challenged by more inclusive perspectives that seek to empower civil society and which focus on its needs and demands. A major concern with smart city technologies in public spaces is the lack of protection for individual privacy as a result of surveillance. In this paper, we have chosen the use case of traffic counting as an example to illustrate how the use of advanced technologies and integrated planning strategies can shift the balance between administrative and business interests on the one hand, and privacy concerns on the other, towards a privacy-centric approach. We propose a privacy-centric planning and development approach for smart city technologies. Through our use case, we demonstrate a privacy-centric participatory development process that led to a prototypical technical solution for privacy-friendly and human-centric traffic counting. We conclude this paper by deriving suggestions for more privacy-friendly smart city development processes from our specific use case.

Participatory Land Governance in Mozambique: Brief Review of the Legal Framework and the Implementation Challenge

Abstract A commitment to democracy and popular participation in the national development has been a central principle in all Mozambican Constitutions and a consistent directive in government policies and laws. To test the extent to which this principle has been materialized in the land sector, this paper provides a general overview of Mozambique’s recent history and the role reserved for land in the formation of the state and in materialization of democratic governance. The paper concludes that more than any other factor, political party interference in public affairs has shaped the identity and performance of the Mozambican state, setting the stage for a complex interaction between the government, local people and private investors that has jeopardized the great potential of the national land policy and law to promote effective and sustainable participatory development processes.

PARTISIPASI POLITIK PEREMPUAN (Studi tentang Relasi Kuasa dan Akses Perempuan dalam Pembangunan Desa di Desa Watoone - Kabupaten Flores Timur)

A participatory and sustainable village development process should actively involve women so that their essential interests can be realized in gender responsive village planning and budgeting and gender budgeting. Consciously, women and girls in supporting village development are quite high. However, qualitatively, village women are less capable and brave enough to convey ideas and criticism in village deliberation forums. The power relations and women's access to village resources are still limited due to the strong authoritarian-faced village oligarchy regime. The presence of authoritarian power relations is also perpetuated by the culture and low levels of education and the experiences of village women. Thus strengthening the capacity of individuals or groups to improve education and skills in various fields is a necessity.

Effects of User Participation in the Development of Health Information Systems on Their Evaluation Within Occupational Health Services.

Information management and the usability of health information systems (HIS) are important for the development of HIS in occupational health services. User participation in the HIS development process has been shown to contribute to the success of an HIS. The purpose of this study was to analyze how user participation in HIS development affected evaluation of the success of HIS. The success was assessed on the basis of the DeLone and McLean Information Systems (IS) Success Model. The study was conducted within occupational health services and the data (n=210) was analyzed with quantitative methods. The results showed that users participating in the HIS development process assessed the success of the HIS as better than those that had not taken part in the development. This difference could be seen in all seven dimensions of the DeLone and McLean IS success model but was statistically significant only for System Quality and Intention to Use. The results also showed that the users that had participated in the HIS development process also used the HIS more often and more extensively than those that had not participated in the development. The results indicate that user participation in the development process positively influences their assessment of the HIS and increases their active use of the IS. However, more research is needed to determine the long-term effects of using participatory design in HIS development.

Sustainable participatory processes of education technology development

According to UNESCO, sustainable education requires a participatory development process. This article reports the results of three case studies about sustainable education using e-learning technologies, where the focus of the analysis is on the need for sustainable and participatory development processes. The research approach is based on a meta-synthesis of three cases that target capacity-building in Maritime Education and Training using modern digital technologies. The result of the analysis is an analytical framework that describes how sustainable development of education needs to be understood as a participatory process of education and technology knowledge development taking place in layers of (1) standards, (2) applications, and (3) in-situ development, and based on an evolutionary and participatory process. The analytical framework contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between education for sustainability and sustainability of education—a relation that is recognized to be of importance, but that is also recognized as not sufficiently conceptualized. As the empirical research in this article evidences, a better understanding of sustainable development processes is of academic as well as practical relevance to build educational capacity using E-Learning technologies.

Factors Influencing Participation of Women in Community Development Projects in Yakurr, L.G.A of Cross River State

The purpose of this research work was to investigate the Factors Influencing the Participation of Women in Community Development Projects in Yakurr Local Government Area of Cross River State. To this effect, three research hypotheses and questions were formulated respectively as to guide the study. The population of this study was two thousand (2,000) women. A well validated 15 items questionnaire was designed using the four point Likert-typed scale model and administered to a sample of two hundred (200) respondents drawn from five (5) communities in the study area. The analysis of the hypotheses was done using independent t-test. The result of the analysis showed that literacy level, occupational status and income-level significantly influence participation of women in community development projects. Based on these findings, it was recommended among others that; women should be occupationally engaged. This will act as vehicle for effective articulation of women’s right and participation in development processes.

Analysis of Community Institution Empowerment as a Village Government Partner in the Participative Development Process

This research focuses on analyzing the empowerment of social institutions as village government partners in the participatory development process. The location is in Percut Village, Percutseituan District, Deliserdang Regency. The background that is used as a reference for this research begins with the understanding that the urgency of villages in development in Indonesia is so urgent. The village is given authoritative to grow and develop in line with the development of its own community. Furthermore, the village holds millions of pieces of knowledge of the virtues of life and harmony of local wisdom that should be maintained, can be recognized from the mantra of three orders, namely; ordinances, manners, and manners (Zamroni, 2017). This kind of thinking construction is important to restate in order to examine the current relationship between the village government and the community (social institutions). Social institutions as partners of the Village Government have a very strategic role; start to formulate participatory development plans, implement, control, utilize, maintain and develop participatory development, mobilize and develop participation, mutual cooperation and community self-help, and foster dynamic development of the community in the context of community empowerment. Seeing the huge role that village community institutions have, it is important and interesting that this research is carried out to see the existence of community institutions as village government partners in the participatory development process. With this research, it will provide reference data for stakeholders related to community institution empowerment. In addition, it is an academic study in public policy and provides input to the village government regarding the reference to the model of community institution empowerment as a partner of the village government in order to work together to manage development in a participatory village. As for answering the problem of this study using qualitative methods and types of research with a descriptive approach. The targeted research output is a journal article and as a follow up will create a model in the institutionalization of village community organizations.