Taking a Critical Participatory Action Approach to Education Measurement Development

• In Event: Revolutionizing Math Engagement: Culturally Sustaining Measures for Black and Latina/o Students

Abstract

Objectives
This paper discusses our critical participatory action research (cPAR) approach to developing a culturally sustaining self-report measure of Black and Latina/o middle and high school students’ math engagement. Learnings from this approach that have implications for research and practice are shared.

Perspectives
cPAR is based on the belief that those served by research should participate in designing research questions, methods, analyses, interpretations, and action planning (Torre et al., 2012). The critical aspect encourages researchers, teachers, and students to better serve those not benefiting from current practices (Fine & Torre, 2021). cPAR addresses the limitations of traditional measurement development, where researchers typically do not partner directly with users to intentionally shift practice (Kemmis, 2007).

Data Sources and Methods
We formed the AM-ME Research Group, including five researchers, five math teachers, and six students who co-designed and implemented this project. The AM-ME Research Group met in-person and virtually 20 times over the first two years. Our discussion topics included defining math engagement, planning data collection, developing recruitment and data collection protocols, analyzing data, adapting survey items, and creating dissemination products to share findings. We prepared agendas, slides, and training materials for each meeting and took detailed notes. Each meeting concluded with a reflection and evaluation activity.

We qualitatively analyzed the meeting agendas, slides, training materials, notes, and reflection and evaluation data using inductive coding to capture common themes about impacts on the research, member experiences, effective cPAR practices, and impacts on math classroom experiences.

Results
Involving students and teachers in our research has implications for improving research, teaching, and learning. Collectively, teachers and students processed their understandings of what Black and Latina/o students need to support their math engagement. Teachers and students provided greater insights into findings, which deepened our understanding of how Black and Latina/o students conceptualize their own engagement. These learnings strengthened the overall research.

Effective cPAR practices included: creating a safe space for authentic sharing of experiences; building confidence in conducting and analyzing research; developing interactive training activities to support learning complex analytical techniques; and setting aside time for relationship building outside the workspace. We will share examples of our meeting agendas, slides, training materials, and notes to support other researchers in replicating this work.

In their own practice, teachers shared lessons learned in their professional learning communities. Teachers and students used the data collected to update classroom resources and management practices to better reflect the needs of Black and Latina/o students. Teachers and students both within and outside the AM-ME Research Group better understand how to support Black and Latina/o students’ math engagement.

Significance
Partnering with teachers and students to develop a measure of math engagement that centers Black and Latina/o students’ lived experiences fosters inclusive math learning environments and culturally sustaining understandings of math engagement. Beyond direct impacts in our five partner schools, we anticipate the cPAR approach used in this project to inspire other researchers to engage teachers and students in the measurement development process, as they will be the end users.

Author

• Alyssa Scott, Child Trends