Decolonizing Research
Decolonizing research asks us to examine whose ways of knowing have been centered and whose have been
Marginalized
This approach asks questions such as “How much?” and “How often?
Quantitative Research
When practice experience generates questions that formal research has overlooked, this is called ________.
practice-informed research
This asks, “How will I collect or analyze information?”
research method
Researchers want to know why Black and Latino/a students are underusing campus mental health services. Their original plan uses only researcher-developed survey questions. What should researchers question first?
The research problem and questions reflect student/community perspectives
Instead of researchers alone defining the research problem, a decolonizing approach recognizes that these people should have a role in defining research questions.
community members/participants
True or False: A decolonizing research approach means rejecting quantitative research.
False
When research is used to test, refine, challenge, or expand what practitioners believe is happening, this is called ________
research-informed practice
Before applying research findings, social workers should ask: “Evidence for whom? Generated how? Under what conditions?” These questions are examples of what?
critical evaluation of evidence
A researcher wants to understand what housing insecurity means to students and how it affects their daily lives. Instead of asking students to select answers from a survey, she conducts in-depth interviews.
Qualitative Research
A researcher gives study participants an opportunity to help interpret what their interview findings mean. Which decolonizing principle does this demonstrate?
PAR- Participatory Action Research involving participants/community partners in interpretation
This approach asks how people experience, understand, or explain something.
Qualitative Research
A social worker notices that immigrant clients repeatedly report a barrier that isn't addressed in existing research. The social worker develops a research question based on those observations. What process is this?
practice-informed research
A study finds that an intervention works in a suburban population. A social worker asks whether those findings apply to their urban client population. What Evidence-Based Practice principle is being used?
Considering Population and Context
You discover that your survey questions use academic language that students don't understand.
What should you do?
Reconsider/adapt the measurement and involve students/community members in reviewing the questions.
Students tell you that an anonymous online survey doesn't feel culturally relevant or accessible to them.
Name TWO changes you could make to the research design.
Answer: Possible answers include adapting language, changing recruitment strategies, adding interviews/focus groups, using mixed methods, involving students in design, or improving accessibility.
A researcher wants to determine how many students experience food insecurity and then interview students to understand what food insecurity means in their daily lives. What approach could combine these two forms of evidence?
Mixed Methods
Theory helps explain patterns, while ________ helps reveal what matters in real contexts.
practice
This asks, “Why this way of knowing, for this question, with these people?”
Methodology
A researcher designs a study assuming that only published peer-reviewed research counts as legitimate knowledge. A community partner challenges this assumption and argues that community members' lived experiences should also inform the study.
What fundamental issue in decolonizing research is being raised?
Whose knowledge counts and whose ways of knowing have been centered or marginalized.
A university research team completes a study and publishes the results in an academic journal. Community members who participated in the study never receive the findings.
What principle of decolonizing research is missing?
Accessible dissemination and accountability—findings should be returned to communities in useful forms.
A researcher initially plans to conduct only a survey. During planning, community members explain that the survey cannot capture important cultural and lived experiences related to the research question.
The researcher adds qualitative interviews.
What is the researcher demonstrating?
Using methodological flexibility and selecting methods based on the research question, context, and knowledge needed.
A decolonizing researcher treats community knowledge as something that can generate research questions rather than simply something to collect from participants. What fundamental shift does this represent?
Moving from extracting data to recognizing community/practice knowledge as a source of inquiry
A researcher realizes that an interview question reflects their own assumptions, discusses it with a community advisory group, and changes the question. What two principles from today's class are demonstrated?
self-criticism and self-correction
A researcher realizes that her training has caused her to interpret a community's behavior in a particular way. She writes reflexive notes, asks community partners for feedback, and changes part of the research design.
What two principles from last week's class is she demonstrating?
Self-criticism and self-correction