Research Planning: A Handbook for Practitioner-Researchers

As part of our first researching training event ‘resources for research’, the PROP project team produced an introductory handbook about the PROP project and key elements of the research planning process.ย  This includes a self-audit for ethics clearance and guidance on creating a research proposal.ย  There is a also a flowchart which outlines the key stages of the research process: Plan, Do, Analyse and Exchange.

This material is partially based on resources that were produced for previous practitioner-research programmes, in particular the Engaging with Involuntary Service Users in Social Work project which was carried out by The University of Edinburgh in 2010.

A copy of this handbook can be found here: PROP Introduction to Research Handbook

Practitioner researchers in training….

Today was the first practitioner research training event as part of this project.ย  It was also the first time I had met the practitioners who will be undertaking research projects about older people over the next few months.

This then really represents the start of a journey, or the beginning of the next step perhaps (given its taken us over a year to even get here!).

At the event today everyone was asked to choose an image which best represented what research meant to them.ย  Here are the images everyone chose, and as people explained their thinking I was amazed by the perceptions and level of knowledge in the group.

Which one would you choose?

What does research mean to you?