Evidence Library

Abstract:

This article describes a two-year research collaboration between university researchers and older researchers and reflects their views on how involving older people added value to the project.

• it challenged the university researchers to be clear about their aims and to explain these clearly to interviewees
• it shaped the development of the interview schedule.

At later stages, the older people's reflecions on the sites where they conducted the research helped to enrich the analysis and writing from the project.

The older researchers felt their awareness of the social impacts of aging helped them have an increased empathy with interviewees.

All the researchers learnt that involvement at only one stage of a project can limit its effectiveness. For example, it was only after being involved in discussions around analysing the data that the older researchers became aware of the key questions to ask in the interviews. Prior to this involvement, the older researchers tended to ask the key questions less often and were unaware of the emergence of new themes. This suggests that better results are obtained when user researchers are involved in all stages of a project.

Related entry: none currently available

Categories: health
public health
social care
Designing research
Undertaking research
Analysing and interpreting
Writing up and disseminating
impact on research
impact of public involvement
journal article

Date Entered: 2009/01/28

Date Edited: 2012/11/21