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Action research is used to bring about improvement or practical change. A group of people who know about a problem work together to develop an idea about how it might be resolved. They then go and test this idea. The people who take part in the testing provide feedback on their experiences. They may also identify further actions that need to be researchers and tested. This cycle of developing solutions and testing them is repeated until the problem has been solved.
Case study
A case study involves the collection of detailed information about a particular participant or small group. It often includes the accounts of participants. A case study draws conclusions only about that participant or group and only in that specific context.
Evaluation
This involves assessing whether an intervention (for example a treatment, service, project or programme) is achieving its aims. A project can be evaluated as it goes along or right at the end. It can measure how well the project is being carried out as well as its impact. The results of evaluations can help with
decision-making and planning.
Literature review
A literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic.
Systematic reviews
Systematic reviews aim to bring together the results of all studies addressing a particular research question that have been carried out around the world. They provide a comprehensive and unbiased summary of the research.
User-controlled research is research that is actively controlled,
directed and managed by service users and their service user
organisations. Service users decide on the issues and questions to be
looked at, as well as the way the research is designed, planned and
written up. The service users will run the research advisory or steering
group and may also decide to carry out the research.
Some service users make no distinction between the term user- controlled and user-led research, others feel that user-led research has a different, vaguer meaning.
They see user-led research as research which is meant to be led and
shaped by service users but is not necessarily controlled by them.
Control in user led research in this case will rest with some other
group of non-service users who also have an interest in the research,
such as the commissioners of the research, the researchers or people who provide services.
Making change is commonly identified as the central purpose of user controlled research, although there is also recognition that such change may not always be achieved. User-controlled research can be based on both qualitative and quantitative research methods and is also developing its own research methods.
Service users see democratic accountability to service users as a key
requirement for good practice in user controlled research. This might
be achieved by the research project itself being democratically
constituted or it being located within a democratically constituted
service user organization.