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Community Engagement Knowledge Hub

How New Knowledge is Generated through Engagement

Thematic Group 3: How New Knowledge is Generated through Engagement (Research Methodologies)

This group includes methodologies and scholarly approaches that generate new knowledge through collaboration, engagement, and real-world application. Unlike the “Broader Terms” group (which defines domains of faculty work) and the “Types of Collaboration” group (which defines how people work together), this group focuses on how knowledge itself is produced — particularly when inquiry is relational, applied, iterative, or publicly oriented.

These approaches share a commitment to rigor, peer accountability, and intellectual contribution. However, they differ in orientation: some are rooted in pedagogical inquiry (SoTL), others in community partnership (CES, CBPR, PAR), others in systems-oriented problem solving (Sustainability Science), and others in outcome-driven scholarship (Societally Impactful Research).

Clarifying these distinctions helps ensure that engaged, applied, and public-facing methodologies are evaluated as scholarship rather than misclassified as service or outreach.

Similarities and Differences

All methodologies:

  • Generate new knowledge.
  • Meet standards of scholarly rigor.
  • Often involve collaboration beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries.
  • Can be documented for TPMR as research or scholarship.

However, they vary in primary orientation:

Methodology Primary Site Level of Co-Creation    Action Orientation
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Classroom Low–Moderate Improvement of teaching
Action Research Practice setting Moderate Iterative improvement
Community-Engaged Scholarship Community partnership High Knowledge + public good
Participatory Action Research Community + researchers Very High Transformative action
Community-Based Participatory Research Community-centered Very High Policy/practice change
Sustainability Science Socioecological systems Variable Sustainability transitions
Publicly-Engaged Scholarship Public sphere Variable Knowledge exchange
Societally Impactful Research Societal systems Variable Measurable societal benefit

 

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) treats teaching itself as a site of research. Faculty systematically investigate pedagogical questions, assess learning outcomes, and publicly share findings to improve theory and practice. Unlike CES, SoTL’s primary site of inquiry is typically the classroom or curriculum, though it may include community-engaged pedagogy.

What is it?

  • Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a form of scholarly inquiry in which faculty systematically investigate questions about teaching practices and student learning within their disciplinary or interdisciplinary contexts. Grounded in existing literature on pedagogy and learning, SoTL moves beyond routine instructional improvement by treating teaching as a site of research, analysis, and knowledge production.
  • Central to SoTL is the intentional study of how students learn, how pedagogical strategies shape learning outcomes, and how educational environments support or constrain equity, engagement, and understanding. Faculty undertaking SoTL make their methods, findings, and reflections public—through peer-reviewed venues or other recognized scholarly outlets—so that insights can inform teaching practice within a discipline, across disciplines, or at the institutional level.
  • SoTL positions teaching as a dynamic, reflective, and evidence-based scholarly practice that builds bridges between instructor expertise and student learning, advances pedagogical theory and practice, and contributes to the broader academic community’s understanding of effective teaching and learning.

 

How do you do it?

SoTL is demonstrated through systematic, documented, and evidence-based inquiry into teaching and student learning that is publicly shared. Activities include, but are not limited to:

  • Designing and conducting structured investigations of teaching practices and student learning outcomes, informed by prior pedagogical scholarship.
  • Assessing the effectiveness of pedagogical approaches using qualitative and/or quantitative methods (e.g., reflective analysis, surveys, portfolios, rubric-based assessment).
  • Developing, implementing, and evaluating innovative courses, curricula, or instructional models grounded in evidence.
  • Producing peer-reviewed publications, conference papers, or scholarly presentations focused on teaching and learning.
  • Sharing findings through disciplinary or cross-disciplinary teaching forums, open-access repositories, or institutional teaching and learning centers.
  • Documenting reflective practice and demonstrating how findings. informed improvements to teaching, curriculum, or student learning.
  • Clearly articulating the scholarly contribution and impact of teaching-related inquiry.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

Action research is a cyclical, practitioner-driven form of inquiry in which those most affected by a problem collaboratively investigate, act, and reflect to improve practice — with knowledge and change emerging together through the process itself.

What is it?

  • Action research is a form of inquiry in which practitioners systematically study their own actions and their effects to improve practice. Unlike traditional research, where an outside investigator studies a subject, action research is conducted by and with the people most affected — making it inherently collaborative and grounded in real-world contexts. What makes action research distinct from other forms of research is that the research takes shape while it is being performed — it is not designed in advance and then executed but evolves through iterative cycles of action and reflection.

 

How do you do it?

  • Identifying a problem or question rooted in your own practice, in collaboration with the people most affected — who participate as co-researchers, not subjects.
  • Designing an action to address it, drawing on multiple perspectives and ways of knowing.
  • Implementing the action in a real-world setting — a classroom, community, or organization — not a controlled laboratory.
  • Collecting evidence about what happened, using a range of methods such as interviews, observations, surveys, and artifacts.
  • Reflecting on the evidence with collaborators and participants, analyzing what worked, what didn’t, and what was learned.
  • Using those insights to refine the action and begin the cycle again — each round deepening understanding and improving practice.
  • Sharing findings openly, as a commitment to transparency and peer critique.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

  • McNiff, Jean. 2013. Action Research: Principles and Practice. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge.
  • Riel, Margaret. 2024. “What Is Action Research?” Center for Collaborative Action Research, Pepperdine University. https://www.ccarweb.org/what-is-action-research.
  • Rowell, Lonnie L., Catherine D. Bruce, Joseph M. Shosh, and Margaret M. Riel, eds. 2017. The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Stringer, Ernest T., and Alfredo Ortiz Aragón. 2020. Action Research. 5th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. https://collegepublishing.sagepub.com/products/action-research-5-266023.

Community-engaged scholarship (CES) is an approach to academic research, teaching, and creative activity in which scholars and community partners collaborate as co-investigators to generate knowledge that is mutually beneficial, rigorously conducted, and oriented toward addressing real community needs and advancing social equity.

What is it?

  • Community-engaged scholarship (CES) is associated with the discovery of new knowledge, the development of new insights, and the creation of new creative works based on the intentional and mutually beneficial collaboration between members of UW and communities. CES is sometimes also referred to as the scholarship of engagement.
  • CES occurs when faculty work with community partners — and often students — on research, creative work, teaching, and service. These collaborations reflect both community engagement values (reciprocal partnerships, public good) and scholarly standards (grounded in current knowledge, open to peer review and critique, and shared in ways others can build on).

 

How do you do it?

  • CES is produced when university and community partners work together to create, improve, preserve, and share knowledge that benefits both sides and matters to society. This knowledge is reviewed and confirmed not just by academic peers, but by community partners too.
  • CES should demonstrate clear goals, thorough preparation, sound methods, meaningful results, effective communication, thoughtful self-reflection, and rigorous peer review.
  • Co-author publications or presentations with community partners
  • Demonstrate impact on community-identified needs or priorities
  • Receive letters of support or testimonials from community collaborators with no conflict of interest
  • Demonstrate outcomes showing positive impacts arising from the research
  • Obtain grants, contracts, or funding awarded for community-engaged projects
  • Receive recognition or awards from community organizations or professional bodies
  • Disseminate research findings publicly to community audiences (e.g., reports, workshops, media coverage).

 

Where can you learn more about it?

Participatory Action Research (PAR) builds on action research, but centers shared power and democratic knowledge production. Community members and researchers act as co-investigators, co-defining questions, and implementing change. PAR explicitly integrates inquiry with collective action and emphasizes social transformation.

What is it?

  • Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a collaborative research methodology in which researchers and community members work together as co-researchers to investigate issues of shared concern, generate knowledge, and take action toward change. PAR integrates systematic inquiry with collective action, emphasizing equity, reflexivity, and the democratization of knowledge production.
  • Rooted in traditions associated with Paulo Freire and later developed across social sciences, public health, education, and design disciplines, PAR challenges conventional distinctions between researcher and subject. It positions participants as knowledge holders and decision-makers throughout the research process—from framing questions and selecting methods to interpreting findings and implementing outcomes.
  • In design contexts, PAR is frequently aligned with community-based design research and action-oriented inquiry. As articulated by M. Elen Deming and Simon Swaffield, participatory research in environmental design integrates rigorous inquiry with stakeholder engagement, iterative reflection, and applied outcomes. Within academic and Promotion & Tenure contexts, PAR is recognized as a legitimate and rigorous research methodology when it demonstrates systematic methods, theoretical grounding, documented outcomes, and scholarly dissemination.

 

How do you do it?

Participatory Action Research is evidenced through systematic, collaborative inquiry that integrates research and action, including:

  • Co-developing research questions with community partners or stakeholders.
  • Designing participatory methods (e.g., workshops, charrettes, mapping exercises, focus groups, co-design processes, community data collection).
  • Engaging participants in data analysis, interpretation, and decision-making.
  • Producing scholarly outputs (peer-reviewed articles, books, design research publications, conference presentations) grounded in participatory methodology.
  • Implementing pilot projects, policy recommendations, or design interventions informed by collaborative findings.
  • Documenting cycles of reflection, action, and evaluation.
  • Demonstrating impact at community, policy, design, or institutional levels.
  • Clearly articulating methodological rigor, ethical protocols, and individual scholarly contributions within collaborative research.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

  • Deming, M. Elen, and Simon Swaffield. 2011. Landscape Architectural Research: Inquiry, Strategy, Design. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
  • Freire, Paulo. 2000. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th anniversary ed. New York: Continuum.
  • Reason, Peter, and Hilary Bradbury, eds. 2008. The SAGE Handbook of Participatory Research Methods. London: SAGE Publications.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a collaborative form of inquiry that equitably engages researchers, community members, and organizational partners as co-investigators — sharing expertise, decision-making, and ownership across all phases of the research process.

What is it?

  • Community-based research (CBR) is a collaborative approach to inquiry that places community partnerships at the center of the research process. A closely related and widely used form is community-based participatory research (CBPR), which equitably involves community members, organizational representatives, and researchers in all aspects of the research process, and in which all partners contribute expertise and share decision making and ownership.
  • CBR rests on three central features: collaboration, democratization of knowledge, and social change.
  • Rather than studying communities from the outside, CBR involves community members as full partners in defining research questions, designing methods, collecting and analyzing data, and applying findings. It is an “orientation to inquiry” rather than a single methodology, and it challenges the traditional research paradigm by recognizing that complex social problems must involve multiple stakeholders — not as subjects but as co-investigators and co-authors.

 

How do you do it?

  • Building sustained, trust-based partnerships with community members and organizations, grounded in mutual respect and shared decision-making.
  • Identifying research questions collaboratively based on community-defined needs and priorities rather than questions originating solely in the academy.
  • Recognizing community members as knowledge holders and co-investigators — not subjects — whose lived experience and local insight are essential to the research.
  • Designing methods, collecting data, and interpreting findings together, ensuring the process is culturally appropriate and responsive to context.
  • Translating findings into action — interventions, policy recommendations, or community-driven change — not leaving them as academic publications alone.
  • Sharing results in accessible language and useful formats, with community partners as co-authors and co-presenters.
  • Building capacity among all partners and sustaining the relationship beyond any single project.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

Sustainability science is an interdisciplinary, systems-based field, rather than a methodology, focused on coupled human–natural systems and long-term ecological and social well-being. It often incorporates stakeholder collaboration and transdisciplinary approaches but remains grounded in theory, modeling, and empirical analysis.

What is it?

  • Although Sustainability Science is not typically synonymous with community engagement, it is often inherently collaborative and transdisciplinary.
  • Sustainability Science is an interdisciplinary and problem-driven field of research focused on understanding and addressing complex interactions among environmental, social, and economic systems in order to support long-term human and ecological well-being. It integrates knowledge across disciplines to examine coupled human–natural systems and to generate actionable insights for sustainable development. It emphasizes systems thinking, resilience, equity, and long-term transformation.
  • Contemporary sustainability science frequently adopts transdisciplinary approaches, recognizing that “wicked” sustainability challenges—such as climate change, biodiversity loss, food systems, infrastructure transitions, and environmental justice—cannot be addressed by academic disciplines alone. As articulated by UNESCO, sustainability science represents both a distinctive knowledge framework and an applied approach that mobilizes knowledge through policy processes and social action.
  • While sustainability science often involves collaboration with practitioners, policymakers, and communities, it remains a rigorous research field grounded in theory, systems analysis, and empirical inquiry, rather than simply engagement or advocacy.

 

How do you do it?

Sustainability Science is demonstrated through integrative, systems-oriented research that advances sustainability knowledge and solutions, including:

  • Conducting interdisciplinary research on coupled human–natural systems.
  • Developing models, frameworks, or methods to analyze environmental–social–economic interactions.
  • Producing peer-reviewed scholarship on resilience, adaptation, mitigation, regenerative systems, or sustainability transitions.
  • Collaborating with stakeholders (government, NGOs, industry, communities) to co-develop research questions or solutions.
  • Designing and evaluating sustainability interventions, pilot programs, or policy frameworks.
  • Securing grants focused on sustainability transitions, climate adaptation, or sustainable development goals.
  • Publishing translational outputs (policy briefs, practitioner toolkits) grounded in rigorous research.
  • Demonstrating measurable environmental, social, or economic sustainability outcomes.
  • Clearly documenting theoretical contribution, methodological rigor, and individual scholarly role in collaborative projects.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

Publicly engaged scholarship is an umbrella term for the ways faculty draw on their expertise to work with — not just for — public and community partners, exchanging knowledge and resources in ways that enrich scholarship, strengthen teaching, and contribute to the public good.

What is it?

  • Publicly engaged scholarship is an umbrella term for the many ways university faculty draw on their expertise to work with — not just for — public and community partners. It encompasses research, teaching, and service undertaken in partnership with communities or organizations for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources. The goal is to enrich scholarship and creative activity, strengthen teaching and learning, prepare engaged citizens, deepen democratic values, address critical societal issues, and contribute to the public good.
  • The term is intentionally broad. It encompasses multi-disciplinary research, community-engaged research, research grand challenges, research-practice partnerships, participatory research, translational and use-inspired research, co-production, and other approaches. It may also include civic scholarship, Extension, outreach, public-facing scholarship, social innovation, and technology transfer — all in the context of research, teaching, and/or service.
  • At its core, publicly engaged scholarship is research done with the public, benefiting the public, and generating knowledge that can be shared and built upon.

 

How do you do it?

  • Connecting university expertise to community-identified needs through sustained, reciprocal partnerships with public and private sector partners.
  • Conducting research collaboratively with communities — co-defining questions, co-creating knowledge, and co-interpreting findings — rather than studying communities from the outside.
  • Communicating scholarship in accessible language and formats that reach audiences beyond academia, including policymakers, practitioners, and the public.
  • Integrating engagement into teaching and curriculum — through service-learning, community-based projects, and experiential learning — so students develop as engaged citizens and civic-minded professionals.
  • Translating findings into action — informing policy, improving practice, or addressing societal challenges at local, regional, national, or global scales.
  • Aligning institutional structures — promotion and tenure guidelines, funding, awards, and reporting — to recognize, incentivize, and support publicly engaged work alongside traditional scholarship.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

Societally impactful research emphasizes measurable external benefit. It may use any methodology (CES, sustainability science, PAR, etc.), provided it demonstrates scholarly rigor and documented societal outcomes. Unlike publicly-engaged scholarship, which emphasizes partnership and dissemination, societally impactful research (or outcome-oriented scholarly inquiry) emphasizes results and adoption.

What is it?

  • Societally Impactful Research refers to rigorous scholarly inquiry that intentionally addresses pressing societal challenges and produces demonstrable benefits beyond academic audiences. It integrates disciplinary excellence with relevance, ensuring that research contributes meaningfully to public well-being, policy development, economic systems, environmental resilience, equity, or community outcomes.
  • Unlike academic service, societally impactful research is grounded in systematic inquiry, theory, and methodological rigor. Unlike purely curiosity-driven research, it is explicitly oriented toward real-world application, translation, and measurable outcomes. It may include basic, applied, translational, or engaged research approaches, provided the work maintains scholarly standards and produces documented societal benefit.
  • In Promotion and Tenure contexts, societally impactful research is evaluated on two dimensions: Scholarly quality and rigor, and documented external impact, including policy influence, implementation, adoption, or measurable societal outcomes.

 

How do you do it?

Societally Impactful Scholarship is demonstrated through rigorous scholarly work that achieves documented public influence, including:

  • Conducting research that addresses clearly defined societal challenges (e.g., climate resilience, public health, equity, infrastructure, economic systems).
  • Producing peer-reviewed scholarship alongside translational outputs such as policy briefs, practitioner reports, or implementation frameworks.
  • Informing legislation, regulation, standards, or institutional practices.
  • Demonstrating adoption of research findings by government agencies, NGOs, industry, or communities.
  • Securing grants explicitly aimed at societal outcomes or broader impacts.
  • Providing evidence of measurable outcomes (e.g., policy change, environmental improvement, program adoption, funding shifts, improved equity indicators).
  • Documenting partnerships that support translation while clearly articulating individual scholarly contributions.

 

Where can you learn more about it?