A presentation by Ruth Garbutt on her experiences of doing participatory data analysis. This presentation was part of a seminar, funded by the ESRC, focusing on participatory data analysis by and with people with learning disabilities

1. Dr Ruth Garbutt
University of Leeds

2. 
3 years

Collaborative- Leeds University and CHANGE

Funded by the Big Lottery

Aim: to find out the views and experiences
of young people with learning disabilities around
sex and relationships.

3. 4 people:
Researcher
Coordinators (2)
Illustrator

4.  Interviews
with parents
 Focus groups with teachers
 Questionnaires of special schools
 Drama with young people

5. 1. 20
-
weeks with young people
Getting to know you, games, developing skills
Then talking about sex and relationships
2. Analysis of data
3. 20 weeks with young people, using the data from the 1st
20 weeks to workshop and develop a play. (With the
Rainbow group)
4. Performance of play

6. 
Watching the videos (more than once)- the whole
team

Reading the transcripts
‘It was important to transcribe the DVD because
we need to know that what we say and do in our
job is correct because we have to be sure we are
doing the right thing in our job.’ (Final Report,
2010)

7. Categories:
Changes over time
 Important points
 Play ideas
 Worked well and not so well
 Leaflet ideas


8. Category
Changes over time
Use of information
• Showed confidence and
empowerment of young
people
Important points
• Results of project- to go
into final report
Play ideas
• To go into the play
Worked well and not so
well
• Feedback to staff for
drama workshops
Leaflet ideas
• To go into leaflets

9. The three main points of young people’s play, ‘The
Relationships Show’, were:

Professionals not listening to people with learning
disabilities or not taking them seriously.

Young people with learning disabilities having nowhere to
go to meet their friends.

Not enough accessible information about relationships and
sex.

10. Important points:
-
Researcher made a long list of important points collected from
all the video watching
Gave it to team
Team reduced it down to a shorter list of points
Compared it to the important points that came from the focus
groups/ interviews/ questionnaire
When it was the same, this was seen as a really important
point because it had come out in all parts of the research
project.

11.  Writing
the report
 Producing leaflets
- in collaboration with the whole team
and the young people
 Saying
goodbye to the young people

12. ‘Analysing all the information took a long time. It
was important to do it properly rather than
guessing what people said or relying on what we
could remember. What we have found out
comes directly from the information we have
collected from the young people, the parents, and
the teachers. When we make recommendations,
they are based on the things we have found out.
They are not just our views.’ (Final Report, 2010)

13.  Any
questions?