Community-Based Research Assessments: Some Principles and Practices

This article examines the benefits and challenges of undertaking assessments in community-based research (CBR). Such assessments are compared and contrasted to more traditional research processes. Further, the challenges of integrating CBR assessments into an ongoing social change initiative are analyzed. To aid in undertaking CBR assessments, five principles to guide CBR assessments are articulated: 1) community driven; 2) collaborative; 3) systematic and rigorous, yet flexible and context-specific; 4) guided by grounded theory; and 5) multidimensional. This analysis develops a three-dimensional conceptual framework for assessments, based on the level of activity to be examined, the change goals being examined, and the process or effects outcomes. Finally, a decision-tree is offered with guiding questions to help practitioners consider the range of assessments they may wish to undertake. The framework and decision-tree developed here provides a common language for facilitating knowledge sharing across boundaries. [author]