The Qualitative Report Volume 8 Number 2 June 2003 210-223 http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR8-2/linville.pdf Using Participatory Focus Groups Of Graduate Students To Improve Academic Departments: A Case Example Deanna Linville University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon USA Jennifer Lambert-Shute Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, Virginia USA Christine A. Fruhauf Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado USA Fred P. Piercy Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, Virginia USA The authors report on a participatory focus group evaluation of an academic department. The 20 participants, and the majority of the evaluators, were graduate students in that department. The authors report on their methods, their reflections, ethical issues they encountered and what they did about them, and how they used the results. Key words: Program Evaluation, Focus Groups, Graduate Students, and Academic Department Introduction We recently used participatory focus groups of graduate students to evaluate our department. In this paper we will report on what we did and how we did it, the ethical challenges we faced, and our reflections on the process. We hope that our experience might help others who wish to use participatory focus groups to evaluate their own department or program. Participatory action research was originally used to empower oppressed groups in Third World countries, but researchers increasingly are using it in developed countries (Reason, 1994). In participatory research, one seeks to learn about the needs of participants and to translate this information into constructive action (Piercy & Thomas, 1998). Participatory action research differs from other qualitative methods in the collaboration the researcher fosters with the participants. Often, the researcher trains participants to be co-researchers themselves, and involves them in the research process. The methods are collaborative, self-reflective, empowering, and support action. In traditional evaluation, the evaluator, typically an expert, uses surveys and other quantitative methods to extract knowledge from his or her participants that may or may not be shared with the participants themselves. If knowledge is power (Foucault, 1980), then traditional evaluators, the exclusive gatherers, analyzers, and possessors of the knowledge, are indeed in a hierarchical, more powerful position than their research participants. Participatory evaluators, on the other hand, attempt to flatten the hierarchy by involving knowledgeable research participants as active co-researchers (Bishop, 1989;