Participatory Action Research (PAR) has as a main goal the collaborative construction and production of meanings between the researchers and the participants. PAR has been largely used in the area of technology creation and appropriation involving end-users in different stages of technology designing process. However, research studies concerning older people and their use of technology employ PAR to a lesser extent. In the current paper we provide arguments for the value of different participative action approaches when studying technology appropriation by older people, and present an example of a participatory action design that we have implemented in three Romanian cities, with people 60+, to reveal the way older adults depict their experience in using Facebook. We used a five-step collaborative research design – (1) initial evaluation; (2) training session; (3) immediate evaluation; (4) group co-creation; (5) final evaluation – to reflect on the participants’ experience through groups techniques and participant observation notes. Results reveal the fact that one trainer per each participant, adapting the interaction to the participant’s individual needs, intergenerational trainer-trainee communication and patience, as well as proper timing of the organized sessions are key factors to foster participant engagement with social media. In addition, the proposed participatory action design proved to have some potential to empower older people in long time engagement with social media.

中文翻译：

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让老年人参与参与式行动研究：以参与式行动设计为例

参与式行动研究（PAR）的主要目标是研究人员和参与者之间的协作构建和意义的产生。PAR已广泛用于涉及技术设计过程不同阶段的最终用户的技术创造和拨款领域。但是，有关老年人及其技术使用的研究较少采用了PAR。在当前的论文中，我们为研究老年人使用技术时采用不同的参与式行动方法的价值提供了论据，并提供了一个示例性的参与式行动设计示例，我们已经在罗马尼亚60个以上的三个城市中实施了该行动式设计，以揭示这种方式老年人描述了他们使用Facebook的经验。我们使用了五步合作研究设计–（1）初步评估；（2）培训课程；（3）立即评估；（4）集体共创；（5）最终评估–通过小组技巧和参与者观察笔记反映参与者的经验。结果揭示了这样一个事实，即每个参与者每个培训者，使交互适应参与者的个人需求，代际培训者与受训者之间的沟通和耐心以及适当安排的会议时间是促进参与者与社交媒体互动的关键因素。此外，提议的参与式行动设计被证明具有一定的潜力，可以增强老年人长期与社交媒体互动的能力。结果揭示了这样一个事实，即每个参与者每个培训者，使交互适应参与者的个人需求，代际培训者与受训者之间的沟通和耐心以及适当安排的会议时间是促进参与者与社交媒体互动的关键因素。此外，提议的参与式行动设计被证明具有一定的潜力，可以增强老年人长期与社交媒体互动的能力。结果揭示了这样一个事实，即每个参与者每个培训者，使交互适应参与者的个人需求，代际培训者与受训者之间的沟通和耐心以及适当安排的会议时间是促进参与者与社交媒体互动的关键因素。此外，提议的参与式行动设计被证明具有一定的潜力，可以增强老年人长期与社交媒体互动的能力。