Adapting Participatory Rank Methodology: From Public Health to Educational Research

Within educational research, qualitative data offers unique opportunities to contextualize findings that arise from large-scale quantitative data collection processes. Still, to date, most educational research is based on researchers’ determination of what is important, not the participants’. Participatory Rank Methodology (PRM) is a mixed-methods, public health methodology applied during crises to generate rich, contextualized data that can be counted, ranked, and compared across groups or individuals. This paper invites scholars to explore and consider enacting PRM to address issues of educational inequity. Thus, I (1) define PRM, (2) name reasons why PRM may be beneficial for educational researchers working with marginalized communities, (3) present rationales for choosing PRM as opposed to more familiar participatory research approaches, (4) explicate how PRM is enacted in the research process: across research design, collection, analysis, and publication, and (5) briefly share the promise and possibilities of taking up PRM in educational research.