Collaborative,Action-Oriented Research in Asian Psychology: An Example From Singapore

Abstract

Collaborative, action-oriented approaches to research are uncommon in Asian psychology. This is unfortunate as such approaches can support adaptive social change in Asian settings and enrich mainstream psychology by highlighting the values and principles of Asian countries. To address this, we describe a case study of a four-year participatory action research (PAR) project with a farm in Singapore. The first author worked with farm employees and volunteers to jointly determine research directions and measures, involve them in data analysis and share findings through reports to the government and on social media. True to the iterative nature of collaborative research, we continue to engage with the farm to meet their needs. We discuss three cultural considerations for collaborative, action-oriented research in Singapore, namely the (a) emphasis on group harmony, (b) rigid social roles, and (c) state influence on community organisations, and how they inform a Singaporean PAR approach. We also offer recommendations for practitioners seeking to engage in such research in Singapore and beyond.

Keywords

participatory action research Asia Singapore community psychology urban agriculture

Introduction

To broaden psychological research and extend its relevance beyond Western settings, diverse perspectives are essential (Perkins et al., 2023). Here we consider how to adapt and inform collaborative, action-oriented research in psychology by centring an Asian (Singaporean) perspective. Although Asian philosophies have historically prioritised knowledge, action, and interconnectedness, and are thus in tandem with mainstream/Western collaborative approaches to research (Liu, 2017), such research is surprisingly uncommon in Asian psychology (Liu & Bernardo, 2016; Perkins et al., 2023). Furthermore, the majority of studies that draw on Asian cultural values to solve social problems tend to shy away from producing new models based on culturally rooted data (Liu & Bernardo, 2016; Yuan, 2017). This is a regrettable gap because local, collaborative, action-oriented approaches not only support adaptive social change (Kidd et al., 2018) but can also bring to the forefront Asian values and principles to reconsider paradigms in mainstream psychology (Wong & Cowden, 2022). This article aims to address this gap by examining how cultural considerations can inform collaborative, action-oriented research in Singapore and beyond, including other Asian countries.

We first describe a Singaporean case study of collaborative, action-oriented research with a community organisation that provides insight into the ideals of participatory action research (PAR), a form of action research (Tebes, 2016). Aligned with community psychology’s call for researchers to do “personally meaningful” work (Harré, 2019), this research stemmed from the first author’s desire, as a Singaporean and sustainability advocate interested in local food systems, to advance the goals of urban farms in Singapore. This happened against the backdrop of Covid-19-related supply chain disruptions and increased political attention to local food given that Singapore imports 90% of its food. We then discuss three cultural considerations for collaborative, action-oriented research in Singapore, namely (a) the prioritisation of in-group relationships, (b) working with relatively rigid social roles, and (c) making use of the strong state presence in society. In doing so, we demonstrate why and how PAR-informed research in Singapore might differ from other contexts. To support the proliferation of collaborative, action-oriented research in Asian psychology, we also offer recommendations for practitioners seeking to engage in such research other contexts.

The Singapore Context

Singapore is a 100% urban and industrially developed country in Southeast Asia, and like multiple other Asian cities (e.g. Manila), has a dense and rapidly-aging population (Ng et al., 2022). English is the most frequently used language, although most Singaporeans are effectively bilingual, speaking a combination of English and Mandarin, Bahasa Melayu, or Tamil (Chua, 2009). This corresponds to the four racial groups in Singapore, which are, in order of size, Chinese, Malays, Indians, and Other (Chew, 2018). Notably, while racial categories are formally recognised for administrative purposes, Singapore is a meritocratic country and grants equal legislative powers and access to occupations and education to all races (Clammer, 1988). This ideology prevents severe racial tensions which occurred in the 1960s (Moore, 2000) due to economic inequalities as a result of patterns of labour under colonial rule, where Chinese were disproportionately represented in commerce and Malays in low-paying jobs in services (van Grunsven, 1992).

Additionally, Singapore prides itself on communitarian shared values of racial harmony, consensus, and putting the nation and community before the self (Tan, 2012), and is often described as a collectivistic society that values interpersonal relationships (Wee, 1999). Similar values informed by Confucian ideals and resultant cultural norms can also be observed across other Asian societies, such as, for example, Taiwan.

The government has historically played a prominent role in Singaporean society, and a single political party has been in power since independence in 1965 (Tan & Preece, 2021). Singapore has a “soft authoritarian” style of governance, where the government adopts top-down approaches to many aspects of social life, such as education and housing (Tan & Preece, 2021). While this sometimes incites criticism by Singaporeans, others perceive it as necessary to cope with Singapore’s “traumatic” separation from Malaysia and the resultant economic, political, and social vulnerability that Singapore faced – early leaders had to act decisively and firmly to bring together an ethnically diverse immigrant population and ensure Singapore’s economic survival (Pang & Lim, 2015, p. 2). One prominent example of state control is the regulation of public speech through the Public Order Act, which mandates permits for public assembly, even for single-person assemblies (Han, 2022). Economic and social stability were complimentary to cultural values of harmony (Chee, 1995) that are still upheld in contemporary society. On balance, many Singaporeans perceive the government as “imperfect but necessary” and believe that they act for the “greater good” (Teo, 2010, p. 353). Coupled with a law-biding citizenry that prefers the familiar (Mathews et al., 2021), the state continues to have a heavy presence fifty years after independence (Grice & Drakakis-Smith, 1985; Teo, 2010).

Singapore is a democracy with strong state control, where the government plays a dominant role in economic, social, and political spheres through policies and laws. This hybrid political condition overlaps with numerous other Asian contexts, such as liberal democracies (e.g., South Korea) or authoritarian regimes (e.g., China), which suggests that an understanding of PAR in Singapore’s context might be relevant to various other political contexts.

A small number of collaborative, action-oriented studies have been conducted in Singapore. For example, Ng et al. (2025) worked with gardeners in Singapore on an action research project to examine regenerative soil practices, while Cho and Ho (2020) used a participatory design approach to co-create community spaces in a neighbourhood. Other studies have been in education or healthcare, where their execution and application have been somewhat rigid. One systematic review of action research in education in Singapore noted that most studies were limited in methodology and research questions, tending to use quantitative methods and a positivistic framing to investigate pedagogies to improve students’ examination outcomes (Tan et al., 2009). For example, Tan and Li (2006) employed a pre and post-test design to examine effective ways of teaching reading skills to students. In a more recent study in healthcare, Low et al. (2017, p. 5) documented a PAR approach to investigate an intervention aimed at reducing acute hospital care use among socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals in the community. They described the PAR process only in terms of receiving continuous feedback from community members to improve the intervention “once primary outcomes have been measured.” In a similar vein, Tan et al. (2021) report using PAR to investigate how a hospital could support palliative dementia care in the community, but only involved nurses and doctors from the hospital in their study.

The paucity and limited nature of participatory, action-oriented research in Singapore can possibly be explained by Singapore’s longstanding focus on education and research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Considering Singapore’s dependence on global partners (Tan, 2012) and an international climate that perceives future jobs to be in STEM, Singapore’s education, policies, and research consistently focus on developing STEM knowledge and skills (Teo & Choy, 2021). This results in a general neglect of humanities and social sciences and the widespread adoption of empiricist pedagogies and research that espouse quantitative, positivist approaches even within social sciences (Nasir, 2016). As the existing culture encourages people to be risk-averse and depend on top-down directives (Hairon, 2017), the lack of institutional support for and exposure to collaborative, action-oriented research might contribute to the difficulty in shifting prevailing research norms and the consequent dearth of such research in Singapore.

Nonetheless, contemporary Singaporean society offers opportunities to explore more community-based and action-oriented approaches to psychology. As Singaporean youth become “better educated, more widely travelled, and technologically savvy,” they strive for more say in social and political decisions and in doing so begin to alter the culture of dependency on top-down guidance (Sim & Chow, 2020, p. 771). Concurrently, Singapore’s higher education and research in social sciences is changing. For example, issues of environmental sustainability, which have historically been considered topics of hard sciences, are now also studied within social sciences (Nasir, 2016). A recent study also demonstrated an awareness among Singaporean psychology and public health researchers of the need to normalise community involvement in research (Puerta et al., 2019). The current milieu thus presents a prime opportunity to explore a more collaborative, action-oriented approach to psychology in Singapore.

Participatory Action Research (PAR)

Having originated under varying conditions in multiple regions globally, PAR is highly distributive and diverse (Glassman & Erdem, 2014). Some researchers distinguish between Northern and Southern traditions of PAR (Macaulay, 2016). The former stems from Lewinian action research (Argyris & Schön, 1989) and involves iterative cycles of planning, action, observation, and evaluation, often referred to as action-reflection cycles, particularly with organisations (Lewin, 1946). The latter is rooted in emancipatory research with community groups that aim to bring about fundamental change in existing socio-economic and political systems (Dege, 2023). Both Northern and Southern PAR can be applied in psychology depending on the purpose of the research (Collins et al., 2018).

The type of collaborative, action-oriented research discussed in this article is primarily informed by Northern traditions of PAR that involve working with community organisations who intend to enact positive outcomes for society. Notably, there is an increasing number of non-governmental organisations in Singapore (Sim & Chow, 2020; Vasoo, 2001) that suggest greater possibilities for collaborative research with community organisations (Yuan, 2012). Additionally, in Northern traditions of PAR, research can be responsive to diverse issues (Lake & Wendland, 2018) beyond the emancipation of traditionally marginalised communities, which is relevant to the focus on urban farming and the Singaporean population in this article.

Northern-PAR notions of empowerment are also pertinent to the present study, which we elaborate on in later sections. In this tradition, empowerment is a process through which people, organisations, and communities gain control over their circumstances (Rappaport, 1987) and is thus a multilevel construct (Zimmerman, 1995). Here, we focus on the individual and organisational levels. At the individual level, empowerment is psychological and constitutes awareness and skills that allow one to influence issues of concern to them, and the perception that one is able to do so (Zimmerman et al., 1992). It can also involve the actions one takes to achieve their goals (Zimmerman et al., 1992). At the organisational level, empowering organisations support members to enhance their capacity and enact relevant change, and an empowered organisation is characterised by its ability to compete for resources and collaborate with other organisations (Zimmerman, 1995).

We acknowledge that the traditions of PAR are fluid and ever-evolving. PAR is termed and conceptualised differently even within traditions. For example, within Southern traditions of PAR, Fals Borda used ‘participatory action research’ to describe how he worked with indigenous peasant populations in Columbia to form cooperatives that advocated for their rights (Fals Borda, 1987) while Rajesh Tandon used ‘community-based research’ to champion the lived experiences of rural Indian farmers and their inclusion in the research process (Brown & Tandon, 1983). We suggest then, that while this project primarily derives from, and sits within a Northern PAR tradition, it can inform our collaborative, action-oriented research more generally.

Ground-Up Initiative (GUI)

We collaborated with Ground-Up Initiative (GUI), a non-profit society that had been operating for 14 years and is primarily engaged in farming activities and programmes. GUI practised soil-based, organic farming, growing a variety of fruits and vegetables across their 26,000m2 of land located in a recreational park (they have since moved to an adjacent plot of land). Their primary aim is to connect people with nature, others, and self, and they meet this aim through engaging volunteers in daily woodworking and farming tasks and facilitating programmes for corporations, schools, and the public. These programmes aim to teach participants to give back to nature and to their community through hands-on experiences. They also sell produce to a retailer and at an on-premise farmers’ market weekly and donate excess to volunteers and community kitchens. At the time of the research in 2021 - 2024, ten paid employees and a host of volunteers contributed to the everyday running of the organisation.

Description of GUI Case Study

In this section, we describe our engagement with GUI over four years. We draw on field notes kept by the first author to provide a rich description of our process of collaboration, as action research is often enriched through processual knowledge (Blichfeldt & Andersen, 2006). By detailing our collaboration, we seek to allow research processes to be shared and applied across contexts (Gergen & Gergen, 2008, pp. 169-170). We reference relevant collaborative, action-oriented literature to demonstrate how our research was PAR-informed. Table 1 provides a timeline and summary of the research process. The research was approved by the University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee (UAHPEC22003, UAHPEC24127) where the first author was based at the time of the research.

Table 1.

Timeline and Summary of Research

Year	Research process
2021	First author volunteered weekly with farm
	First author developed close relationships with employees and volunteers
	First author suggested collaborative research with farm lead
	Farm lead and first author determined research design
	Volunteer coordinator (VC) recruited interviewees
	First author interviewed volunteers and employees and analysed data
	Interviewees co-analysed data through Q-sort
2022	First author discussed findings and next steps with farm lead
	Farm lead, VC, and first author designed online questionnaire based on interviews
	VC disseminated questionnaire
	First author analysed questionnaire data
2023	First author shared questionnaire results with the farm
	Farm included questionnaire process and results in report to government
	VC and first author created video of questionnaire results
	Farm shared video of questionnaire results on social media
2023 2024	VC and first author re-designed and re-implemented questionnaire
2024	VC and first author analysed and designed images of baseline findings
2024	Farm shared images on social media
2025 Present	VC learnt how to analyse data with help from first author Continued engagement with the farm

The research started with the first author volunteering weekly at the farm, which allowed her to frequently communicate in-person with the farm lead and other employees. Volunteering involved doing farm tasks and preparing and sharing meals with both employees and other volunteers. Making and sharing food enabled conversations and the forging of close relationships with others at the farm (Kofod, 2012; Stajcic, 2013), which is often described as a key action step in PAR (Cahill & Torre, 2007; Maiter et al., 2008). For example, in their primer on PAR highlighting six key aspects of PAR, Cornish et al. (2023) argued that building trusting relationships is the first and most important step.

Another aspect identified by Cornish et al. (2023) is ensuring that researchers and community members have a shared and common understanding of what the project seeks to address. As such, in PAR, a preliminary task for researchers is often to initiate dialogue where community members and researchers can exchange experiences (Kidd & Kral, 2005). After a few months of volunteering, the first author approached the farm lead to discuss the potential for collaborative research. The farm lead encouraged the first author to reflect on her personal experience with the farm and design research in relation to that. The first author then suggested that GUI had the potential to impact people in emotional and behavioural ways, and the farm lead responded that “that is exactly right” but that there was no research at GUI that supported that. As they both discussed the meanings they ascribed to their experience at GUI, the conversation culminated in the decision to start recording volunteers’ and employees’ perceptions of GUI’s aims, activities, and outcomes through interviews. In this way, their reflexivity directly set the research agenda.

Subsequently, the farm lead asked her volunteer coordinator (VC) to help to recruit potential interviewees and the first author conducted all interviews. Her position as a GUI volunteer and then-student likely facilitated recruitment as she was familiar with GUI employees and volunteers; being a student can also be perceived as less daunting than a senior academic. Interviewees then participated in a Q-sort to co-analyse interview data, a practice that is encouraged in PAR (Fine & Torre, 2019). The Q-sort involved participants ranking 36 statements selected from all interviews based on their perception of how similar or dissimilar each statement was to their experience at GUI (Nicholas et al., 2023). Participants, rather than test items, were then correlated to cluster viewpoints. The process and outcomes of the interviews and Q-sort have been published elsewhere (Nicholas et al., 2023). Generally, employees and volunteers at GUI perceived the farm to have diverse environmental, relational, and personal outcomes, such as facilitating pro-environmental behavioural spillover, learning to communicate with diverse peoples, and increasing one’s self-awareness.

After sharing results of the interviews and Q-sort with the farm lead, the first author and the farm lead discussed next steps over in-person and virtual meetings. This demonstrated the project’s first action-reflection cycle of planning (conversations with the farm lead), acting (interviews and Q-sort), and reflecting (sharing and discussing results), which McTaggart (1997) described as quintessential to PAR. In this first cycle, the first author was responsible for collecting and analysing data, while the farm lead was involved in conceptualising the research and helping with recruitment (through her engagement of the VC). In later paragraphs, we comment on how the first author’s and GUI’s positions changed over the collaboration’s iterative action-reflection cycles.

The farm lead shared that Singapore’s Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE) had requested a report from GUI that highlighted their impact in measurable terms as GUI’s land lease was expiring and they had to justify their move to a new parcel of land (in land-scarce and authoritarian Singapore) and the funds required to do so. She planned to collect quantitative data on a wide range of variables such as farm yield and wanted to quantify the outcomes that we had discovered from the interviews, focusing specifically on key psychological, social, and environmental variables, and include them in the report.

As such, the farm lead and first author agreed to design and disseminate a longitudinal questionnaire to incoming volunteers to measure changes among volunteers in previously found outcomes such as self-awareness and gratitude. Notably, this research direction was not predetermined by our agendas (as researchers) and was intended to address a real-world problem (GUI’s need to respond to MSE), as it often occurs in collaborative, action-oriented research (Coleman, 2015; Kindon et al., 2007; White et al., 2004).

As she was occupied with GUI’s move to the new parcel of land, the farm lead called on her VC to work directly on the questionnaire. The farm lead, did however, also participate in the design of the questionnaire study. The first author suggested disseminating the questionnaire to members of the public not involved with GUI to function as a comparison group, which was welcomed by the farm lead and VC. She then created a draft questionnaire on Google Forms to measure the aforementioned variables using existing scales in the literature and the three of them independently checked items in each scale to ensure that the language used was clear and relevant to Singaporean respondents. Information on the scales used can be found in Supplemental Material.

The VC then disseminated the questionnaire to incoming GUI volunteers by including a link to it in her welcome email and text message to all new volunteers. She did this daily for five months, as GUI had approximately three to ten new volunteers on a daily basis. The VC sent the same questionnaire again to volunteers two months after the first. At the same time, the first author derived a convenience sample of members of the public by posting the same questionnaire on a Telegram channel dedicated to research studies in Singapore. This channel had more than 9,000 subscribers at the time of the research. The questionnaire was posted again two months later.

Eventually, 209 and 79 members of the public completed the baseline and follow-up questionnaires respectively. Seventy-five GUI volunteers completed the baseline questionnaire, and 23 completed the follow-up. The first author used generalised linear mixed models to analyse the data, despite it being more complex (as opposed to a t-test) to explain to the farm lead and VC. This was because at baseline, GUI participants were significantly more likely to be younger and have a lower education level as compared to public participants.

After analysis, the first author condensed findings into one-sentence summaries and shared these with the farm lead and VC over text messages and video calls. The VC connected her with a member of GUI’s management team who requested for a write-up of the questionnaire process and outcomes, and included that in their report to MSE. The first author and VC also created a minute-long video on the questionnaire which was shared on GUI’s Telegram channel to raise awareness of GUI’s efforts and encourage interested parties to get involved with the survey. The process of designing and implementing the questionnaire, and subsequently preparing a write-up for MSE, reflect the project’s second iterative cycle of planning, acting, and reflecting. In this second cycle, compared to the first cycle, the first author played less of a lead role while GUI deepened their involvement, as the farm lead initiated the idea to conduct questionnaires, and the VC managed the questionnaire and co-designed social media output.

The VC reported using her experience in the research as part of an assignment she submitted for a diploma, aligned with PAR’s desire to benefit community members (Pain et al., 2007). Through her close involvement in the questionnaire management, she also saw its value and asked for it to become a long-term feature at GUI. The VC remarked that she was “ignorant” about “the amount of work that may be involved” but was “determined to do it.” She and the first author then asked for and obtained the farm lead’s permission to do so. The VC’s active interpretation of her experiences to shape future plans is fundamental among practitioners of action research (Coleman, 2015).

Together, the VC and first author made changes to the questionnaire based on observations from the first iteration, and the VC again disseminated it to incoming volunteers. The VC’s thought and effort put into improving the questionnaire demonstrates her engagement in an action-reflection spiral that encouraged change in line with GUI’s goals (see McTaggart, 1994, p. 315) and suggests her involvement in the research increased her commitment to the project, as observed in other studies (Levinson, 2017; van der Velde et al., 2009).

The VC collected baseline responses from 311 new volunteers. After collecting baseline data, the first author and VC met over Zoom as the VC wanted to learn how to analyse data. Using Excel, the first author showed her how and why to sum or average scales, and how to generate graphs. The VC then suggested creating a social media post for GUI using those graphs. Together, they created a series of images and posted them on GUI’s Telegram channel to raise awareness of GUI’s environmental efforts and encourage the public to donate to GUI.

After one year, the VC disseminated the follow-up questionnaire to the second iteration of participants. One hundred and sixteen volunteers completed both the baseline and follow-up questionnaires. The first author and VC are currently working together to clean and analyse the data, as the VC requested to learn how to do so. This is in spite of the first author’s completion of her PhD which was the vehicle for the initial research project, testament to the iterative nature of PAR (Khanlou & Peter, 2005). The second iteration of the questionnaire represents the project’s third action-reflection cycle. The VC’s initiative in this third cycle demonstrates how, as our collaboration progressed, the first author’s role in the research continued to take a backseat while GUI’s involvement increased.

Overall, the deep connections the first author shared with the farm lead and VC facilitated their interest and participation in the project. The farm lead helped to conceptualise the purpose of the interviews, and the VC gradually increased participation in terms of making more decisions about the questionnaire and its interpretation. The farm lead and VC were “pivotal people”, whom Harré et al. (2022) described as individuals who were significant in contributing to change in their case study of building a sustainable social system in a New Zealand high school. Our PAR-informed project also led to tangible outcomes for GUI, such our contribution to the report to MSE, a long-term system for monitoring GUI’s impact, and publications which GUI management has used to acquire funding from private investors. Our research is now progressing into its fourth action-reflection cycle, as the first author and VC are preparing to present results of the questionnaire to GUI’s management and propose a project to enhance volunteer engagement at GUI.

A Singaporean Approach to PAR-Informed Research

In this section, we draw on the case study with GUI described above and broader information on the Singapore context to highlight three cultural considerations for a collaborative, action-oriented approach to research in Singapore. These three considerations are the (a) the emphasis on group harmony, (b) working with relatively rigid social roles, and (c) making use of the state’s influence on community organisations. We highlight how these cultural considerations form a distinct Singaporean approach to PAR and compare them with existing PAR studies. We also offer recommendations for psychologists seeking to engage in collaborative, action-oriented research in Singapore. We suggest that our recommendations could be relevant to other contexts as although Singapore is unusual in its geography and technocratic system of governance, it is also highly industrialised and wealthy (like, for example, countries in North America and Europe) and based in Confucian values (like, for example, China).

Emphasis on Group Harmony

Singaporeans strive to maintain relationships within groups (Mathews et al., 2021), often reserving high trust, generosity, and co-operation for members they perceive as part of their group (Loh et al., 2010). While all cultures cherish social ties and the importance of forming a close relationship with the community is not a new concept in many traditions of PAR (Cornish et al., 2023), it is possible that this importance is more significant in collaborative research in Singapore due to the dominant collectivist culture and Confucian state ideology that emphasises harmony within and between social groups (Tan, 2012; Wee, 1999).

In our collaboration with GUI, the research was facilitated by the first author being perceived as an insider, that is, a member of the GUI community (Kanuha, 2000). Extending assistance to GUI through helping with tasks as a volunteer and connecting with other volunteers and employees through in-person conversations and shared experiences of volunteering and living in Singapore, allowed the first author to become an insider at GUI. Her insider position was strengthened by the cultural familiarity she shared with others at the farm who spoke the same language(s), used the same slang, and had similar life experiences, which allows for closer relationships between a researcher and the community they work with (Cunliffe & Karunanayake, 2013). For example, the first author predominantly communicated with others at GUI using “Singlish”, a colloquial variety of spoken English that combines grammatical rules and vocabulary of different dialects and languages, and a possible by-product of Singapore’s multi-racial composition and bilingual policy (Wee, 2014). This built rapport as Singlish is a defining characteristic of the Singaporean identity (Goh, 2016). Additionally, the first author, who studied at a local university as an undergraduate, had prior work experience after graduating, and was a mother and homemaker while pursuing her PhD, had lived experiences that resonated with many other volunteers at GUI who tended to be University students, graduates who were in between jobs, or retirees and homemakers. Her identity and position appeared to facilitate GUI’s interest in collaborating on a participatory project. For example, the VC engaged in the research on top of her existing volunteer management and facilitation roles, and the staff and volunteers at GUI were eager to participate in the interviews and Q-sort (Nicholas et al., 2023).

Prioritising group harmony is also associated with long-lasting social relationships (Kuwabara et al., 2007), while an emphasis on personal goals and independence is associated with fewer close social relationships (Ogihara & Uchida, 2014). In collaborative research, long-term relationships can also be supported by the insider position of the researcher, who is then likely to remain part of the community over a sustained period (Berglund, 2025). The tendency towards long-term relationships in Singapore can facilitate iterative research by allowing theoretically infinite action-research spirals (Raynor, 2019). By building on these iterations, the depth and relevance of the research might be enhanced, implying that collaborative, action-oriented research with Singaporean communities has the potential to be robust and persistent especially when researchers are perceived as insiders. In our case, the first author continues to collaborate with GUI to explore new research questions.

To summarise, we strongly recommend that researchers working with Singaporean communities are sensitive to building relationships with community members to be perceived as an insider. Future studies can examine other ways that a researcher might be accorded insider status, and the importance of this in relation to the research process and outcomes.

Rigid Social Roles

Social roles in Singapore tend to be rigid given the culture’s preference for the familiar and the rule-conformity this preference encourages (Mathews et al., 2021; Wong, 2006). For example, in a survey of 2,000 Singaporeans, 90% perceived adherence to rules and conformity as positive aspects of the Singaporean identity (Mathews et al., 2021). In a study of 33 countries, Singapore ranked 4^th in ‘tightness,’ indicating low tolerance for deviation from norms (Gelfand et al., 2011).

Social role rigidity tends to be more pronounced along familial and organisation lines – such as family units endorsing cultural values of filial piety, and organisations that hold seniority and rank in high regard – rather than along racial lines, due to the ideology of meritocracy discussed earlier. Social role rigidity along familial and organisational lines reflects Singapore’s Confucian ideology where intentionally cultivating relational harmony (by respecting hierarchy and roles) is ideal and morally right (Tan, 2012). This rigidity in social roles tends to differ from Western cultures (Pae, 2020). Kitayama et al. (2020) and Kitayama and Salvador (2024) also suggested that East Asians who valued interdependence emphasised group harmony through adhering to social norms and roles, and had stricter social norms as compared to Americans who valued individual autonomy.

This suggests that when collaborating with communities in Singapore, perceptions of ‘researcher’ and ‘collaborator’ are often assumed to be distinct and this perception is entrenched. Although we are aware that PAR studies in Western contexts report community members’ adherence to social roles and norms, such as Dworski-Riggs and Langhout (2010)’s demonstration of how school staff in the United States perceived researchers as the “experts” (p. 223) and refrained from making decisions about the research, it is possible that this adherence is stronger in Singapore.

Numerous authors have discussed the negative impact of rigid social roles on community involvement. For example, Turmusani (2003) suggested that community members in Jordan lacked ownership of the research when they viewed themselves as having supporting roles, ultimately reducing its relevancy. Katsui and Koistinen (2008) also discussed how Ugandan collaborators were less engaged in PAR when they perceived themselves as participants rather than researchers. Similarly, when reflecting on our collaboration with GUI, there were, at times, clear boundaries between identities such as ‘collaborator,’ ‘researcher,’ and ‘student’ that might have limited community involvement. For example, while the VC was able to describe the process and results of the questionnaire, especially since she had used it for a written assignment, she chose instead to ask the first author to produce a write-up when GUI’s management requested for one. In a situation where researcher-collaborator boundaries are less distinct, this could have possibly been approached in a more collaborative way, such as through modifying the write-up the VC had already prepared for her assignment. On reflection, we were reactive to the VC and farm leads’ requests for participation in the research process (e.g., the VC’s request to learn more about data analysis) rather than actively encouraging this. It may be possible that initiating earlier conversations about community members’ involvement can provide opportunities to enhance co-learning.

Nonetheless, the project with GUI suggests that there might also be benefits to this rigidity in the Singapore context. For example, Singapore’s education system advocates students’ engagement with community organisations (Lee & Ho, 2022). In our case, student approaches were not seen by GUI as a nuisance, but as appropriate, and to be accommodated if possible. Such openness to students is a possible entry point for participatory, action-oriented types of research. Rigid role perceptions may also mean that when community members undertake a role as ‘collaborator,’ such as with the VC, their engagement with the research is sustained in part by their perception that they now have a duty to fulfil. This is supported by Singapore’s emphasis on responsibility to others as a form of social discipline that protects the stability and harmony of society (Han et al., 2001).

So, despite the blurring of boundaries between roles being encouraged in PAR (Cornish et al., 2023), this may not be appropriate with Singaporean communities. When reflecting on one’s position in the research, already a key aspect of multiple PAR traditions (McTaggart, 1994), we suggest that researchers working with Singaporean communities should pay particular attention to working within bounded roles rather than trying to break them down. In our project for example, we used an online Q-sort. A Q-sort results in community members contributing to the data analysis, but its formal structure allows them to do so as research participants. This not only respects community members’ ability to participate on their own terms (Dworski-Riggs & Langhout, 2010; Le Grange, 2009; Levinson, 2017), but can also preserve group cohesion (Katsui & Koistinen, 2008).

State Influence on Community Organisations

The last cultural consideration is the strong state influence in Singapore (Tan & Preece, 2021). The government not only shapes the economy through state-owned enterprises (Paiva-Silva, 2022) but also ensures social spheres and civil society are aligned with national values. For example, the People’s Association, a statutory board under the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, manages community centres and programmes. There are also laws that regulate and monitor the operations of organisations and societies; groups that do not adhere to these regulations are then deregistered (Rodan, 2013). As such, while PAR with organisations in Singapore might still be informed by the needs and priorities of the community, state influence on these priorities might be more direct and clearer than in other contexts.

The heavy state influence on community organisations might raise doubts about PAR’s ability to empower those involved. That is, if empowerment is assumed to mean taking control over one’s circumstances and enacting change (Rappaport, 1987; Zimmerman et al., 1992), how is that possible in a country with a high degree of top-down governance?

Nonetheless, our collaboration suggests that psychological empowerment, as defined by Zimmerman et al. (1992) and described earlier, can and did occur in this study. Community members, such as the VC, acquired new skills (such as interpreting questionnaire data) and knowledge (such as of GUI’s impact on incoming volunteers). During a meeting with the first author as they discussed how to present their findings to the GUI management, the VC remarked that she was grateful for the experience as it had taught her a lot, strengthened her desire to improve GUI’s operations, and gave her clarity on her future pathways in her personal and professional life (such as whether to start a doctorate in psychology). This illustrates that a subjective experience of empowerment can drive future change, in line with the idea that empowerment is not just about structural change (Rappaport, 1987). This was a key learning point for the first author, as the idea that community members’ perception of self-improvement embodied empowerment challenged her initial ideals that empowerment had to be structurally transformative.

Furthermore, even within strong state control, empowerment may occur in a relational manner in terms of the development of abilities to cooperate with others to achieve goals (Kloos et al., 2012; van Uchelen, 2000), such as in our continued collaboration with the VC and GUI. GUI might also be perceived as being supported in its development into an empowered organisation which can compete for resources (Zimmerman, 1995), given how GUI used published articles and data from our collaboration to seek financial support from private investors and communicate their impact to MSE. These forms of empowerment occurred within the boundaries of state goals that informed GUI’s activities as an organisation, such as how the decision to quantify findings from the interviews was a direct response to a mandate from the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment. Similar to our experience, educational action research in Singapore tends to be quantitative and focused on strategies to improve students’ test results (Tan et al., 2009), in line with Singapore’s emphasis on measurable outcomes in research, education, and policy making (Ng et al., 2020). We suggest that while state influence can inform the direction, scope, and approach of PAR projects with community organisations in Singapore, it does not preclude perceptions of empowerment of those involved in PAR.

Following this experience, the first author continues to engage in PAR-informed research in Singapore with other community groups to further understand the scope of PAR with community organisations in Singapore given state influence and devise negotiations of these boundaries. This critical reflexivity and personal transformation of the researcher is advocated across many PAR traditions (Kidd & Kral, 2005; McTaggart, 1997; Pain et al., 2007, p. 30) and is useful in informing more emic perspectives of PAR.

Summary

In sum, when collaborating with communities in Singapore on action-oriented research, we suggest that researchers need to be especially sensitive to building relationships, and work with, rather than against, rigid role perceptions and state influence in community organisations.

It is, however, noteworthy that national identities, values, and norms are fluid (Mathews et al., 2021). The recent decade has seen significant changes in practices and expectations in Singapore. The 2025 General Election, for example, demonstrated the increased involvement of the Singaporean electorate – rallies drew unprecedentedly large crowds, younger voters took to social media to express their opinions, and while the dominant political party retained its majority vote, the largest opposition party more than doubled their seats in parliament. These shifts in society will also shift the context for collaborative, action-oriented research in Singapore; in keeping with the ever-evolving traditions of PAR. The fluidity of such research in Singapore invokes the important soft skills required of PAR researchers, namely openness to change, flexibility in thought, respect for cultural norms, and an awareness of tensions and opposing forces (Cornish et al., 2023).

Critics might argue that our single site case study cannot be generalised to other community groups in Singapore and beyond. Our contextualised account, however, offers insights and recommendations that other practitioners can choose to apply, and aligns with our intention to support more emic perspectives to PAR.

We are also aware of the limitations of our engagement with GUI and hope to address these limitations in future PAR-informed projects with community groups. Of special note, we did not explicitly ask community members how useful their participation was for them as individuals and for their organisation, their views on our roles as researchers, and whether their experience of the project was in line with their expectations. For example, we could have asked the VC questions such as whether she felt included in designing the questionnaire, how much ownership she had over the process, and what the first author could have done better. As there are few studies which examine participative relationships and even fewer that do so from the point of view of community members (Arieli et al., 2009), in future we will provide opportunities for reflection from community members as reporting these perspectives could improve PAR projects.

To conclude, in this article, we discussed a case study of a PAR-informed project with an urban farm in Singapore to posit that a Singaporean approach to collaborative, action-oriented research can enrich existing literature. We examined Singaporean’s emphasis on group harmony, rigid social roles in Singapore, and the influence of the state on community organisations and discussed how these cultural considerations inform a Singaporean approach to PAR. These considerations shaped how our collaboration was enacted and the type and outcomes of research that can be expected from collaborative, action-oriented studies in similar contexts. We also offered recommendations for practitioners seeking to engage in such research in Singapore and potentially other contexts, to encourage PAR approaches that are culturally grounded and socially impactful.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material - Collaborative, Action-Oriented Research in Asian Psychology: An Example From Singapore

Supplemental material for Collaborative, Action-Oriented Research in Asian Psychology: An Example From Singapore by S. O. Nicholas and N. Harré in Action Research

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Sean Olivia Nicholas

Ethical Considerations

The research was approved by the University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee (UAHPEC22003, UAHPEC24127.

Consent to Participate

All participants provided written consent to participate by signing an Informed Consent Form provided by the first author.

Consent for Publication

All participants provided written consent to publish.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Nanyang Technological University International PhD Scholarship 2021.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statement

Quantitative data is available upon request. Qualitative interview data is not available upon request as anonymised transcripts might still reveal individual participants’ identities given the small size of the urban farming industry in Singapore.*

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material is available online.

Author Biographies

Sean Olivia Nicholas is an Assistant Professor in Psychology at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She teaches undergraduate courses in environmental psychology and community psychology, and does community research with nonprofits, citizen-led groups, and social enterprises in Singapore.

Niki Harré is a Professor in Psychology at the University of Auckland. She writes, researches and teaches about values-based practice, environmental sustainability, the future of universities and living well together on our shared planet.

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