Centering Student Voice to Reimagine Curriculum and Instruction in an Online Citizenship Course

The Reimagining Online Education project used Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) to foster a collaborative, student-driven research process with the aim of amplifying the voices and experiences of students belonging to minoritized groups in curriculum development for online courses. The project provided students the opportunity to evaluate and provide recommendations for the redesign of a widely used online asynchronous high school citizenship course. We employed an embedded mixed method design where we used quantitative data to enhance, triangulate, test hypotheses, and explore alternative hypotheses that emerged through the primarily qualitative data collection and analysis process. Our examination of the enactment of YPAR demonstrates that many of the benefits to enacting YPAR in face-to-face classrooms - including enhanced student engagement and deeper learning - can be achieved in asynchronous virtual spaces as well. We conclude with recommendations for enacting YPAR online and to support online curriculum development.