Many educational and learning organisational contexts can benefit from participatory and reflective learning methodologies that transcend mere cognitive approaches. To understand the meaning and power of co-creation and collaboration and what they can bring about also methodologically, the search for participatory and meaningful learning experiences has led us to combine methodologies that draw from qualitative and quantitative stances. The paper introduces and integrates a decision-making method – pairwise comparison – into a rather unmapped context and discusses its potential in action research as a solid, quantitative yet participant-led and co-creative approach. Pairwise comparison lays the foundation to the analytical or Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) approaches (Saaty, 2004; Kubler et al., 2016; Chan, Sun & Chung, 2019; Liu, Eckert & Earl, 2020; Salehzadeh & Ziaeian, 2024). These are decision-making approaches that help people and organisations make complex choices in a structured and logical way. They establish a hierarchical structure of the issue, collect participant opinions, and compare all options systematically, helping reach a well-reasoned decision or even consensus. FAHP's participatory nature is evident in its reliance on participant input. These methods can accommodate multiple experts with varying levels of knowledge in a dialogic manner, important for organisational learning (Wals & Schwarzin, 2012) and fostering agency (Graf et al., 2022). We aim to demonstrate that pairwise comparisons (e.g., Critical thinking vs. Empathy), including FAHP, can be effective participatory methods for decision-making in complex scenarios. They facilitate collaborative environments by incorporating diverse stakeholder inputs into the decision-making process. By allowing participants to express preferences using linguistic terms, FAHP captures subjective judgments effectively, leading to consensus-building and shared understanding. The face-to-face discussion after data production/collection, including meaning negotiations and argumentation in a shared physical space using the discussed items, values, or competences as shared artefacts, is an integral part of the collaboration and co-creation towards more shared and enhanced decision-making. Integrating methodologies such as FAHP with participatory and reflective learning approaches potentially enhances engagement also among different organisational stakeholders. This synergistic approach aligns with the growing recognition that deep participation and meaning-making emerge from holistic learning experiences. One context for such experiences is Responsible Democratic Citizenship (RDC). This paper presents the integration of dialogic pairwise comparison to support holistic competence development in democratic education and organisational learning. A further step is the seamless and anonymous combination of participant output using digital platforms (Graf et al., 2022).

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