Creative
research
methods
Research Methods session: Feb 2018
Helen Manchester, University of Bristol,
School of Education
Why use creative
methods?
• your participants
• your research questions/
investigation
• your theory
• Because it works for you as a
researcher
• FOR FUN!
Overview
• Different approaches
• Why? Methods and approaches
• Trying out a method: Photo-voice
Different approaches
• Narrative inquiry
• Visual methods eg scrapbooks/
audio/video diaries, photos/photovoice,
using images to stimulate discussion,
drawing pictures of things, Collage
• Maps
• Drama/roleplay
• Using digital tools : Apps, media
production, creating online spaces
• Designing interventions
Why? Including approaches and
methods
• Increasing the ways of
investigating, describing and
interpreting the world
(Eisner,1998)
• a way of broadening researchers’
ways of “knowing” and perceiving,
another way of seeing, (Barone,
2008)
• invoke multi-dimensional
responses both from makers and
audiences
• Participatory: More accessible?
• Creative methods as an
tool which can generate
different kinds of talk and
conversation
• interest in seeking
participants’ own
perspectives and
interpretations of the
material
To generate talk
Possible
activities/methods
• Walking methods: walk and talk, walking
with (Sue Porter’s work)
• Working with objects: to tell stories, to
stimulate storytelling (real or fictious)
(Tangible Memories)
• Scrapbooking and collaging: in a one off
session or over a period of time (See Sara
Bragg’s work)
• Self reflection: thinking and feeling
bubbles (creative school ethos research)
To document/ provide
evidence
• Traditionally anthropologists and ethnographers
make visual images of the communities they study
• Provides an archive that can be critically
interpreted
Can be useful as:
• a narrative of a process (of creative learning or of
joint action, and so on);
• memories of the self or of others;
• a guide around one’s world, for someone else;
• a portfolio of achievements;
• evidence of problems requiring solutions or
unrecognised assets
• Taking photos of a community
or research activity
• Scrapbooks or other
documentation by participants
throughout a process
• Collaborative production of a
piece of drama or a
newspaper front page to
represent ideas/ feelings
about a process
• Participant or researcher blogs
(multimodal)
• Making activities to express
social issues/concerns/
problems
• Apps eg Evernote
Possible activities/methods
To explore identities
and the non-rational
• Talk-based methods often insufficient for dealing with
emotional, private dimensions of subjectivity and
experience, with issues that are hard to articulate
fully or that participants lack the vocabulary to
discuss
• facilitating symbolic, non-verbal communication of
meanings or drawing on now well-established
‘private’ visual genres, eg the video diary
• creating visual images or narratives might help to
work through traumatic experiences
• potential dangers of inviting personal explorations
without the capacity to handle the emotions these
can evoke.
• Role-play/ drama
• Diaries/journals:
including video or
audio diaries
• Working with artists
on collaborative
projects
• Creative writing,
storyboards
Possible
approaches/methods
To explore the non-verbal: context, space,
style and bodies
• Interdisciplinary work
examining
environment, place
and embodiment
• Many studies taken a
participative approach
Examples from literature: play spaces (Burke,
2008), health (Hemming, 2008), bullying and
safety, territoriality and social exclusion (Kintrea,
Bannister, Pickering, Suzuki, & Reid, 2008), routes,
travel, learning, ideal schools and more (see
Prosser, 2007).
Possible methods
and approaches
• Images or sounds/music as prompts
• Sensory ethnography (Pink, 2009)
• Using maps: discussing maps or
making own maps (visual, sound
based)
• Dance workshops/ interpretative
dance
To be inclusive
• Beyond the ‘usual suspects’: allowing
the expression of views and
perspectives by groups and individuals
who are often excluded from research,
consultation or learning, such as the
very young (Clark & Moss, 2001)
• the importance of diversity in terms of
the kinds of ‘voices’ and ‘selves’ that
can be expressed by those involved
• lend themselves to collaborative
approaches,
• Collaborative radio
show or video
production
• Photo-voice
• Working with co-
researchers
• Making something
together eg using
the micro-bit
Possible methods/
approaches
To promote reflection
• the practices involved (such as creating,
viewing, editing, selecting, assembling,
exhibiting and arranging) and working with
others help to generate new perspectives,
connections and thought processes
• Producing resources for reflection and thinking,
both for those producing them and those
viewing and working with them
• Provide a ‘tool for thinking with’ but also the
thinking they stimulate is different from that
stimulated by other tools such as language
• Many of those
already discussed!
• Journaling
• Scrapbooking
• Photo-voice
• Creating a play,
story, poem based
on experiences
Approaches and methods
Discussion
• Do any of these methods excite you? Are there methods you think
you might want to adopt in your study?
• Do you have any further questions?
• Discuss this with your neighbour.
Trying out a method: Photovoice
• Pioneered by Margaret
Mead- used by Paolo
Freire
• Using photos and
photography can
improve empirical data
especially where
storytelling desired
• ‘community’ generated
photography,
narratives, voice, being
heard
Photovoice
• Seeing from multiple
perspectives/
multivoiced
• Training in ethics
• Taking pictures on
themes eg community
assets, concerns:
visualising local
knowledge/ varied
individual perspectives
• Photos sifted/curated,
‘chosen’ to discuss and
Community generated display
photography
Narratives and voice
• giving people the ‘means of
production’
• Use process to discuss collective
action might take
• Looking at photos to bring up
community issues/ concerns and
to encourage stories – with
individuals or groups
Wang et al 2004 method questions: what can you see? What is really happening here? how does this relate to our
lives? Why does this situation/strength/ concern exist? How can we become empowered through our understanding?
What can we do?
Being heard
• Identify themes that can inform
policy and action?
• Photo exhibitions (with facilitated
discussion) to communicate to new
audiences
• Issue though around interpretation/
translation?
Ethics in Photovoice
• Discussion throughout re ethical issues: including relationship with others
they photograph
• Often used with children or others less comfortable with writing/talking:
but Are all young people skilled creators?(technical issues/ issues around
‘being creative’)
• Informed consent and anonymity with images/ voice/ art work?
• Need to ask questions about how ‘empowering’ they are
• Process and product – managing the roles of artists/ makers and children
• may risk narrowing/ aestheticizing reality
• Photos are re-presentations
Examples of Photovoice research
• Noora Pyrry: hanging out in urban spaces
• Jo Cross: older people and aesthetic experience
• School ethos and creativity research
• Researching room 13 research
Hanging out,
urban spaces and
‘dwelling with’
Noora pyyry
Photography as a multisensory embodied
practice
• Conducted own themed photowalks (researcher then girls): engaging
with the city, directing the senses to the ongoing and the everyday
• Importance of the event of the walk not only the end product: photos
though can serve as fieldnotes
• What effects the event of the photography? (sounds, scents,
memories)
• creative potential of both the practice of taking photographs and the
event of ‘ thinking with’ them in a ‘situated’ conversation.
• Photography and everyday practice of young people
• ‘dwelling with’: opening up taken for granted places and things
School ethos and
creativity research
Helen Manchester and Sara Bragg
School ethos and creativity
• ‘ethos’ is a tricky thing to research/ get hold of
• Intangible aspects – the ‘felt realities’ of school
• Multiple perspectives: children and young people, lunchtime
organisers, teachers, artists, teaching assistants
• Walk and talk methods, photovoice eg take a photo showing
relationship with teachers, with other children, something you like/
dislike in the school
Jo Cross: Older people and
Aesthetic experience
Aims/ methods
To engage aesthetic theory in the consideration of:-
• Older people’s autonomy, identity management and vulnerability to
change in the life course.
• Power differentials, dehumanisation and neglect in the meeting of
needs.
• Care as a creative process
• Sample: 31 older residents of a U.K. city.
• Qualitative research tools: In-depth interviews and auto-generated
photo-elicitation or written reflections based on 9 themes.
Starting Points for Photography, Reflections and Interview
Schedule
[Link] best thing
about getting up in 2. Something I have to
the morning. put up with.
3. Something I consider
4. This makes me angry. to be beautiful.
5. What caring is all
about.
............./………..
6. A place that warms 7. A Luxury.
my heart.
8. This anchors me. 9. A life-long passion
or interest.
Debbie Watson and helen Manchester
with children and artists from room 13
Researching room
13 with room13
Documentation and
observation
• Looking at how room 13 children and artists
might better document and reflect on their
own practice
• Visited another site and took photos and
observations
• Understanding another setting/place in
order to reflect on their own
• Noticing things often taken for granted
Activity: Photovoice
Go out and take pictures that illustrate your experience of studying for
a Masters. Take a number of photos which might include:
• a photo that represents how you feel about your study
• a photo of something that illustrates how you perceive your
relationship to the university
• a photo that helps to illustrate your relationship with your peers
• a photo that illustrates how you perceive your relationship with your
supervisor
• a photo that illustrates your relationship with digital technologies
during your studies
Take photographs following Jo’s ideas:
• The best thing about getting up in the morning
• Something I have to put up with
• This makes me angry
• Something I consider to be beautiful
• A place that warms my heart
• A luxury
• This anchors me
• A lifelong passion or interest
Or…
express your experience of the city as a
researcher interested in creative methods
Reflection
• Share your photos and discuss with each other
• What have you learnt about using creative methods?
• About research design?
• about ethics?
• About the benefits of using creative methods?
• About the possible problems with creative methods?
Conclusion
• Remember ethics!
• Choice of methods needs to be made in relation to your research
design ie your research questions, your theory/literature and your
participants
• You will need to justify your methods choice explaining advantages
and disadvantages
• Remember to account for yourself too when making research design
decisions
• Remember to pilot your methods
References
• Bragg, Sara (2011). ”Now it’s up to us to interpret it”: ’youth voice’ and
visual methods. In: Thomson, Pat and Sefton-Green, Julian eds.
Researching Creative Learning: Methods and Issues. London and New York:
Routledge, pp. 88–103.
• Clark, Alison and Moss, P (2001). Listening to young children: the Mosaic
approach. London: National Children's Bureau for the Joseph Rowntree
Foundation.
• Pink, S. (2009) Doing Sensory Ethnography. London: Sage
• Porter, S. [Link]
• Pyyry, N. (2015) Hanging out with young people, urbanspaces and ideas
Openings to dwelling, participation and thinking. Department of Teacher
Education University of Helsinki
• Tangible Memories
