What is it about?
Drawings are employed by qualitative researchers in many creative ways, and in many different contexts, and a variety of different terms are used to describe similar techniques. I provide here a concise description of two basic approaches to integrating participants’ produced drawings into verbal qualitative research interviews, along with characteristic cases of empirical research demonstrating how these approaches have been applied. I also compiled a list of best practices.
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Why is it important?
Exploring the complexity of the human experience requires sophisticated methods that allow for a dialogue to emerge between the different communication modalities, like the oral and the visual. Drawings constitute data per se that can be analyzed on its own. However, the combined use of both the visual and the verbal reduces the possibility of misinterpreting either data set during the analysis and enhances data quality and validity.
Perspectives
My conception of the “ideal” qualitative interview is based on my psychotherapeutic and constructivist epistemological background. I think of the interview as an authentic encounter between humans, in which the underlying purpose of the interaction is honored and respected by the researcher. I assign the highest priority to respecting and valuing the participant as a human being, and establishing “authentic-not-gimmick” rapport. When an authentic relationship exists between the researcher and the participant, a meaningful dialogue can emerge that will produce rich qualitative data for further analysis. But the production of data is secondary to the human encounter, the communication, and the relationship that permeates the interview: the process determines the outcome.
Alexios Brailas
Hellenic Open University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Using Drawings in Qualitative Interviews: An Introduction to the Practice, The Qualitative Report, December 2020, Nova Southeastern University,
DOI: 10.46743/2160-3715/2020.4585.
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