MAPPING THE RESEARCH JOURNEY - MY RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
4.4 Data gathering methods
4.4.1 Visual methods
Visual data is a broad category that includes a variety of methods. Concerning its conceptualisation, visual comes from a Latin word, visus, meaning sight. Visual data are thus pieces of non-textual information that “include drawings, photographs, videotapes, and other graphic information that are primarily observed through the sense of sight” (Carnes, 2009, p.79). For some scholars, “anything we see, watch or look at counts as a visual image” (Cohen et al., 2011, p.528). Visual data are produced either by the participants or the researcher or in a collaborative manner. In
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educational research, most of the drawings are produced by the research participants (Banks, 1995; Bishop, 2006). Sometimes visual images are preferable to written words because they are present in many locations and people are used to reading them. In addition, this method is preferred because,
images evoke deeper elements of human consciousness that [sic] do words;
exchanges based on words alone utilize less of the brain’s capacity than do exchanges in which the brain is processing images as well as words. These may be some of the reasons the photo elicitation interview seems like not simply an interview process that elicits more information, but rather one that evokes a different kind of information (Harper, 2002, p.13).
Images bear a truth which has to be understood by the producer and the viewers alike (Holm, 2008). Visual methods help researchers to discover the conclusions, truth or emotions that are usually left uncovered by other methods (Packard, 2008;
Kearney, 2009). They can also be used to facilitate the beginning of a discussion on a sensitive topic and increase the dialogue between the researcher and the participant (Carnes, 2009; Cohen et al., 2011). However, some authors have underestimated the role of visual methods in research considering them, for instance, as a distraction. Additionally they are also underutilized due to a lack of skills to do so (Bishop, 2006; Woolner, Clark, Hall, Tiplady, Thomas & Wall et al., 2010). In this research I adopted two types of visual research methods namely:
drawings and photographs coupled with semi-structured interviews. In the case of the latter this was done to minimise possible misinterpretation.
Drawings
Semantically, a drawing is a picture or image that is created by making lines on a surface with a pencil, pen, marker, chalk but usually not with paint (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drawing). There is a range of studies using drawing either to test learners’ intelligence or to facilitate data gathering on individual emotions (Bishop, 2006; Clark, 2011; Kearney, 2009; Özden, 2009;
Woolner et al., 2010). In this research, drawings were used for gathering data related to teachers’ emotions during their first encounters with the topic related to the Genocide. Drawings also aimed at talking about other emotions related to other controversial issues related to the Genocide. Thus, drawings served to communicate about some ideas about discrete concepts than written answers (Bishop, 2006;
Özden, 2009).
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In order to allow participants to talk more freely and to reveal some insights that could not be achieved by another method (Banks, 2007), the participants in my research were given an A4 size paper and a pen and pencil to create any drawing representing their experience of teaching the Genocide and its related controversial issues in history. I told the participants that the objective was not to test their drawing skills rather the meaning behind their depictions of their teaching experiences (Bishop, 2006). The participants were not given a blank-page accompanying the drawing to help them to make more comments by responding to open-ended questions (Bishop, 2006). I was convinced that it should be better to get spontaneous explanations from the participants instead of asking them to write their answers to increase their participation rate. Therefore, the participants were also notified that after drawing, I was going to ask some questions related to their meaning of the depiction. At the beginning, some participants were asking if they could draw an object or a person. I explained to them that it depended on their experience and how the drawing reflected their experience. Always at the start, the participants were reluctant to draw but when the activity was clearly explained they enjoyed the exercise which was somehow fun for them (Özden, 2009; Punch, 2002).
During the process, most of the participants kept explaining what they were doing without waiting till the end of the exercise to discuss the drawing. Thus, this activity of drawing helped the participants to focus on their depictions not on the sensitivity of the topic under research. In addition, coupled with interviews, drawing gave power to the participants because they drew and described their depiction and in so doing they took the lead in explaining their images (Bishop, 2006). The drawing task was completed in between five and seven minutes.
Alongside the decrease of the sensitivity of the topic, another power of drawings as a research method is their capacity to increase the participants’ response rates as Meyer (1991) noticed. One scholar mentions that the participants in his study completed the research diagram but 1 out of 22 failed to return an accompanying questionnaire meaning that 21 did the research diagram (Kearney, 2009). In my case, only one participant had hesitated to make a drawing and preferred to orally explain his experience of teaching the Genocide and its related controversial issues.
Apparently, he did not understand the reason for drawing his experience. When he received more explanations that it was a way of facilitating us to discuss our topic, he
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decided to produce his drawing. In this research, most of the participants completed their drawings easily and quickly. They were happy to draw and to explain what they were doing. The enjoyment the participants expressed in drawing is close to Özden’s (2009) conclusion that some participants may see drawings as more accurate than writing answers or presenting them orally. Thus, participants who may be unable to express themselves clearly through verbal means got another chance to do it through a drawing (Punch, 2002).
Despite the mentioned advantages of drawings, this data gathering method has some shortcoming because understanding a concept is different from drawing it accurately (Özden, 2009). In my study, the participants were informed that drawing skills were not the most important factor, rather the meaning behind the depictions was. Other scholars raised the issue of the potential for misinterpretation and misanalysis in relation to research standards, and/or incorrectly attributing emotions or actions to certain drawings (Bishop, 2006; Clark, 2011, Kearney, 2009). Some participants’ drawings such as a mountain with grasses and a branch of a tree with one leaf were difficult to interpret. To sort out the risk of misinterpretation, the drawing was followed by an interview whereby the participants were encouraged to explain the meaning behind their drawings. As participants produced the drawings themselves, it was a way of accessing their feelings, emotions and views in terms of data for the research. In addition, the experience showed that the participants provide the true meaning of a drawing (Kearney, 2009). Therefore, this kind of
‘drawing interviewing’ in my study was a way of avoiding misinterpretations of the participants’ drawings (Johnson & Christensen, 2008). As Carnes (2009) expounds drawings were a good entrance point into the interviewing process that allowed the participants to talk in a friendly way about their experiences of teaching the Genocide and its related controversial issues and how their experience grew.
The second research step, also visual in nature, was to present the participants with some photographs and to allow them to choose those they deemed suitable to the teaching of the Genocide and its related controversial issues. The participants also had to explain how they would use the photographs in a classroom setting. The following sub-section serves to unpack this visual method.
171 Photo elicitation
A photograph is a representation of reality, not a direct encoding of it and therefore subject to the influences of the social, cultural and historical contexts of production and utilisation (Banks, 1995). In other words, a photograph is interpreted in the culture of the participants not the photographed thus “the act of seeing is inherently subjective” (Packard, 2008, p.68). Basically put, “photo elicitation is based on the simple idea of inserting a photograph into a research interview” (Harper, 2002, p.13).
In this research, photographs were inserted in my interviews as a support for conducting the interviews (Flick, 2009; Harper, 2002; Packard, 2008). In the process of photo-elicitation, the participants themselves can take photographs and thereafter write their analytical thinking. Another approach of using photo-elicitation allows the researcher to ask the participants some questions about photographs taken by others (Bach, 2007). I used the second approach by asking questions to the participants on their experiences of teaching the Genocide and its related controversial issues by means of photographs taken by other persons as I did for the drawings, by asking the participants questions instead of writing, as I wanted to increase the response rates.
The selected photographs helped the participants to talk more freely about their teaching methods, content and more difficult issues. In other words, photographs were used as a means to allow the participants to remember their professional activities and to explore and engage with the Genocide which is a sensitive topic, by bringing out a range of data that would be difficult to otherwise produce (Harper, 2002; Motalingoane-Khau, 2010). Moreover, chosen photographs helped to understand which images should be shared by learners in Rwandan secondary schools in order to create distance from or empathy with learners. Therefore, those photographs also helped to identify when it is ethically justifiable to share photographs of another person or event in a moment of vulnerability (Kienzler, 1997;
Papademas, 2004; Perry & Marion, 2010).
In view of using photo-elicitation, I selected 22 photographs from the internet in line with various aspects related particularly to the history of Rwanda including the roots of the Genocide such as the traditional relationship, ethnographic photographs taken during the colonial power and the clash of the presidential plane. Specifically
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photographs were also related to the Genocide process and included aspects such as different actors in the Genocide, weapons used in the tragedy and the consequences (See Appendix D). The selection was mainly guided by the literature on controversial issues in the history of Rwanda (Gasanabo, 2010; Nkusi, 2004) and key aspects on teaching the Genocide against the Tutsi as stated in the 2008 and 2010 history curricula (National Curriculum Development Centre, 2008; 2010). The participants were given five minutes to have a look at selected photographs and to choose five of them they thought are related to their teaching of the Genocide and its related controversial issues. The selection helped to identify common and key aspects in the teaching of the Genocide. The participants also explained how some of the selected photographs, or others which are similar but not used in this research, are used to teach the Genocide and its related controversial issues. Most of the participants were eager to choose more photographs or requested to add one or two more and I authorised them to do so to avoid the participants’ frustration.
For a given historical context, the participants were allowed more than one photograph. As with other visual methods, photographs show persons or events that have passed. Thus, photographs enhanced the possibilities of conventional empirical research and helped the participants to evoke their feelings and memories in line with the depiction (Harper, 2002; Packard, 2008). In the process of photo interviewing, I moved from the objects in the photo to what the objects in the photo mean (Harper, 1986), in order to allow the participants to talk mainly about the main aspects taught in the Genocide and its related controversial issues. Thus, what is in the photo guided me to draw conclusions about the participants’ views towards their educational practices (Flick, 2009).