Methods Matter Podcast – Visual and Creative Methods

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Hello, and welcome to the Methods Matter Podcast from Dementia Researcher and the National Center for Research Methods.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

In this series, we’re looking at five different research methods with a method expert and a dementia researcher that is experienced in putting the method into practice. Today, you’re going to need your glasses and headphones because we’re looking at visual and creative methods.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

I’m Dr. Donncha Mullin. I’m a clinical research fellow at University of Edinburgh, and I’m delighted to be your host. Trying to learn what’s hot and what’s not in the world of research methodology to improve my own work.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Back in the studio, we have our expert-in-residence, Dr. Kahryn Hughes. And in Research Ranch, we have a great guest who, for those of you with good memories will recognize from a previous show, Dr. Sarah Campbell.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Hello, and thanks for joining us.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Hi.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

Hi, lovely to be here.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Hello. Lovely to have you along. Now, to introduce you properly, Kahryn is an associate professor at University of Leeds, Director of the Timescapes Archive, Editor-in-chief of the BSA Sociological Research Online, and senior fellow at the National Center for Research Methods. She has extensive knowledge of research methodology and has even authored books on the topic. Tell us where to buy your books, Kahryn.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

AbeBooks, UK, is a fantastic bookseller website. ABA, you get great first- and secondhand books at good prices.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

All right. Do you make as much money from selling firsthand as secondhand books?

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

I make no money out of it.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Oh, no.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

No. The-

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Should I-

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

… [inaudible 00:01:40] make nothing. No.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Oh, no. Well, I’m altering my plans for the future, my future career.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Okay. Next, we come to Sarah, Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, teaching on their integrated health and social care program. Prior to this role, Sarah worked as a researcher for 11 years within the Dementia and Ageing Research Team at University of Manchester, led by Professor John Keady.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Her main research focus in recent years has been within dementia and ageing. This included work on neighborhoods and dementia program and finding creative ways to go about her research.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Sarah, I did a sneak peek at your Twitter feed before the show, and I was delighted to be rewarded with my favorite kind of content, cats, and dogs. Just how many pets do you have, and what are they called? Let’s make them famous.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

I’ve only got two pets, but a dog and a cat. And my dog is called Sammy, and my cat is called Maude, so-

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Very nice.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

And then, and I have shut them out of this space today, so they don’t interrupt because they can definitely get in the way.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Wow, brilliant. Well, that’s the ice broken. Let’s get on with the show.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

So, what do I know? We begin each podcast with me giving a summary of what I understand of the method we’re discussing, which of course today is visual and creative methods without the need for Specsavers.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

I would guess this is a new methodology. My first thought is that this could be about using things like photographs, videos, films, maybe even things like smells to inspire a reaction, and then perhaps exploring how different images affect people.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

In dementia, of course, we know that music and things like reminiscence therapy through pictures have been very popular. However, I have to admit, I did cheat a little and check online and a basic look through the NCRM website seemed to return lots of information on visualizing research. So, I may have got this entirely wrong.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Kahryn, give us the lowdown because I get the feeling, I may be completely off track.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Well, visualizing research tends more towards the presentation of research data and findings, so it might be maps or graphs or illustrations, particularly of statistical data. But the visual methods we’re going to talk about today are more about forms of research engagement rather than data presentation. So, we might use visual methods to elicit accounts from participants, such as through photo voice, where people take photos of things that were important to them or photo elicitation, where images are brought into research interactions by the researchers to act as prompts to dialogue. And a good example of this is in the work of Dr. Anna Tarrant in her research with men in low-income context.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

We might use visual methods such as films, scenes, or animations. They’d be created by participants to express their experiences from their own perspectives. So, if you think about children, which works really, really well because they might not have a very sophisticated vocabulary with which to describe their lived experience.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

But if you ask them to write a song, author a poem, or draw a picture or something like that, that they’re actually able to capture quite a lot of nuance and expression through those forms of engagement. So, visual methods in this way, where participants actually create visual outputs, are usually forms of collective endeavor where people work together through how they might express their ideas or what sort of stories they’d like to tell.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

And a really good example that I didn’t encourage anyone to go have a look at is the project by Professor Helen Lomax at the University of Huddersfield, where she’s done research with children on their experiences of living through COVID. And she’s done whole range of things. And there were all sorts of animations with songs written by children and the animations. Some of them were by the children themselves. It’s very, very lovely.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

So those two approaches involve like a form of data of research production, where you produce visual materials, and those materials can also… A form of research data for the researchers to analyze and make sense of. And then we might create films with, or of, or about participants to tell their tales to others. So, a really good example of that might be filming young refugees’ experiences of hostel life when they have entered the UK over a period of time.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

But then, visual methods, you might use visual methods like photography or film or sound scapes, so those aren’t visual creative methods such as sound scapes of particular social settings. And so, I’m sure Sarah’s going to talk about this a little bit later. So visual methods are really, really good for ethnographic research and research that’s driven by methods of observation.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Wonderful. Kahryn, thank you for that introduction. It seems to me that this isn’t so much separate methods of itself, but that there are various techniques within it. Is that a fair assumption?

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Absolutely. And, more broadly, to fit with today’s podcast, is that visual methods often sit within a group of methodologies that we describe as creative methods. So, creative is not only referring to how people might create things as part of their research such as, for example, through the use of modeling clay. As I mentioned before, [inaudible 00:07:50], animations, illustrations, other sorts of images, but also refer to how researchers might be creative in engaging with people in order that they facilitate. They give them the best chance to describe their lives as they themselves are living it.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

So this is all, I think, a key shared aspect of all these methodologies is that they’re trying to serve what we describe as a democratization agenda, which is around democratizing the researcher-researched relationship and the intentions of research so that the interests that both researchers may have participants may have, are sort of equally served through research engagement.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

I love that. I love that. That’s something that I often hear talked about and I strive for, but it’s really difficult to do in certain types of research program, that democratization that leveling of the sort of the power structure in research. So that’s fantastic to hear that this is a one way of doing it.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

You’ve mentioned certain things, and I imagine it’s one of the hard parts of this is trying to limit yourself, your approach, because it seems there’s so many different creative approaches you can take. But, overall, are these hard methods to use?

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Well, no. And the point of these is that some of these strategies that you use are not difficult. Say, for example, photo voice, where you encourage people to take photographs of their lives. So, for example, in research on poverty, so Anna Tarrant’s research, a powerful image was of a phone bill or electricity bill that had arrived. And what that meant was that the parent, a single dad, was having to choose between food or a heating. Just this simple image expressed these broader dynamics in someone’s life. And taking a photo is a really simple thing. We do it all the time. If we have smartphone technology, for example, that a lot of our life and our life worlds have increasingly become, I think, orientated to visual forms of representation.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

So, if you think for young people, doing research with young people without using visual methods, I think, is missing out on a significant aspect of what it means to be young in today’s world, engaged where part of your life is spent on social media.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

That’s so true. We’re going to talk to Sarah in a moment of her experience of using this method, but are there any key papers, other than the one you mentioned, that you can think of to highlight for people using this? And are there any other challenges to using this method?

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Yeah, it’s hugely time-consuming. It’s very expensive. So, if you’re needing to provide cameras or film things and go through production, that’s quite challenging.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

The other thing is, is that there are a lot of enhanced ethical concerns around using visual methods. So, for example, if you’re asking children to depict their everyday lives, you really are entering into the life worlds of children. And not only does that require special consideration and thought, but also how might you manage, for example, questions of anonymity or confidentiality where images endure. So, if it’s images of the children or of the children’s family that they have taken that are digitized in any way, that those images we know can endure indefinitely.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

So, there were all of those sorts of things, and there’s another aspect as well. And again, I think Helen Lomax is really great here, is that she talks about the politics of letting go. Because the images that people take, and that they describe in certain ways, and that researchers understand in certain ways, two different audiences in different situations at different times may be taken up and read in very different ways.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

So, it might well be the images that were hugely well-intentioned in one context of young working-class girls, for example, might be misappropriated in other more sensationalized context, and be used to support narratives of poverty porn, for example. So that’s… It’s those challenges.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

And then, the tougher question maybe is how do you overcome those challenges or say, for that last example, have you ever seen any paper that tried it, an approach to overcome these difficulties?

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Well, that is the paper by Janet Fink and Helen Lomax. And that paper is called Sharing Images and Spoiling Meanings. And the fuller title is Class, Gender, and Ethics in Visual Research with Girls. So that, absolutely, is a really important paper, I think, for people to go and have a look up. But it fits with a much broader literature on, for example, how you might depict ethnicity or age or illness or poverty or mental ill health, those sorts of things. Because images have the capacity to fit in and support quite problematic, stereotypical narratives. And often, they’re used in research or produced in research to resist precisely those narratives of what happens if, inadvertently, they’re misappropriated further down the line. And so, that’s an excellent paper of picking up on those sorts of challenges.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

I look forward to checking it out.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Yeah.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

We’re going to talk to Sarah in a moment of her experience of using this method. And you have mentioned a few key papers about the method, but are there any key papers that you can think of that are a good example of using visual and creative methods?

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

I think a book that I can suggest, which is a generalist overview, and that’s by Gillian Rose. And she wrote Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials. And so, that’s a really great example of how… That’s a good start, and I’ve got some more that I’ll suggest at the end as well.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Okay. Brilliant. And a reminder, they’ll be in the show notes at the end.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Yeah.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Now, Sarah, can you tell us about your research things that you discovered, how you found it?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

Yeah, certainly. So today, I’m talking about a study called Neighborhoods, Our People, Our Places, and this was a study that was funded through the National Institute for Health Research and for Economic and Social Research Council, part of a wider study called Neighborhoods and Dementia, which had within a eight work packages and were led by Professor John Keady at the university of Manchester.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

And so, our work package, Neighborhoods, Our People, Our Places, was interested in the role of neighborhoods in the lives of people living with dementia. And it was interested in how neighborhoods either facilitate or disable people’s everyday lives. And we were particularly interested in the idea of neighborhoods starting from, not the threshold of the home, but from within the home for our participants. So, we had a number of different types of creative methods. And the method that I particularly want to focus on today is a home tour method.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

So, we were asking participants to show us their homes. And we were doing this either by recording their tour of the homes through video capturing, using a camcorder, or if participants didn’t want that, we were doing it by audio recording and taking photographs around the home. So, we were inspired by the work of anthropologist Sarah Pink, and she’s an ethnographer, a sensory ethnographer. And we were particularly interested in this method because it would allow us to think about the kind of sensory and bodily aspects of home as people moved through their homes, showing us their homes. And we were trying to sort of elicit narratives of the home, for people living with dementia, from their perspectives. So, we were interested in what was important about home, and how home life might have changed because of dementia. We were interested in the kind of things that people did at home.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

And we were kind of using the spaces that people were in to elicit these kinds of stories, narratives, and memories. And so, we found that sort of discussions about the place or the room that we were in would sometimes lead to us thinking about broader meanings of homes. So, for example, one participant told us when we were in the kitchen about the fact that they no longer really took part in cooking in the way that they once had. But then, they also opened a cupboard and showed us all these baking accoutrements and baking tools that they then described how they still carried out baking with their grandchildren. So, we started to learn through this discussion, through being in this space, about their continued relationship with their grandchildren, their role, as a grandparent. We also learned about loss from them talking about the things that they were no longer able to do. So, in a way, the home kind of became a sort of third actor in the conversation that we were having with our participants.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

That’s brilliant. I love that idea of the home as a third actor. I suppose that was an important insight to move away from what lots of people would think their neighborhood is the area outside their home and the street outside their home, or their neighbors, but to see that the neighborhood begins from within the home as well.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Did you find much resistance to that idea or when you read about that idea, is it generally widely accepted that the neighborhood is within the home, that it begins within the home?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

Prior to the project beginning, we’d carried out a literature review, actually, around neighborhoods and dementia. And yeah, the home, the neighborhood, very much was described as beginning outside of the home, as you’ve just said, being the sort of threshold to the neighborhood once you left, shut that front door, and were outside.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

But what was particularly interesting about our research, and about the findings from our research, is this interrelationship between neighborhood and home. And in particular, when doing the home tours, what we would… We weren’t necessarily just staying in the home. For example, we would go into gardens and backyards, but also people were talking to us about the views from their home. They were talking about what they could see from outside the window. And so, the connection to neighborhood was something that was much more fluid than just beginning once you left the home.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

And I can imagine that relationship was even more important. That home, as a third partner, has an even bigger role during lockdown when people were stuck in their home, and their only experience of the neighborhood was through their window for quite a while there.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

You mentioned a couple of techniques like video capturing, or failing that, audio, and photography. Did you find that you had to adapt anything to accommodate this work involving people with dementia?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

Yeah. Thank you. That’s a really good question. I suppose some of it wasn’t so much about adapting as kind of the underpinning premise that we were interested in the meaning of home to our participants. So not necessarily in the accuracy of things that they described to us as we were walking around the home, or of naming objects correctly, or even remembering what something meant in the correct way. We were interested in what stimulated participants as meaningful to them, and what they chose to tell us or show us themselves about their homes.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

And we were very mindful though, as you know, that people didn’t necessarily want to be captured on film. So those participants were the ones that chose, maybe for us not to document via camcorder and to use the audio recording, and to take photographs as we moved around the home.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

But, actually, we found that participants, what’s important in terms of working with people living with dementia, and these kinds of methods, and I think referring back to really what Kahryn has said around democratizing the process, and giving access to people, using stimuli, a movement around the home was a way of enabling people to tell their stories in situ, show us what they did around their homes, rather than just tell us. So, it was a method that, actually, rather than it was very useful for people living with dementia, to be able to not just rely on kind of verbal storytelling, but to show us things and point to things as well. Yeah. So, I think it’s these kinds of methods can be very helpful at including people.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

That’s such a lovely, clear example of that democratization, the leveling of the playing field between researcher and participant, instead of the usual of the researcher going with the questions that are all prepared, and then going with that power dynamic and getting the answers that the researcher wants, it’s sort of going to the participants saying, “What would you like to show me? And then I’ll do with that what I will, and what I can. Fascinating.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

What are the main legacies, or what is the main legacy of the work that you’ve done so far?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

Of a project house we have written quite a lot of papers from the work. And recently, we’ve had a book published through Policy Press. It’s Dementia and Place: Practices, Experiences and Connections. But we’ve also been keen to use for work in more localized ways. It was a multicenter study. So, the study took place in the Forth Valley in Scotland, in Greater Manchester in England, and also in Östergötland in Sweden.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

So, each of the sites have done quite a lot of localized intervention work. So, in Sterling there’s been a project that’s continued on, which has been creating links with local organizations, businesses, and dementia support groups. And in Greater Manchester, we’ve been involved in work using the work to support local evaluations and also to support kind of local organizations in the way that they were coming up with kind of projects to create more dementia-inclusive neighborhoods.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

And later on, this year, we are planning to submit a paper on these home tours. And we’re also involved in work with colleagues in France, exploring how policy and legislation works in practice to support everyday lives. And we’re also trying to develop new work around these areas as well. So, there’s…

Dr Donncha Mullin:

That’s fantastic. What a proud legacy to have, and what sounds like a lot of impacts and a lot of improvements and benefit to a lot of people. So, congratulations.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

We mentioned earlier, and I know from your bio that you like to try various creative processes, and you’ve mentioned a couple already, so far, such as audio recording or video and photography. What other creative methods have you tried?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

Well in this project as a whole, we use lots of different creative methods. So, we, as well as the video home tours, and the photography home tour, we also carried out walking interviews with participants. So, with people living with dementia and their family carers, sometimes, we would go on a bit like the home tour, but we’d go on a walk around the neighborhood. We didn’t video-record that, but we audio-recorded and took photographs. So, we asked people to show us places around their neighborhood, their local area, where they went. We also carried out participatory network mapping interviews. So, a bit like that other kind of visual method that Kahryn mentioned around producing something. So, family care has produced these diagrams of their social networks. So, within this study, we’ve done quite a lot of different methods in order to try and involve and include people.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

But in other projects that I’ve worked on, I mean, I’ve used visual methods quite a lot in another previous study funded by the Economic Social Research Council. I also worked on a project called The Hair and Care Project, colloquially known as that, where we used video data collection. It was an ethnographic study, but we carried out in care homes, day centers and hospital wards, dementia specialist dementia units, where we video-recorded hairdressing activities. And we were looking particularly at the role of appearance through the lens of care-based hairdressing. So that was we did lots of different types of film-recording for that.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

And, actually less, I suppose, in terms of a method, but in terms of my analysis in my PhD work, which was around atmospheres of dementia care, I actually, in many ways, did quite traditional field notes and observations of in-care settings. But I tried to use a sensory and embodied narrative analysis to look at how the sensors were, and sort of bodies were kind of telling stories and involved in productions of atmospheres.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Wow. Okay. That sounds like a huge variety. It must be so fascinating to work in that area rather than have honed one specific technique at doing a genetic analysis, and just doing that over and over, but to try all these different things. And that sounds fascinating. It sounds amazing.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Is it an area that you’d recommend to other budding researchers to use these creative methods?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

Yeah, I mean, definitely. I think it is very much as, as Kahryn has said, around thinking about the participants that you’re working with, and how can you adapt methods and work with people in a way that enables them to be able to have their voices heard or to tell the stories their own in their own way? And so, I think kind of privileging sort of verbal storytelling when you’re working with people who might have cognitive impairment, who might have aphasia may not be able to use words in the same way as they once did. It’s really important to find other ways to reach people’s experiences. And so, that’s what’s driven the kind of methods that I’ve been involved in using really, finding other ways to include people in the research.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

So now we have a description of what the method is, and an example of how it has been used. Let’s get into the detail and provide some top tips for anyone who’s new to using this method.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

In this segment, I’m going to ask some quick straightforward questions to both guests on how to put method into practice.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Kahryn, the first ones are for you, and I’m keeping a timer on it today. Question 1, how does someone prepare to use these types of methods, and how on earth do you code or analyze the data that you get from it?

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Well, it depends which method you’re going to go for, because it may be that you need specialist equipment, for example.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

There’s a whole set of pragmatic considerations of the use of visual methodology that you probably wouldn’t have with interview methodology. Often with interviews, you go in, you need some means of recording, and it’s often quite sad. But with visual methods, there’s a lot of that sort of pragmatic planning and testing and researching before you even implement any sort of approach.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

And how do you code or analyze visual data? I mean, I think that’s the other thing. It depends on what it is that you’re looking for. And that, I seem to be saying the same in quite a lot of the podcasts, “How do we analyze these data? Well, what do you want to find out?” But I think it’s exactly the same set of questions, which is so thinking about Sarah’s examples of your research, Sarah, when you’re saying, “Well, people were talking about how they do and don’t use their homes.” And I absolutely agree with you. I think homes [inaudible 00:29:39], and the idea that somehow that they’re not, which is what happened during COVID, I think that’s what COVID illustrated is quite a problematic set of assumptions. But then, not only checking who may or may not be coming in for of visual capture, but how people using different equipment, that it, you said, gives insight into people’s relationships, and which ones they can sustain over which periods, and in which circumstances.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

So, I think one of the things about visual methods is that we’re using them in order to get a view from somewhere, which is not our view. And that is often why we’re trying to use these sorts of methodologies. So how, and what we analyze for has to be part of a sort of iterative dialogic process as part of our analysis. What is it? What did we, in effect, see or hear or encounter through the use of either visual or more creative methodologies? For example, the people who are visually impaired or have challenges in that area.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

But ultimately, we’re often engaged in research for a particular set of purposes that we’ve identified prior to the research, even if that’s been with the participants. So, our analysis will inevitably always be shaped by the sorts of overall intentions of that, the research study, however those have been formulated.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Okay. So, the key thing I’m taking is that these methods, these creative and visual methods, are excellent at getting information from the viewpoint of the participant.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Yeah.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

What other methodologies would you find that these techniques are particularly complimentary to use alongside?

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Well, Sarah’s mentioned some, so you’ve talked about participant mapping, walking methods. So, methodologies that we might also describe as immersive or situated, where what we’re trying to get a sense of is, who is where, when, why with whom, and in which ways? And so, you might want to combine a whole range. Sarah’s used the language of sensory methodology. So sound scapes, for example, might be a really a good way of beginning to build up quite a layered account.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

One area that I mentioned right at the beginning, which was around using visual methods in order to depict people’s experiences in order to present them to others. So, the film might only be part of an overall research program, which may well have involved a lot of consultation. So how do you use methods in order to express to others? So, you might want to use a whole bundle of methods in order to understand what needs to be depicted, what needs to be illustrated, or demonstrated, or filmed as well.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

So, I think, commonly, in any research, we use lots of different sorts of data, always combining different data, whether that’s existing literature, existing evidence, conversations with gatekeepers, observations that we’ve made ourselves, discussions in research teams, and things like that.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

So, yeah. So visual methods will, I think, always be part of a panoply of methods in a research study.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Brilliant. One thing I haven’t heard a huge amount about is technologies that are used with, other than say with the photography and recording equipment.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Yeah.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Do you think the modern world is starting to link this with the AI or facial recognition or anything like that?

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

That’s a really interesting question, actually, Donncha, because I think what we’re beginning to talk about when we’re moving in that direction is a sort of a landscape of visual capture and visual analysis or visual capture at a remove. So we’re rather than this up close and personal interventions that Sarah and I have been talking about so far, where you are really engaging with people in ways that allow them to express the most personal aspects of their lives, things like AI and the use of images that have perhaps been captured more remotely is, I think, often for quite different research purposes, but nevertheless might be really interesting in… So as community research, if what we’re using are the sort of recorded capture of neighborhoods, and we’re able to observe certain sorts of, for example, traffic or the movement or when neighborhoods are busy, when they’re quiet, who’s doing what, when, where, and sort of that aggregated view. So that’s an interesting one as well.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Amazing.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

It’s an interesting direction.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

It sure is. And you mentioned a few things. You have traffic noise or neighbor’s noise. Is there a repository you can think of where you can obtain different stimuli?

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Oh, endless. Genuinely. I mean, we’re absolutely drowning in them. So, if you think about the British libraries sound archive. The BBC has got it’s that history archive, the mass observations has got a mass of… Its endless projects and collections of visual and other sorts of data that absolutely capture a time and a situational or a moment in our collective social history.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

So, I think the challenge is much more around deciding what we’re going to actually sample, and where and why and when, and how actual much of it are we going to be using.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

So, yeah. I think that there are endless, endless and creative possibilities for working with existing archives and the [inaudible 00:36:13] in the UK.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

And visual materials. Yeah.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Okay. Now, Sarah, it’s your turn. Are you ready?

Dr Donncha Mullin:

What skills should someone work on developing who wants to use visual and creative methods? Someone like me, who’s not naturally particularly creative, would you warn me against these methods?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

No, I definitely wouldn’t. And I don’t think really, and technically, I don’t think you need to be massively skilled to use a camcorder or use a basic camera, but there are courses that you can do. I did actually do a course quite a while ago, but at the University of Manchester, as part of the Granada Center. I did do a training in filming for field work, but that… I mean, some of the people doing that kind of course might be looking to use to create their field work, make it into films as well, to use that as ethnographic filmmaking.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

But I think a lot of the skills are the kind of skills that you generally need in qualitative research. You need to be able to… It’s about relationships and trust. You’re asking, especially with these kinds of studies where we’re asking people to show us around their homes. And I think Kahryn already mentioned visual ethics. You really need to think about, if you’re going to have any skills, it’s more about thinking around those kinds of ethical considerations that you might need to look at, and be aware of, and think about, in terms of gathering visual data or working in this kind of way.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

So, I definitely think it’s something that anybody can try. And I think that you choosing your method has already, as well, Kahryn has said, is about what is it that you’re hoping to find out? What is the knowledge that you’re trying to produce? So that should always be the guide, I guess, to thinking about those methods that you choose.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

This maybe isn’t that relevant of a question, but I’m just so used to thinking like this, but how would you evaluate participants’ responses, the information that they gather?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

Well, I think it is actually a really interesting question because you might be able to imagine, sometimes when we were carrying out the home tours with people, we were really interested in the perspective of the person living with dementia. But sometimes family carers might be there, and family carers might sometimes want to correct a participant and tell us that the story they’re telling isn’t quite accurate, or they can’t, they’re not quite remembering what an object is in the right way. And I suppose we weren’t interested in that. We weren’t interested in the accuracy of a story. We were interested in what participants wanted to share with us, what they found meaningful. And, actually, what that also revealed to us that was quite important is that it’s easy to make assumptions that around kind of the importance of particular memorabilia or mementos around the home and how meaningful that might be for somebody but, actually, if somebody with dementia can’t remember what something is it doesn’t necessarily mean that the home isn’t still meaningful. And it was more important, sometimes, for a participant to tell us about the seat that they like to sit in to watch telly or to see out of the window than it was to remember a particular portrait that had been taken for an anniversary or for a birthday.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

And I would say as well, actually, coming back to, in terms of skill around some of those, the methods, thinking around kind of photo elicitation as well, it can be difficult if somebody doesn’t remember who somebody is in a photo, and they can become distracted by that. So, you have to, I suppose, in terms of a skill of the method as well, is about thinking how you can adapt that and get around these things that you’re not really interested i, what people can remember accurately, but you’re trying to see what feeling it provokes or what story it provokes.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Brilliant. Thank you so much.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Now, we touched on it with Karen about with AI and technology uses of this sort of approach but, in your experience, is this a methodology that lends itself better to smaller groups? Or do you think it can be used on a larger scale? I guess that depends on the actual method being applied, but for your experience.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

Well, I think, as already has been talked about as well, the thing about this using these kinds of methods are around the kind of timeframe and how much time they can take to use. So, I suppose that’s why sometimes kind of smaller samples, it can then be easier to manage the amount of data that you have to analyze, or it can take a… Going to do a home tour with somebody in their home, you can’t kind of come in and go out within an hour. You’re there for an extensive amount of time. So, I think that the constraints, practicalities, of these kinds of studies can mean that doing it on a larger scale can be more complex. But I suppose, with our study, it was a multi-site study. So, we were able to kind of scale up, I suppose, by collecting data in each of those sites using these methods.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

But yes, it’s not necessarily. It is a qualitative and timely endeavor, so…

Dr Donncha Mullin:

We talked about the ethics around having photographs and Helen Lomax has that sharing images that… the guide, which I’m definitely going to be checking out. Have you come across any other special considerations in relation to ethics when using various creative or visual methods?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

Yeah, I think there are lots of ethical considerations using visual methods but using them with people living with dementia in particular. So, thinking around people remembering what you’re there to do, people remembering what’s going to happen to the data afterwards. And so, for example, we were only asking people to consent to use it, to collecting the data for us to use in analysis, and that we wouldn’t be sharing any kind of identifiable data in presentations or papers, unless we had then gone back and received consent to do so. So, I think that that’s a really important consideration, what happens to the data, that sort of visual, identifying people and their homes. And also, family members within their homes, not just in terms of their presence, but if you are looking at photographs on the wall, and you’re videoing those, and you haven’t got permission to include those people in research. So, you have to think about all aspects of where that data’s going and who’s seeing it. But also, consideration some of those practical things that Kahryn was talking about around kind of collect… You can take up a lot of space with this kind of data. So, you’ve got to think about the storage. You have to think about how do you get the data from the camera to a secure computer system? How are you going to do that so that the data doesn’t become vulnerable?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

And I think, sort of… Yeah. I mean, ensuring that only people who’ve consented to take part are kind of involved, really, or people know what you are doing. So, yeah. Lots of different ethics to consider and to think about.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

So, it sounds like that would be a key thing that you would say to anybody thinking of using these methods. Are there other top tips for people who’d want to embark on a PhD or a career using visual and creative methods?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

I mean, for me, I guess you have to think about going to ethics committee, and what the ethical committee are going to think about the methods that you’re using. And some of what we found really important to do is to really provide as much information as possible about the kind of methods, what we were doing, how we would support people, how we would look after… I suppose the other thing is to remember that you are asking people to tell you… They’re in their personal spaces telling you, maybe, about loss and things that could be distressing. So, thinking about how you’re going to support the participant and yourself. And ethic committees very much want to know about these kinds of things. So I think we prepared, as well as our research protocol, we prepared ethics protocols as well, saying exactly how we would manage the data, how we would look after participants, kind of trying to think about all kinds of different practical things that could happen or things that could happen, things that you can’t prepare for as well, looking at those kinds.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

So, I think top tip is really preparing, really thinking through all of those aspects. And I suppose the other important element is something that we also included in our research, was that we did involve people living with dementia and family carers in the design of our methods and in piloting our methods. So, we worked with dementia support groups, visiting them, talking through our plans. So, I think really engaging with in public and patient participation or those kinds of aspects of the research is really important in preparing to do this kind of work.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Okay. Well, this is awesome. I’m already thinking of ways I could use this in my own research, and there are clearly so many different ways it could be used. So, let’s recap on what we have learned so far.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

So, we started by talking about how creative and visual methods like these are often a collective endeavor, and they tend to give people and participants the best chance to describe their experience of what it’s like from their point of view. And, in a way, it can lead to a democratization of the relationship between the participant and the researcher by giving a more level power balance between the two.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Visual and creative methods can often be complimentary to many other methods, particularly any immersive methods or trying to get a point of view across. And it’s really crucial that because of the many different ethical considerations with these methods that we give a lot of time and consideration to these in our applications prior to using it, and to prepare for many different ethical eventualities.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

So, in this final part of the show, we’re going to discuss common pitfalls, challenges, and how to avoid them. We’re going to whiz right through this.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Sarah, tell us what challenges did you come across that we haven’t already mentioned when you were delivering your research, and what might you do differently next time?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

I think, really, it is about how time-consuming it can be. And so, I think if anything, often analysis times get squeezed in research timetables. And I think I would’ve given more time for the analysis, especially this kind of data.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

And also, just to say that working with people living with dementia, to remember that capacity can change people. Their wellbeing, their wellness can fluctuate. So, thinking about how you build into the time scale, taking into account those kinds of considerations too.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Brilliant.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Kahryn, this is where I’d normally ask you about common pitfalls and how to avoid them. But I think we’ve managed to cover all these topics and the main points in our conversation so far. Do you agree?

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Absolutely. I think that we really have. And I think Sarah has given some fantastic examples of the sorts of concerns and challenges of using visual methods and creative methods more generally.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Great. Well, that brings us on to the final segment in which I’m going to give our expert, Kahryn, one minute to tell our listeners what they should go away and read to further their knowledge on this method.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Okay. So, anything by Helen Lomax. People might want to go to her project website at the University of Huddersfield to see what she’s been doing. And there’s some gorgeous, gorgeous examples of some of her work.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

There’s the Sage Visual Methods Collection by Jason Hughes, as well as the Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods by Luc Pauwels and Dawn Mannay.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Sarah’s already mentioned Sarah Pink. Sarah Pink’s website, she’s really into ethnography, but it’s absolutely jam-packed with all sorts of materials to do with different types of ethnographies, and a whole host of resources on visual methods.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

We’ve mentioned the Democratization Agenda, and it’s well worth going and having a look at the paper by Rosalind Edwards, and Tula Brannelly called Approaches to democratizing qualitative research methods.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

And I’m going to put a little plug in for Sociological Research Online, the journal of which I’m Editor-in-chief, because there’s been a team of us. We’ve developed, and we are now launching a brand-new publication format [inaudible 00:49:55] Sage and the BSA as part of sociological research online. And that’s called Beyond the Text. And it’s a publication format that is for properly creative outputs. It’s being launched at the British Sociological Association. The first inaugural special issue headed up by Helen Lomax. And as when it comes in, when it comes online, all of the creative pieces and outputs, films, scenes, poems, songs, whatever it is, are accompanied by a companion piece. And the companion piece outlines the reasons for the creative output, but also will give a sort of a potted history of the methodology and the ethical concerns around it. So, as that grows, that’s going to be a tremendous resource for anyone using visual or properly creative research methods.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

That sounds fantastic. I might just well replace my Netflix subscription going forward.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Sarah, did you have any other resources you wanted to add at this stage?

Dr Sarah Campbell:

I suppose I just wanted to say that Andrew Clark who’s talked on this previously, who led the program in Greater Manchester, he was like our methods expert really, and he’s written quite a lot about using visual methods as well, and walking interviews, and using creative methods. So, yeah. Professor Andrew Clark at the University of Salford, I’d plug his work and thank him for his guidance on supporting me to be a visual and creative researcher.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

Amazing. Well, thank you so much, both. I’m afraid that’s all we have time for today. So let me say an enormous thank you to our stupendous guests, the astounding Dr. Kahryn Hughes, and the inspiring Dr. Sarah Campbell.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

Thanks so much.

Dr Kahryn Hughes:

Thanks.

Dr Sarah Campbell:

It was lovely.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

It’s been great to have you here. Thank you so much to all our listeners.

Dr Donncha Mullin:

With the show notes, you’ll find links to all the resources mentioned by our guests. So please join us next time on the Methods Matter Podcast from Dementia Researcher and the National Institute for Research Methods.

END