From drawings to diagrams: maintaining researcher control during graphic elicitation in qualitative interviews

Abstract

Graphic elicitation, i.e. asking participants to draw, is an interview technique used to focus the interviewee on the given topic or gain extra meaning not covered verbally as part of the interview. This study analyses two interview contexts which included visual elicitation. It describes a successful example in which the researcher maintained control over the mode of the planned research task (diagram) as well as another example in which slippage occurred between the mode of the planned research task (drawing) and the resulting artefact (diagram). Through this analysis, strategies for maintaining researcher control over the mode of elicitation are identified, increasing our understanding about the theory and practice of both drawings and diagrams as two different modes of visual elicitation. The paper concludes that the required control does not necessarily comprise an increase in task structure (directing participants as to how to draw). Moreover, the subject and purpose of the task are equally important. Successful researcher control then comprises a careful balance between all the three aspects of purpose, structure and subject.

Keywords:

• graphic elicitation
• interviews
• drawings
• diagrams
• schools

Notes

1. See, for instance, an interesting analysis of the issues of interpreting participant drawings as data (Mair and Kierans 2007).

2. For the comparison table, see Engelhardt (2002, 146).

3. Interestingly, Harper found that it was not until he started taking aerial photos of agricultural farmers’ land that it prompted them to discuss elements of their farming practice, not talked about before. In a sense, the network diagrams were similar in that they provided an aerial snapshot of the networks, and from this new perspective the interview discussions, which were to do with how these networked overlapped and interacted with one another, flowed well.

4. For instance, as opposed to the metaphorical meaning of the pyramid (content model) that was used to represent the cascaded nature of CPD within the participant’s school (content proper) in the initial task sheet (Figure 2), ‘whole network Inset days’ as the description of the CPD activity by another participant, did refer to itself (content model = content proper) (Figure 3).

5. Using various pictorial symbols, such as the pyramid mentioned above in the CPD drawing task, could generate extra (metaphorical meaning). Whilst in the network diagram task, all participants were asked to represent their networks the same way (circles and lines) and were not able to use pictorial symbols to qualify how they viewed their networks (which was elicited through the verbal interview).