Visual- and Drawing-Stimulated Methodologies Towards a Deeper Understanding of Children’s Perspectives of Learning through Play

• In Event: Participatory Visual Research Methods with Displaced Learners: A Deep Dive on Learning through Play

Proposal

Visual-elicitation methodologies, first introduced by anthropologist John Collier (1957) through photography, have grown in appeal in the social sciences. These methods create a collaborative dynamic between researcher and participant by allowing participants to describe their interpretations of stimuli rather than researchers being the sole interpreters of visual artifacts (Harper, 2002). In researcher-generated visual-elicitation, participants are presented with a visual stimulus, usually a photograph, and are asked questions in an interview or reflective dialogue (Richard & Lahman, 2015). When researchers produce these photos, multiple interpretations may emerge from participants as informed by an individual's experiences, knowledge, and opinions that can complement, deepen, or even challenge researchers’ initial interpretations (Lapenta, 2011). Participant-generated visual-elicitation is similar, except participants create their own visual artifacts (Richard & Lahman, 2015). This recognizes different epistemologies across cultures and participants’ agency by allowing them to select or depict things that are of value to them and engage in reflective dialogue with the researcher.

Conceptualizations of play, active learning methodologies, and Learning through Play (LtP) practices are interpreted and valued differently across cultures and contexts (Mendenhall et al., 2021). A deep understanding of cultural perceptions of play and its associated activities is foundational for designing and implementing effective LtP interventions. PlayMatters is a LEGO Foundation-funded project that integrates Learning through Play (LtP) methodologies into education systems for refugee and host community children in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda. This paper draws on the research methodology from PlayMatters’ formative study on school-based, positive practices for LtP. The primary objective of this study was to explore what “successful” LtP integration in schools can look like in Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania, with a focus on schools that have strong local engagement and are not dependent on donor funding, in order to inform PlayMatters interventions. This study used an ethnographic case study methodology and a “Positive Deviance” framework for sampling and analysis. The research team selected four case study schools in each country based on a common criteria for a total of 12 schools (7 primary schools and 5 early childhood development centers).

Researchers spent two weeks in case-study schools using rapid ethnographic methods. Researchers conducted classroom observations of children engaging in free play, capturing photographs and videos in addition to field notes. Data captured in the first few days were used as stimuli for focus-group discussions conducted with children and parents separately to understand how participants described playful activities and their connection to learning. Additionally, children were prompted to draw a fun activity or game that they had experienced within their classrooms. Following this activity, researchers engaged in a reflective dialogue with children to discuss their drawings. By combining research-generated and participant-generated visual-elicitation methodologies, researchers were able to develop deeper contextual understandings to how children conceptualize and engage in play. This paper highlights the relationship between visual-elicitation methodologies and the key findings from this study, including meanings and understandings of LtP, examples of LtP, and barriers and opportunities to integrate LtP into learning spaces.

Author

• Anne C Smiley, IRC