Animated Analysis: Drawing Deeper Analytical Insights From Qualitative Data

Abstract

While participant-created drawings in arts-based health research, used as a process of producing knowledge are well known, similar approaches with researcher-created drawings are less common. This article describes the journey of how researcher-created drawings as an arts-based analytical approach helped a novice researcher to draw deeper into the interpretive process. Emerging from a positivist paradigm, a proceduralist understanding of the qualitative methods was readily grasped by this researcher, but developing reflexivity and deep analytical insights required facilitation. An overarching interpretivist qualitative approach that aligns with Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutics was used to analyze participant observation data (field notes, researcher-created drawings) of decision-making encounters between families of youth with brachial plexus birth injuries and the health care team in the clinic setting. Drawing acted as an analytical catalyst such that the task of creating a visual product helped this researcher to look beyond descriptive, factual and procedural information in participant observation data. Drawing created spontaneity that fostered freedom to interpret, while hermeneutic reflection created self-dialogue about understandings that arose from all data sources. Reflexivity was cultivated through deliberating on the creative process that resulted in choices of composition and content to represent the observed sessions. Drawing can help qualitative researchers animate their analyses through a visible and accountable method of constructing new knowledge.