Research Falling Out of Colorful Pages Onto Paper: Collage Inquiry

Abstract

As part of an advanced doctoral course on representing qualitative research, the authors used collage to represent either who they were as researcher or the research they were conducting. The authors, comprised of the course professor and seven doctoral students, read about collage as inquiry and research representation and then participated reflexively in a course lecture on the background of collage, a collage creation activity, a gallery walk, written and oral reflection on each other’s collages, a research poster presentation at a campus research event, and a final reflection of the entire process. As the process unfolded the authors represented the experience in the form of a collective collage poem, and a methodological and pedagogical article. Elements of this article include a review of collage as an art and research inquiry form, an overview of the pedagogical experiences, and the authors’ experiences shared in the form of brief vignettes and collage images.