Visual methodology? How do I do that?

By Keely Blanch

You've decided on your topic, you know (hopefully) what your research questions are, now you just have to sort out your methodology. Often the methods you use may be influenced by your supervisors. I don't know if I'd have thought about using visual methodology if it hadn't been suggested by one of my supervisors. Admittedly, I was dubious at first - it was a new-to-me methodology and I wasn't sure what I'd need to consider. So I put on my academic hat, fired up google, and researched ways of using visual methdology. In doing so, I stumbled across a useful site based at Manchester University. I'd almost call it a qualitative researcher's goldmine of helpful tools.

The Morgan Centre for the Study of Relationships and Personal Life hosts a plethora of social science researcher toolkits, associated publications, working papers and resources under the title of Realities research. As well as the use of partcipatory visual methods, there are resources on interviewing, transcribing, analysis and ethics.

Of course everything is copyrighted to Manchester University and the authors, so bear that in mind when you use these resources. Having said that, many of these methods and working papers have also been formally published as articles, and can provide some useful references for that thesis methodology chapter. Well worth checking out if you're interested in qualitative methods.

Happy researching!