1000 Voices: Reflective online multimodal narrative inquiry as a research methodology for disability research

Abstract

This article outlines the research approach used in the international 1000 Voices Project. The 1000 Voices project is an interdisciplinary research and public awareness project that uses a customised online multimodal storytelling platform to explore the lives of people with disability internationally. Through the project, researchers and partners have encouraged diverse participants to select the modes of storytelling (e.g. images, text, videos and combinations thereof) that suit them best and to selfdefine what both 'disability' and 'life story' mean to them. The online reflective component of the approach encourages participants to organically and reflectively develop story events and revisions over time in ways that suit them and their emerging lives. This article provides a detailed summary of the project's theoretical and methodological development alongside suggestions for future development in social work and qualitative research.

Challenges facing online research: Experiences from research concerning cyber-victimisation of people with disabilities

“…This research confirmed previous work suggesting the role of online methods to reach people with disabilities with less cost and encourage disabled people to talk openly more than face to face (Morris, 2013;Sunderland et al, 2014). Such approach helped in addressing diversity but did not guarantee high numbers of participants probably due to the sensitivity of the topic in this study.…”

“…Another limitation is access by people with limiting disabilities, such as visual and motor impairments, hence the format or length of questions could be tiring or requiring further adjustments (De Cesarei & Baldaro, 2015). Lack of access and socioeconomic status are also key limitations to online research methods (Sunderland et al, 2014). Despite these limitations, the findings in this paper could provide an insight of the potential of using online research methods with vulnerable groups, and will guide future research to do further modifications to ensure overcoming the identified challenges.…”

“…Priority, which is the relative weight assigned to the quantitative or qualitative components of research (Kroll, Neri, & Miller, 2005), was given to the qualitative element in this study. Qualitative methods are necessary to understand the lived-experience, especially for people with disabilities who need communicate what is important to them in their own words (Sunderland et al, 2014). Hence, this research is underpinned by a phenomenology as a philosophical stance (Husserl, 2012;Mayoh & Onwuegbuzie, 2013).…”

“…The Internet was used to facilitate this research because online methods are recommended to increase response rates (Boynton & Greenhalgh, 2004). Additionally, there were specific reasons to adopt online approaches with this particular target population because cyber victimisation victims suffer from social isolation and fear (Maple et al, 2011;Short et al, 2014) and people with disabilities might face physical difficulties in travelling (Quarmby, 2015;Sunderland, Chenoweth, Matthews, & Ellem, 2014), which in both cases could limit reaching potential participants. However, reaching the participants was also influenced by the inclusion criteria and overall study design as discussed below.…”

Innovation in social work research

“…In 2015, we see two papers make specific use of the Internet for research. The first is by Naomi Sunderland (2015) and colleagues and this paper describes a study that made use of the Internet to capture stories from research participants for disability research. The work derives from the 1000 voices project (www.1000voices.edu.au), which established an international web-based platform for 'gathering and displaying digital life stories about the lived experience of people with disabilities ' (2014: 50).…”