Draw-and-Tell Conversations With Children About Fear

Abstract

As the demand to include children in research increases, researchers are discovering that few methods exist that are specifically designed with children in mind. In this article, the author introduces the draw-and-tell conversation as a child-centered and child-directed approach to data collection and illustrates its use in a qualitative study of children's fear experiences. Twenty-two children, ages 7 and 8 years, participated. Sequential mixed qualitative analyses suggest that children's draw-and-tell conversations provide new insight into how children describe and experience fear and highlight the unique nature of information accessed when using this approach.

How Can Children Tell Us About Their Wellbeing? Exploring the Potential of Participatory Research Approaches within Young Lives

“…Furthermore, methods for use with children often mirror the activities they are thought to experience as part of their daily lives in school, at play, or at home, although in some cases this may be based on researchers' ethnocentric assumptions about what children do and like, informed especially by Western developmental psychology and child-centred peadagogies. Data have been generated with children through the use of, for example, diaries (Baxter 2007;Frankel 2007;Nesbitt 2000;Tekola 2007), photography (Barker and Weller 2003;Clark and Moss 2001;Einarsdottir 2005;Gabhainn and Sixsmith 2006;Orellana 1999;Punch 2002b;Morrow 2001), drawand-tell techniques (Driessnack 2006;Ennew and Morrow 1994;Pridmore and Bendelow 1995;Punch 2002b), mapping (Darbyshire et al 2005;Veale 2005), time-use charts (Christensen and James 2000), drama and role play (Armstrong et al 2004;Veale 2005), video clips from soap operas (Punch 2002a) and the use of radio workshops and recordings (Frankel 2007), among many other examples and creative techniques.…”

Victor and the Dragon

“…Through drawings, children can provide glimpses into their world. 12 The opportunity to draw also shifts the focus away from the researcher and can potentially reduce demands on the child. It can make a child more relaxed, resulting in a more child-centered report.…”

“…She incorporated Victor's drawings into the interview process to gain more of an insight and increase his participation in research. 2,3,7,12,13 When asked to draw his perception of comfort, Victor drew the cancer disease as a dragon and commented on it. After Victor had died, his mother gave us 2 more drawings made at home and explained what Victor had said that each picture depicted.…”

Trauma Reactions, Suffering, and Healing among Riot-Affected Internally Displaced Children of Gujarat, India: A Qualitative Inquiry

“…Only 12 stimulus words were used in this study, since it was considered that a list of 100 words would produce fatigue and boredom in such young children (although using the WAT with 100 words might have provided greater variety in the responses of children resulting in more in-depth understanding of their experiences). Driessnack (2006) introduced the D-&-T conversation technique. It utilizes the child's drawing as a transitional space in which feelings can be externalized in a concrete form and are reconstructed in conversation with the researcher (Hanney & Kozolowska 2002).…”