Using Drawings in Qualitative Interviews: An Introduction to the Practice

Abstract

Drawings are employed by qualitative researchers in many creative ways, and in many different contexts,and a variety of different terms are used to describe similar techniques. I present here a concisedescription of two basic approaches to integrating participants’ produced drawings into verbal qualitativeresearch interviews, along with characteristic cases of empirical research demonstrating how theseapproaches have been applied. I also provide a list of best practices and I discuss ethical issues. It iscommon for qualitative researchers to mix techniques in order to creatively address real-world researchchallenges. The proposed categorization, augmented by the list of best practices, can help researchers toeffectively integrate drawings and verbal interviews into a multimodal research project.

Parkinson’s Disease and Deep Brain Stimulation Have an Impact on My Life: A Multimodal Study on the Experiences of Patients and Family Caregivers

“…We believe that the collection of drawings as a complement to the interviews provided us with additional insights into the participants’ internal world and their subjective experiences with PD and DBS. It offered us access to nonverbal meanings and to a qualitatively different aspect of the participants’ experiences [ 53 , 120 ]. Furthermore, the action of drawing allowed our participants to reflect on their own narrative and visually show the impact of PD and DBS [ 121 , 122 , 123 ].…”

Living with Parkinson’s disease and connected to the duodopa pump: A qualitative study

“…[13][14][15] Second, the drawings offer additional insights to the researcher into the patients' and caregivers' experiences with PD and the pump because they provide access to nonverbal meanings and to a qualitatively different aspect of the participants' experiences. 16 Third, we believe that a multimodal approach is an effective way to work with vulnerable participants and address sensitive topics. 17 At the beginning of each interview, both patients and caregivers were invited to draw how they visually perceived the disease and the pump.…”

“…Furthermore, we believe that the use of drawings as complementary methodology to narrative semi-structured interviews elicited the further verbal data because they allowed the participants to reflect on what they have drawn and express these reflections during the interview. 16 The possibility of expressing themselves through drawings also gave them the opportunity to express emotions that would not have been externalised by words alone and facilitated the communication of difficult experiences. 40 Therefore, our multimodal research including narrative semi-structured interviews and drawings offer additional insights into the participant's experiences not only with the disease but also with the treatment, which led to a more complete data analysis.…”