‘Draw, write and tell’: A literature review and methodological development on the ‘draw and write’ research method

Abstract

The creative research method 'draw and write' has been used in health, social care and education research for several decades. A literature search of studies utilising this method was conducted during the planning stages of a study exploring primary school children's perceptions of infant feeding. A review of this literature noted a range of benefits of 'draw and write' in enabling child participation. However, it also identified that the method has been used inconsistently, and found that there are issues for researchers in relation to interpretation of creative work and analysis of data. As a result of this an improvement on this method, entitled 'draw, write and tell', was developed in an attempt to provide a more child orientated and consistent approach to data collection, interpretation and analysis. This article identifies the issues relating to 'draw and write' and describes the development and application of 'draw, write and tell' as a case study, noting its limitations and benefits. KeywordsChildren, draw and write, draw write and tell, creative methods, infant feeding, breastfeeding 2 of 26The creative research method known as 'draw and write' has been widely used by researchers working with children to explore a range of social and health related subjects. A literature review of studies in the United Kingdom, which have used 'draw and write', was undertaken recently as part of research exploring children's perceptions of infant feeding. This article reports the findings of this literature review and comments on the use of the method across a range of studies. It also describes and discusses the rationale for 'draw, write and tell', which was developed for the research study (Author 2011a) in an attempt to resolve some of the issues relating to 'draw and write' identified during the literature review.

Expressivity in children's drawings of themselves for adult audiences with varied authority and familiarity

“…There is a clear need to caution interpretation of children's drawings without reference to the meaning of the drawings to the individual children (Lilienfeld et al ., ; Woolford et al ., ). Crucially, future research in this vein could include interviews (Angell, Alexander, & Hunt, ) to understand what children mean to express to different audiences and which strategies they view as expressive.…”

Percepção de escolares do ensino fundamental sobre o Programa Saúde na Escola: um estudo de caso em Belo Horizonte, Brasil

“…The school environment may encourage pupils to supply the "right answer" 34 . On the contrary, however, Angell et al 35 suggest that school is a place where children are more comfortable and may reveal more in their essays than they actually intend to, although it is also a place where children may not feel authorised to refuse to participate.…”

Connections Between Reading Identities and Social Status in Early Childhood

“…For the draw-and-talk interview, Stanley drew a picture of himself reading. He was then invited to share his drawing and participated in co-labeling and explaining each component of the drawing (Angell, Alexander, & Hunt, 2015;Kendrick & McKay, 2004).…”