Envisioning possibilities: visualising as enquiry in literacy studies

Abstract

Drawing from the research methods of three distinct literacy studies, in this piece, we highlight the visualisation approaches integral to our enquiry processes as researchers working to make sense of literacy and learning. We aim to encourage, provoke even, a conversation about visualisation processes in literacy research by sharing the individualised ways in which we (1) leaned on metaphors and visual aspects of musical notation to uncover new insights into the social nature of composing, (2) created comics shaped by particular aesthetic choices that influenced enquiry and meaning-making, and (3) utilised insights gained from dynamic visualisations of data to see nonlinear patterns of writing development. With the descriptions of these studies and their methods as samples, we argue for a shift in focus from visualisation as an end product of analysis to an additional focus on the process of visualising as analysis.

Free the sheep: improvised song and performance in and around a minecraft community

“…Firstly, the compilation of the transcript required repeated and focussed engagement with the data. Secondly, through the resulting “dynamic feedback between image and text” (Smith et al, , p. 7), the use of a comic strip enabled an account of this hybrid space to emerge that would not be possible through a reliance on text alone. Utilising such “multiple modes of sense‐making” (p. 7) allows for an “expansion of our ways of seeing – and hence our ways of thinking” (p. 7).…”

Visualizing lived experience: mapping the soundscape of an after-school Minecraft club

“…There is a growing interest in visual research methods, particularly in what is often called graphic scholarship. Smith, Hall and Sousanis (2015: 2), for instance, discuss using processes of 'visualising as analysis'. Visual methods of analysis have been positioned as an advantageous alternative (or supplement) to the use of the written word.…”

Remix as Professional Learning: Educators’ Iterative Literacy Practice in CLMOOC

“…Collaboratively arranging posts visually with the interactive visual mapping tool served as an initial round of analysis [44] (see Figure 1). This entailed attribute coding [45]; each entry on the map included a profile name, timestamp, social media avenue (Twitter, Blog, Google+ Community, Facebook, Make Bank), link to original post, and relevant visual icons as descriptive codes of content and function (more on these codes below).…”

“…It allowed for multiple scalar views of the transliteracies at play [44], as the map could be viewed as a whole, in chronological sequences of interaction at a proximal view, and via the provided links, close, contextualized analysis of particular posts and artifacts. Collaboratively arranging posts visually with the interactive visual mapping tool served as an initial round of analysis [44] (see Figure 1). This entailed attribute coding [45]; each entry on the map included a profile name, timestamp, social media avenue (Twitter, Blog, Google+ Community, Facebook, Make Bank), link to original post, and relevant visual icons as descriptive codes of content and function (more on these codes below).…”

“…This interactive multimodal arrangement illuminated, as an "unflattened" visual whole [48], how participation in connected learning through writing-as-making unfolded across the various platforms categorically, relationally, and chronologically. It allowed for multiple scalar views of the transliteracies at play [44], as the map could be viewed as a whole, in chronological sequences of interaction at a proximal view, and via the provided links, close, contextualized analysis of particular posts and artifacts. Using visual icons available on the MindMeister platform, we inductively coded posts for content and function [45] as explicitly identified by participants in posts, comment threads, and tweets, as well as those interpreted by the team of researchers (noted as such).…”