Visual Research Methods: Qualifying and Quantifying the Visual

Abstract

The role of visual research methods in ethnographic research has been significant, particularly in place-making and representing visual culture and environments in ways that are not easily substituted by text. Digital media has extended into mundane, everyday existences and routines through most noticeably the modern smartphone, social media and digital artefacts that have created new forms of ethnographic enquiry. Ethnographers have engaged in this relatively new possibility of exploring how social media and new technologies transform the way we view social realities through the digital experience. The paper discusses the possible role of visual research methods in multimethod research and the theoretical underpinning of interpreting visual data. In the process of interpreting and analysing visual data, there is a need to acknowledge the possible ambiguity and polysemic quality of visual representation. It presents selectively the use of visual methods in an ethnographic exploration of early childhood settings through the use of internet-based visual data, researcher and participant-generated visual materials and media, together with visual-elicited (e.g. drawings, still images, video clips) information data through several examples. This approach in ‘visualizing’ the curriculum also unveils some aspects of the visual culture or the ‘hidden curriculum’ in the learning environment.