Creative Research Methods 2e. Kara, Helen
gaps in the examples I have chosen. If you come across any good examples of creative research methods from countries or regions that are under-represented in this edition, please pass them on to me for inclusion in future editions.
This book assumes a reasonable general knowledge of basic research methods terminology. If that is an incorrect assumption in your case, there is a useful glossary of terms on this book’s companion website, or you could use a good general research textbook such as Robson and McCartan (2016) or Bryman (2016). However, even if you have a good research methods vocabulary, you need to know that the terminology of creative research methods is very fluid. For example, there are over 40 terms for the use of poetry and poetics in research, such as poetic narrative, found poems and field poetry (Prendergast 2009a: xx–xxi), and there are a similar number of terms for autoethnography (Chang 2008: 46–8). Some of these terms are intended to reflect nuances in emphasis. However, different terms may be used to mean the same thing. For example, interviews with two people who are married or partnered with each other have been called ‘couple interviews’ (for example, Mellor et al 2013: 1399), ‘relationship-based dyadic interviews’ (for example, Morgan et al 2013: 1277) and ‘joint interviews’ (for example, Sakellariou et al 2013: 1565). There are a range of terms for dramatic presentations of research findings, including ethnodrama and ethnotheatre (Saldaña 2016: 12), research-based drama (for example, Mitchell et al 2011: 379) and research-based theatre (for example, Beck et al 2011: 687). This book is not attempting to provide definitive terminology for the field, but I aim to use terms consistently within these pages.
Good practice in creative research
Creative solutions to research problems do not usually imply wacky, left-field, off-the-wall ideas. Formal research is a complex undertaking with a detailed history, and it helps to know about the workings and rationale for tried-and-tested methods. This enables you to build on existing knowledge and experience rather than starting from scratch. Where creativity comes in is in knowing about various methods but not being bound by that knowledge. This means that, if the need arises, you can manipulate and develop theories and methods, within the constraints of good practice, to help you to answer your research questions (Mumford et al 2010: 3).
Good research practice dictates that you start by framing your research question(s), then identify the method(s) that seem most likely to lead to a useful answer (Tenenbaum et al 2009: 117). Some of the methods in this book are beguiling in themselves, but – as we have already seen – it is not good practice to start a research project by deciding on a method before you have framed a question (unless you are devising research simply to test that method).
Good research is also ethical and meticulous, and links theory to practice. Creative methods are never an excuse for unethical, sloppy or self-indulgent research. What this book will do is give you a wider choice of methods and – I hope – inspire you to take a creative approach to your own good-quality research.
A brief history of creativity in research
People have always turned to research to help them solve practical and intellectual problems. Some of the earliest Euro-Western researchers whose work we know came from Greece and include:
•Aristarchus of Samos, born around 310 BCE, one of the first people to work out that the earth moved around the sun rather than the sun around the earth;
•Eratosthenes of Cyrene, born around 275 BCE, an early ethnologist, who argued that the division between barbaric and civilised people was invalid; and
•Hippocrates of Kos, born around 460 BCE, a health researcher, who argued that there was no merit in studying an illness without also studying the patient as a whole, and who pioneered life-style changes as a remedy for disease.
In China, Zhang Heng, born in 78 CE, used research to invent the seismometer for identifying earthquakes up to 500 km away. Ma Jun, born around 200 CE, used research to improve the process of silk weaving, making it possible to weave more intricate patterns faster and more efficiently. He also used research to invent a mechanical compass.
Islamic researchers include Jābir ibn Hayyān, a Persian/Iranian from the 8th century who was one of the founding fathers of practical chemistry, advocating for experimentation and devising many research processes that are still in use today. Abbas ibn Firnas, who was born and lived in Andalucia in the 9th century, used research to develop a process for cutting rock crystal, which enabled Spain to cut its own quartz rather than having it cut in Egypt. And Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī, a Persian/Iranian whose life spanned the 9th and 10th centuries, was the first doctor to differentiate between smallpox and measles, on the basis of observational research.
These are just a very few examples of some of the earliest researchers we know about. There must be thousands of others. Also, each of the above-named men was not a researcher in a single discipline, as the examples cited might suggest to the reader of today. They were all polymaths, that is, people who have expertise in a number of different areas and so can draw on a range of knowledge to help solve problems. These polymaths didn’t even see the need to stick to the subjects we would now regard as ‘sciences’. For example, Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī also made significant contributions to the field of music; Zhang Heng was an artist; and Eratosthenes was a poet.
It wasn’t until the late 19th century that research became a discipline of its own. In 1906 the editor of the journal Science, James McKeen Cattell, published a directory of 4,000 ‘men who have carried out research work’ (Godin and Lane 2011: 3). There have also been women researchers throughout history, from the earliest times – such as Merit Ptah, a doctor who lived in Egypt around 2700 BCE – to contemporaries of Cattell such as Marie Curie, a Polish woman working in France in the early 20th century whose research into radiation led to her becoming the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. But, as Cattell’s words suggest, by the start of the 20th century research had become part of the white, male, intellectual tradition of positivism, which was focused on mastering the world (Terre Blanche and Durrheim 2006: 14).
Because this tradition was so pervasive, social studies developing in the late 19th century, such as psychology, sociology and anthropology, tried to follow the methods of the physical sciences – and, indeed, renamed themselves ‘social sciences’ to indicate the link. Arguments about whether this was sensible raged throughout the 20th century and still cause dissent today. This book is not intended as a critique of scientific methods, which have revolutionised the lives of most of the world’s inhabitants in fundamental areas such as food production, healthcare and transport (Broussine 2008: 14). But the reification of scientific methods makes it easy to forget that these methods were created to solve problems, and new problems sometimes require new methods. This is as much the case now as it was over 2,000 years ago, when Eratosthenes was using research to create the discipline of geography, or Zhang Heng to catalogue the stars.
One major problem with trying to apply the methods of the physical sciences to studying people in society is that they work only up to a point (Broussine 2008: 15). Most of the research methods in the physical sciences are quantitative: they employ techniques such as counting, weighing, measuring, heating, cooling, dividing and mixing to investigate physical aspects of the world. Quantitative methods certainly can be useful in other kinds of research. But if you want to investigate questions such as why some children have better exam results than others, or how to increase adults’ participation in healthy life-style activities, or what the nature of envy is, you will need more than quantitative methods alone.
Researchers in a range of fields began to notice this in the early 20th century and started to develop qualitative research methods. To begin with, the idea was that qualitative methods should be verifiable and rigorous in the same way as quantitative methods. But, from the 1970s onwards, researchers began to build arguments for qualitative research methods having their own worth in particular contexts. These methods are now demonstrably able to make positive contributions to, for example, policy development (Donmoyer 2012: 672). In the 1990s researchers began to consider the merits of mixed-methods research,