This document discusses the use of visual media in educational research. It covers four types of visual data: found data, researcher-created data, respondent-created data, and representations. Using visual media raises concerns around image production, the image itself, and audiences. Images are shaped by technologies, composition, and social contexts. Researchers can use photographs to prompt discussion with participants and ask participants to take their own photos or select images. Video allows observation of evolving situations but requires consideration of context. Artifacts provide insight but have multiple interpretations. The document stresses obtaining permission, anonymization, and following ethical codes when using visual media in research.

1. VISUAL MEDIA IN
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
© LOUIS COHEN, LAWRENCE
MANION & KEITH MORRISON

2. STRUCTURE OF THE CHAPTER
• Photographs and still images
• Video and moving images
• Artifacts
• Ethical practices in visual research

3. VISUAL IMAGES
• Anything we see, watch or look at counts as a
visual image
• Four kinds of visual data:
– Found data
– Researcher created data
– Respondent created data
– Representations (e.g. graphical representations)
• Using visual media concerns:
– The production of the image
– The image itself
– The audiences of the image

4. VISUAL IMAGES
• Visual media are not neutral; they give messages,
and we interpret them in many different ways.
• We bring our own values, biographies, cultures and
background to bear on images.
• Images cannot be viewed outside the social and
cultural contexts of the production of the image, the
observing and interpretation of the image, the
consideration of who are the audiences, intended
or otherwise, of the image.
• Images are made, kept and displayed in different
places, each of which confers its own required
social behaviours and audience reactions.

5. VISUAL IMAGES
• An image is the product of:
– Certain technologies
– Certain compositional features
– Certain social contexts
• The image maker is selective: s/he has already
decided what to include or not to include, what to
focus on, what not to focus on, where to point the
camera, where not to point the camera.
• Regard images as discourses.

6. PHOTOGRAPHS AND STILL IMAGES
• Photographs and still images are both emic and
etic. They carry documentary and interpretive
meaning, either posed or natural.
• Researchers can take photographs and ask the
participants to comment on them
• Researchers can ask participants either to take
their own photographs or bring them to an interview
to discuss them.

7. PHOTO-ELICITATION TECHNIQUE
• The photograph, or set of photographs, or
sequence of photographs, is used to invoke,
prompt and promote discussion, reflections,
comments, observations and memories.
• Discuss what they show, who took them, when,
where, what is the story behind them.
• Ask participants to select images from their own or
researcher-provided images, or images selected on
the basis of sampling techniques.

8. VIDEO AND MOVING IMAGES
• Video material is live.
• Video material can record evolving situations and
interactions, details that the observer may miss,
and non verbal matters.‑
• Video material enables repeated viewing/checking.
• Video material catches:
– Natural social situations
– Contrived situations
– Posed situations
– Special events
– Commissioned materials (e.g. a commemorative
activity)

9. VIDEO AND MOVING IMAGES
• Video material is selective (focus and location of
camera, fixed or moving camera).
• Consider:
– Where, how, why, for whom, how and under what
conditions the video was produced
– The interpretations that he or she (or indeed
others) make or may make of the moving images
– How these interpretations are influenced by the
interpreters’ own backgrounds, values and
purposes (i.e. reflexivity)
• How to analyze complex images and detail/data
overload.

10. VIDEO AND MOVING IMAGES
• Address legal and ethical matters:
– Permission to film
– Data protection
– Privacy
– Covert research
– Permission to show
– Intrusiveness

11. ARTIFACTS
• Artifacts may be easy to see/find but difficult to
interpret: they do not always carry clear
meanings in themselves.
• Artifacts can be interpreted very differently; they
have multiple interpretations.
• Artifacts may indicate the hidden curriculum of
an organization.
• Artifacts can be seen, heard, smelt, touched,
felt, tasted and heard; they are multi-sensory
and may require multi-sensory analysis.
• Artifacts may be provided by the researcher,
participants, others or be present in a situation.

12. ARTIFACTS
• Consider:
– The purpose of the production and location of
the artifact
– What it is/was used for and by whom
– Who produced it
– When was it made
– What materials have been used in its making
– What is/was its actual and/or symbolic purpose
or function
– How has it been preserved and in what condition
– What value it has to the provider or user

13. ARTIFACTS
• Artifacts may be used for exploring sensitive
issues:
– The use of dolls in cases of sexual abuse
– The use of puppets with different facial
expressions
– The use of puppets to act out a situation of
conflict

14. ETHICAL PRACTICES IN VISUAL
RESEARCH
• Informed consent
• Permission for taking images
• Permission for using images
• Permission to take images in public places
• Legally and illegally taking or storing images
• Preferred and non-preferred sites for taking pictures
• Identification, anonymization and obscuring of
individuals and places (ethical and legal regulation)
• Informed consent, anonymity and confidentiality
may be very difficult
• Ethical codes for using images in research