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This chapter introduces the five key areas of creative research methods: arts-based research, embodied research, research using technology, multi-modal research and transformative research frameworks. It outlines good practice in creative research and gives a brief history of creativity in research. The chapter also introduces Indigenous research methods and outlines some ways in which they differ from Euro-Western methods. It reviews what is known about creativity and how creativity can operate in a research context. The chapter considers the distinction between informal and formal research, introduces evaluation research and takes a brief look at how researchers use creative methods in private.
The 21st century is a dynamic and exciting time for research methods. Methodological boundaries are expanding across disciplines. Even in the few years since the first edition of this book, the field has developed and proliferated as researchers seek effective ways to address increasingly complex questions. This applies across the social sciences, arts and humanities, as well as in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects. For example, pure mathematics, long considered a numerical discipline based on deductive reasoning, has begun to experiment with experiments (Sørensen 2016: 140) and employ creative writing (Harron 2016: 1).
This second edition reconceptualises creative research methods into five key areas:
1.arts-based research;
2.embodied research (new as a key area in this edition);
3.research using technology;
4.multi-modal research1 (formerly mixed-methods research); and
5.transformative research frameworks (such as participatory, feminist, community-based, queer and asset-based methodologies).
These areas are not mutually exclusive; in this book you will find examples of research that draws on two, three, four or even all five. And, in time, creative methods may develop that don’t fit into any of these areas. But, for now, this conceptualisation provides a useful way to think and talk about creative research. This will help you to give full consideration to the methods you might use to answer your research questions.
It is also important to note that creativity in research is not limited to methods of data gathering or dissemination. This book will demonstrate that creative methods are available for use at all stages of the research process. I am not arguing that they should replace the more conventional methods, but that the two can work in tandem, offering more resources to researchers.
This book does not claim to provide a definitive account of creative research methods. The field is growing and changing so fast that no text could capture its entirety. You will find many excellent examples in these pages, but many more were left out due to lack of space. Also, the examples offered are brief – in some cases simply a citation. A full-scale how-to book would be impossibly long, so this is a guide, including a lot of citations and examples for you to follow up methods of interest. The intention is to excite and inspire you, because ‘creative research methods … offer new ways of knowing’ (Weber 2018: 429). The book also has a companion website that you can visit for more inspiration and ideas. And perhaps what this book does achieve is to provide a snapshot of a particular point in research methods evolution: a point where multidisciplinary research teams are using creative methods to help them vault out of silos and leap over boundaries. This will be useful for readers who want to break free from disciplinary confines, or who need to do so because their research questions are too complex to be answered using the conventional methods and techniques of a single discipline.
One point that seems worth clarifying at the start is the relationship between ‘methods’ and ‘methodology’, particularly as the conceptualisation on the previous page includes both. These terms are often used synonymously, but they actually denote different aspects of research. Methodology is ‘a contextual framework’ (Grierson and Brearley 2009: 5) for research, that is, a coherent and logical scheme, based on views, beliefs and values, that guides the choices that researchers make. Within a methodological framework, methods are the tools that researchers use to gather and analyse data, write and present their findings. Methodology and method are intimately linked, both with each other and with research questions (Mason 2018: 32). Researchers need to understand all three, and how the relationships between them work, so as to help audiences understand how and why researchers make decisions in the course of designing and conducting research. And although some creative research methods may be appealing in themselves, it is essential to choose methods for their ability to address the research question within the methodological context (Ellingson 2009: 176).
There are also approaches to research that sit between method and methodology, such as ethnography and fieldwork. Ethnography originates from anthropology, and fieldwork from geography, although they have informed each other (Phillips and Johns 2012: 168; Pink 2015: 32) and both approaches are now used by many disciplines. They both privilege place and space as important aspects of research work, although in slightly different ways. In ethnography, place is ‘something that is not fixed and enclosed, that is constituted as much through the flows that link it to other locations, persons and things, as it is through what goes on “inside” it’ (Pink 2015: 33). In geography, the field may be ‘anywhere and everywhere, far and near, in material and virtual spaces, within places and also between them’ (Phillips and Johns 2012: 10). These kinds of approaches foster holistic methods including both place and person, such as place-based research (Booth 2015: 20; Pink 2015: 38; Thomson and Hall 2017: 30–1), mobile methods such as walking interviews (Jones et al 2008; Roy 2016: 210; O’Neill 2018) and apprenticeship as embodied method (Downey et al 2015: 183).
Like many books on research, this book is structured around different aspects of the research process: reading and thinking, gathering data, analysing data and so on. This could give the impression that these aspects can be separated from each other. In reality, that is not the case. For example, writing is an essential part of the whole research process (Rapley 2011: 286). Reading is also likely to occur throughout the process (Hart 2001: 7). Notes from your reading may be coded and analysed in the same way as data. Documents can be categorised as data or as background reading (Kara 2017: 146). Treating different aspects of the research process as separate makes them easier to consider and discuss, but, like the conceptualisation above, this is an artifice; they are inextricably linked. Some research methods are designed to try to acknowledge this complexity. For example, grounded theory, devised by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in 1967, is a method for developing theory as data is gathered and analysed. Later scholars have built on this approach, such as by demonstrating that various types of diagrams can be co-constructed by researchers and participants as part of data gathering, data analysis, theory development and research presentation (Strauss and Corbin 1998: 153; Williams and Keady 2012: 218).
This book is written primarily for researchers working alone or in small teams, to help them give full consideration to the research methods they might use. In the Euro-Western world there are many more examples of qualitative than of quantitative research (Alasuutari 2009: 140), and the balance in this book reflects that. However, I am not trying to say that qualitative research is inherently creative, while quantitative research is uncreative. The formulation of an original hypothesis requires creativity (Saldaña 2015: 122). There is enormously creative work going on in quantitative methods and the physical sciences, such as in large-scale national surveys (for example, Burton 2013) and STEM research (for example, Walsh et al 2013: 20). Also, in social research, intangible subjects such as trust and intuition are being investigated through the creative use of quantitative methods (for example, Burns and Conchie 2012; Priem and Weibel 2012; Hodgkinson and Sadler-Smith 2014). Creative research methods are now being used in quantitative, qualitative and multi-modal research throughout all disciplines.
In this second edition I have worked to increase the number of examples from low- and middle-income countries and the global South. In the process I found out that there are some countries where creative research methods are not yet academically acceptable, such as Chile (Zapata-Sepúlveda 2016a: 469) and Brazil (Brilhante et al 2016: 477). This helps to explain some geographic 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, which initially meant combining quantitative and qualitative techniques to gain a fuller picture of the subject under investigation. Now we are moving to the term ‘multi-modal’ because research may be entirely quantitative or entirely qualitative and still incorporate more than one method.
The development of research techniques, whether quantitative or qualitative, has involved enormous creativity (Gergen and Jones 2008: 1). The opportunities for expanding these techniques offered by technology, arts-based approaches, mixing methods and so on may seem to confuse matters. But perhaps we are just returning to the view of the polymaths: that knowledge is worth having, no matter where it originates, and the more diverse someone’s knowledge, the more likely they are to be able to identify and implement creative solutions to problems. It is entirely possible that, if we could get past the idea of art and science being poles apart, the two approaches could inform and sustain each other as they evidently used to do (Gergen and Gergen 2012: 15).
Some scholars are also questioning the compartmentalisation of different disciplines. Work across disciplinary boundaries is becoming more common (for example, Lyon, Möllering and Saunders 2012: 13), as is an understanding of research as too broad an activity to fit into any single disciplinary category. Some argue that art and science need not be oppositional and can be complementary, with no hard line between the two (for example, Ellingson 2009: 5, 60). Phenomenologists tend to regard their research as both an art and a science, although different phenomenologists may disagree about the relative weighting of science and art in research (Finlay 2012: 27). It is interesting to note that a new UK university intends to open in 2021, the London Interdisciplinary School, which aims to equip students with knowledge and methods from across the disciplines.
Qualitative and multi-modal methods have not always been considered part of good research practice. Creative methods, too, have been seen by some researchers and research funders as inferior. Some people in positions of power, such as doctoral examiners, managers and government research directors, still reify quantitative or conventional methods and struggle – or refuse – to accept qualitative, multi-modal or creative approaches. However, as this book demonstrates, more and more researchers are finding creative approaches essential.
Creative is not synonymous with innovative. There is growing pressure on researchers to innovate, and, as a result, innovation is often overstated in an effort to get funded or published (Wiles et al 2011: 594). Of course some methods are innovative, and some that are both innovative and creative will be featured in this book, but some methods for which innovation is claimed are actually creative rather than innovative.
There is also scope for creativity in the use of conventional methods. For example, focus groups were first used in the 1940s, and so can hardly be described as ‘innovative’ today. But there is still scope for creativity within focus group methodology. For example, Belzile and Öberg (2012) draw on a wide body of literature to demonstrate that few researchers using focus groups pay attention to the interactions between participants, with most researchers treating focus group data in the same way as data from individual interviews. Belzile and Öberg use this insight to create a framework for researchers that is designed to support the inclusion of participant interaction within focus group design. There are many other examples of researchers taking a creative approach to a conventional method.
Another common misconception is that creative methods are for, and only used by, researchers in the arts and social sciences. In fact, researchers in the humanities and STEM disciplines are also finding inspiration from creative practices (Box 1.1). For example, in mathematics the problem of how to model hyperbolic geometry puzzled mathematicians for centuries until, in the 1990s, Daina Taimina realised it could be done with crochet (Henderson and Taimina 2001). ‘Crochet thinking’ is now being used in academia as a conceptual model for architectural design (Baurmann and Taimina 2013).
Box 1.1: Colleen Campbell: a scientist-artist
Colleen Campbell is a field biologist and artist. She has spent the last 20 years studying coyotes and grizzly bears in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and has travelled widely in the Canadian Arctic and the Himalayas. Her fieldwork involves conventional scientific methods such as humanely capturing, recording, tagging and tracing wild animals and analysing their DNA. She also draws the animals she studies, so as to increase her own understanding and to help her share information in accessible ways. Campbell incorporates traditional stories into her research work, recognising that coyotes and bears have been powerful archetypal figures for humans for millennia. There is a spiritual element to these stories, and to Campbell’s use of textile art to create ‘prayer flags for bears’, inspired by Tibetan prayer flags. These are designed, drawn and painted by Campbell, then digitally printed on silk and assembled into strings of ten different flags before being installed in a variety of locations. Campbell also created an ‘ursagraphic’ – a map showing Canadian places named after ‘bear’ in every language she has been able to identify. Her overall aim is to help preserve the welfare and the future of the animals she studies (Campbell 2019).
Following others in the Euro-Western literature, the first edition of this book classified decolonising methodologies as a transformative research framework. After its publication I learned more and concluded that that was incorrect (Kara 2018: 2). Decolonising methodologies grew from Indigenous knowledge frameworks, as did Indigenous research. Indigenous research is a paradigm that pre-dates the Euro-Western research paradigm by tens of thousands of years (Cram et al 2013: 11). All Indigenous peoples conduct research to help improve the world (Kouritzin and Nakagawa 2018: 9).
‘Indigenous’ is a contested term. I am using it here to refer to native peoples of lands colonised by settlers from elsewhere (Cram et al 2013: 16). Indigenous research methods are firmly embedded in Indigenous cultures and cannot be extracted for use elsewhere, so my aim in this book is not to offer Indigenous methods for my (no doubt predominantly) Euro-Western readers to use, but to raise awareness of the existence and value of Indigenous research.
Indigenous research practices and creative research methods have one thing in common: they are not always recognised as valid forms of knowledge creation by Euro-Western audiences. It seems that many Indigenous peoples are comfortable with creative research methods and readily understand, for example, arts-based methods as scholarship (Guntarik and Daley 2017: 412). Guntarik and Daley (2017: 413) say: ‘Sometimes, the accusation of lack of intellectual rigour toward Indigenous creative practice researchers is due to reviewers’ lack of familiarity with the gaps in knowledge and the flaws in conventional perspectives that Indigenous creative practice research is explicitly redressing.’ Some researchers using creative methods within the Euro-Western paradigm have also encountered problems with a lack of understanding of these methods and their purpose on the part of reviewers, managers and others in positions of authority.
It is good decolonising practice for Euro-Western scholars to inform ourselves about, and to use, Indigenous research – and, where possible, to work with Indigenous researchers. Developing the cultural sensitivity needed to work well with Indigenous researchers can be challenging for Euro-Western researchers and evaluators, yet it also offers considerable potential benefit (Scougall 2006; Hart et al 2017; Datta 2018).
There is a growing body of literature on these topics, some of which I cite in this book. Indigenous research ethics are particularly useful for Euro-Western researchers to learn about and reflect on, and these are addressed in Chapter 3.
What do we know about ‘creativity’?
Creativity is complex and notoriously hard to define (Carter 2004: 25, 39; Swann 2006: 9; Batey 2012: 55; Walsh et al 2013: 21). It is also difficult to measure (Villalba 2012: 1), and so it is under-researched and poorly understood (Batey 2012: 55). Historically, creativity was viewed as a divine attribute (Sternberg 2006: 6; Hesmondhaugh and Baker 2011: 3) with only gods being able to create something from nothing. A legacy of this is that some creative people still refer to the capricious ‘muse’ or ‘inspiration’, which may arrive – or not – at any time (Carter 2004: 25). Nowadays, creativity is more often viewed as a process of creating something from elements that already exist by putting them together in a new way (Carter 2004: 47; Koestler 1969: 45, cited in Forceville 2012: 113; Munat 2007: xiv; Saldaña 2015: 122).
Some scholars of creativity subscribe to a ‘standard definition’ including the criteria of originality and effectiveness (Runco and Jaeger 2012: 92), which stems from the work of Stein (1953) and Barron (1955) in the 1950s (Runco and Jaeger 2012: 95). Yet this definition says more about what creativity does and how it functions than about what it is. Also, creativity scholars now acknowledge that this definition may not be entirely adequate; there is no clear consensus that the criteria of originality and effectiveness are the best or only criteria to use in judging creativity (Runco and Jaeger 2012: 95). Some commentators take the view that originality is not a requirement for creativity (for example, Fryer 2012: 22), although others still subscribe to the ‘something from nothing’ view (for example, Mould 2018: 4).
The Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1996/2013: 28) set out his understanding of how creativity happens:
Creativity occurs when a person, using the symbols of a given domain such as music, engineering, business, or mathematics, has a new idea or sees a new pattern, and when this novelty is selected by the appropriate field for inclusion into the relevant domain. The next generation will encounter that novelty as part of the domain they are exposed to, and if they are creative, they in turn will change it further.
However, creativity is understood differently in different countries. For example, research in Hong Kong, China and the US found that Chinese people tend to see creativity as an external social attribute, focusing on what creative people can contribute to society, while Westerners tend to see creativity more as an internal individual attribute (Niu 2006: 386–7; Paletz et al 2011: 95). In Germany, creativity is seen as a process to help solve problems (Preiser 2006: 175), while in Scandinavian countries creativity is seen as an individual attitude that helps people to cope with the challenges of life (Smith and Carlsson 2006: 202).
Some of this may be due to different linguistic approaches to creativity (Paletz et al 2011: 95). For example, of 28 African languages surveyed by Mpofu et al, 27 had no word that directly translated to ‘creativity’. The exception was Arabic, which has different words for creativity in secular and religious contexts (Mpofu et al 2006: 465). Polish also has two words for creativity: twórczość, which refers to high-level creativity resulting in distinguished artistic or scientific achievements, and kreatywność for more everyday, personal creativity (Neçka et al 2006: 272–3). But there is no suggestion that fewer words for creativity means that the speakers of that language are any less creative. African countries where no word for creativity is spoken are as rich in humour and crafts, music and invention, arts and storytelling, as any other countries. Interestingly, there is evidence that being bilingual promotes creativity, although the reasons for this are more complex than simply having access to more words (Kharkhurin 2011: 239; Swann et al 2011: 26).
Some scholars have theorised creativity by breaking it down into different categories. Two-category examples include ‘small c creativity’ for everyday creativity and ‘big C creativity’ for notable creativity (Sternberg 2006: 6). Another two-category example suggests historical creativity for anything recognised as important over time and personal creativity for anything valued in its own context (Boden 1994, cited in Carter 2004: 66–7). Other commentators have proposed triple divisions, such as artistic creativity, the creativity of discovery and the creativity of humour (Clegg and Birch 1999: 7). The Polish theorist Edward Neçka took this approach one step further with his model of four levels of creativity (Neçka et al 2006: 274–5), shown in Table 1.1.
Table 1.1: Neçka’s four levels of creativity
| Type | Examples of use | Duration |
| Fluid | Creativity in speech; solving small problems using intelligence | Seconds to minutes |
| Crystallised | Solving larger problems using intelligence and knowledge | Minutes to years |
| Mature | Creating new texts or artefacts using intelligence, knowledge and skill | Hours to decades |
| Eminent | Creating new concepts or ground-breaking texts or artefacts | Days to decades |
Source: Adapted from Neçka et al, 2006
These theories are useful in helping us to think about creativity in practice. Dictionary definitions can also help. The verb ‘to create’ in English simply means ‘to bring something into existence’. It is synonymous with ‘make’ and ‘produce’. So you could create an apple pie. You would be bringing it into existence; it would be your creation, not exactly like any other apple pie. But how ‘creative’ would that process be? You are not bringing elements together in a new way, because countless apple pies have been made before. Unlike the verb at its root, the word ‘creative’ is synonymous with ‘original’ and ‘ingenious’. To be truly creative, you’d need to create, say, a turnip and cockroach meringue. Which neatly illustrates the point that the results of creativity are not always positive (Carter 2004: 48).
Part of the difficulty in discussing creativity is that the word has become so ubiquitous in Western society that it can seem almost meaningless (Carter 2004: 140; Hesmondhaugh and Baker 2011: 2; Toolan 2012: 19). Also, there is a large body of literature on creativity, from many disciplinary perspectives, which would take an entire book of its own to synthesise effectively. But we do know some things about the creative process. It’s not about making something from nothing; it’s about taking things that already exist and making new combinations. And, while creativity is often viewed as a type of behaviour (Walsh et al 2013: 26), it is not only about making things; creativity can also be applied to thinking, reading, playing and other activities. Creative thought involves lateral thinking, challenging accepted ways of seeing and doing things; defining problems as well as solving them (Carter 2004: 41). Reading is an interactive and embodied process: the reader is not merely a passive recipient of the text, but an active interpreter, bringing their own understandings and feelings to the process of creating meanings as they read (Pope 1999: 43, cited in Loffredo and Perteghella 2006: 10; Howard 2012: 214; Ellingson 2017: 20). Creativity in research (and no doubt elsewhere too) is not solely about thinking in the cerebral sense: it also involves elements of human ‘knowing’ such as intuition (Csikszentmihalyi 1996/2013: 315; Stierand and Dörfler 2014: 249), imagination (Lapum et al 2012: 103; Pink 2015: 45), reverie (Duxbury 2009: 56) and wonder (Hansen 2012: 3). Creativity is an essential element of play (Swann 2006: 45), and the combination of the two aids learning (Furlow 2001: 30, cited in Gillen 2006: 182; Kuntz and Guyotte 2018: 665).
Education is key to developing creativity (Yamamoto 2010: 345). Yet some education systems, such as those in countries like China and Singapore, focus on rote learning, which does not help children and young people to develop their critical and creative faculties (Teo and Waugh 2010: 206). Although creativity is hard to define or measure, it can and should be taught (Katz-Buonincontro 2012: 264). One way to teach creativity is to teach the creative methods of a given discipline (Teo and Waugh 2010: 212). This book is designed to enable and support the learning and teaching of creative research methods.
Research is a complex human activity. Historically, it was viewed as a process in which experiments were conducted in conditions where all confounding variables had been eliminated and the researcher was a neutral agent who did not influence the findings. Now it is readily recognised that this is only one view of research, and there are many others. For example, some kinds of research are now seen as context dependent, multifaceted endeavours in which a variety of people have influence over the process and its outcome. In particular, it is rare that social phenomena can be effectively investigated by following ‘rigorous and pre-determined rules’ for conducting research (Tenenbaum et al 2009: 118). Also, although some researchers still value the concept of objectivity, many recognise that, at least in some contexts, this is impossible to achieve. People researching death and mortality cannot avoid having some kind of personal angle on the subject matter (Woodthorpe 2011: 99). This applies to other topic areas too, such as wealth and poverty, families, or health and sickness. And it is questionable whether objectivity can be achieved by humans in any context. We all carry with us biases and prejudices that come into play, whether we are doing fieldwork or writing algorithms, working with poetry or percentages in our research.
However it is viewed, any research project is the result of many decisions. The research topic, questions, method(s) of data gathering and analysis, reporting, presentation and dissemination all have to be decided. Within each of those areas lie numerous smaller decisions. How many questions should we put in the survey instrument? This interviewee seems agitated; should I check what’s going on with him? Which of three pertinent quotes should we use in the research report? Shall I present the findings as bar graphs or pie charts? Which word can express what we’re trying to say here? Is it ethical to include this outlier? Is it ethical to leave it out?
Research as an activity is suffused with uncertainty (Weiner-Levy and Popper-Giveon 2012). Uncertainty is closely linked with creativity (Grishin 2008: 115; Galvin and Todres 2012: 114; Romanyshyn 2013: 149). There is also a lot of overlap between creativity and problem solving (Csikszentmihalyi 1996/2013: 114; Selby et al 2005: 301). This renders research a fertile arena for creativity. In Neçka’s terms, sometimes this will be fluid creativity, such as a joke shared in an interview or an effective formula chosen for use on a spreadsheet. Sometimes it will be crystallised creativity, such as an elegant research design, or buying a car to help with data gathering (Stack 1974: 17). Sometimes it will be mature creativity, such as research presented to homeless participants in the form of a graphic novel (Morris et al 2012). And sometimes it will be eminent creativity, such as the invention of action research by Kurt Lewin in the 1940s. Researchers have demonstrated that creativity is relevant for both problem solving and analytical decisions, based on multiple criteria, aiming for new and useful outcomes (Čančer and Mulej 2013). This suggests that research has always been a highly creative activity.
One of the defining features of creativity in research is that it tends to resist binary or categorical thinking. Mixed-methods research grew from people thinking “Hang on a minute, why is it qualitative or quantitative? Why not both?” Also, putting people into separate categories, when scrutinised, often seems not to work as well as it might appear. For example, researchers in Asia and the Pacific found that ‘The categories of “gatekeeper” and “vulnerable populations” are unstable, complex and often interchangeable’ (Czymoniewicz-Klippel et al 2010: 339). Some researchers are reluctant to divide people into mind and body (for example, Kershaw and Nicholson 2011: 2; Ellingson 2017: 16). For an increasing number of queer and other researchers, gender is non-binary (Barker and Iantaffi 2019: 76). And creativity is the basis for both arts and sciences, so, in this dimension, at least, they need not be separate (Csikszentmihalyi 1996/2013: 8–10; Edwards 2008: 6; Jones and Leavy 2014: 1).
All creative researchers stand astride boundaries, and this can be uncomfortable. For example, artists who are forced to squash their work into unnatural shapes required by academia may find the process agonising (Durré 2008: 35). Alternatively, those who are required to keep their art separate from their scholarly work may feel ‘the ache of false separation’ (Leavy 2010: 240). People who work within transformative frameworks, or who conduct Indigenous research, are challenging power. That can cause great discomfort, particularly when the powerful resist (Ostrer and Morris 2009: 74–5) or when researchers’ peers in their own communities are as critical as those outside (Smith 2012: 14). Mixed-methods/multi-modal research can be uncomfortable when disciplinary norms and knowledge are challenged (Lunde et al 2013: 206). Yet it is in exactly these boundary-spanning situations, where roles begin to become ambiguous, that creativity may thrive (Wang et al 2011: 211; Strange et al 2016: 413).
Some research methods are reified in the literature as if they are indisputable and fail-safe, yet any method involves decisions at every stage. We have seen that decisions are nodes for creativity. This may partly be due to the unconscious, intuitive aspect of decision making (Gauntlett 2007: 82–3; Smerek 2014: 10), which draws on processes other than conscious thought. Decisions also have implications that it is not always possible to foresee in full (Mason and Dale 2011: 1–2). For example, take the systematic review. This is intended to be a review of all research already conducted to address a particular research question. The aim is to reduce bias (Petticrew and Roberts 2005: 10) by establishing selection criteria for the inclusion of research in the review, such as methodological soundness (Petticrew and Roberts 2005: 2). However, these criteria are defined by researchers and are therefore likely to carry biases of their own because different researchers will have different views of what constitutes ‘methodologically sound’. For example, one researcher might think sample size is an important criterion, and so decide that any study with a sample of fewer than 60 participants is unsound. Another researcher might also think sample size is important, but decide that studies can be considered methodologically sound with a sample size of 40 participants. The second researcher might further decide that the findings of studies with 40 to 80 participants will be considered as indicative rather than conclusive. This could mean that the first researcher leaves out several relevant studies with 59 participants or fewer, while the second researcher doesn’t give enough weight to relevant studies with 80 participants or fewer.
This may not sound very creative compared to apple pies and graphic novels. And indeed the place of creativity in research is still contested by some people. For example, it has been demonstrated that some researchers, particularly in fields such as the physical sciences, can have negative attitudes towards creativity (Walsh et al 2013: 27). In other fields some research methods, particularly those used for studying social subjects, seem to encourage creativity (Rapport 2004: 4–5; Mason and Dale 2011: 2). And I would argue that, in any field, every research project is created by its researchers. We talk about ‘doing’ or ‘conducting’ research, but I would suggest that we ‘make’ research. Even where the method seems to be strictly prescribed, there is in fact a remarkable amount of scope for creativity, right from the setting of the research topic and questions (Robson and McCartan 2016: 64–5). Taking a creative approach helps to expand the purpose of research: from simply finding answers to questions, to enabling us to see and understand problems and topics in new ways (Law 2004: 2; Sullivan 2009: 62).
Creativity is sometimes conflated with art (Hesmondhaugh and Baker 2011: 1; Mewburn 2012: 126). We will see that the visual and performance arts have a lot to offer to research and researchers (Rapport 2004: 8–9; Jones 2012: 2; Rose 2012: 10). And, indeed, this works both ways, as a wide variety of artists need to develop and use research skills to support their creations (Hoffman 2003: 1; Jones 2012: 2). The processes involved in making art can be surprisingly similar to the processes involved in making research. ‘Higher level thinking (as we like to call it) demands connections, associations, linkages of conscious and unconscious elements, memory and emotion, past, present and future merging in the processes of making meaning. These are the very processes that poets actively seek to cultivate’ (Sullivan 2009: 121). I would argue that these are also the processes that many researchers seek to cultivate. Smith and Dean (2009: 12) write of the ‘mutual reciprocity’ of creative arts practice and research, and Gauntlett (2011: 4) says that ‘thinking and making are aspects of the same process’. For the US education researcher and ‘fiber artist’ Judith Davidson the relationship between research and art is cyclical: ‘I think, analyze, dissect, and write, and this leads to an idea that becomes an art piece ... in the making of the art piece, I am also thinking, analyzing, dissecting, and creating a new interpretation. This process and its product then become fodder – experience, material, understanding – for yet another wave of work on the project in its more academic form’ (Davidson 2012: 96). Artistic work seems to bring the ‘making’ into ‘making sense’.
Beyond artistic practice, there are other aspects of creativity that are relevant to research. Rapport (2004: 8–12) divides creative research methods into arts-based, narrative-based and redefined methods. For her, arts-based methods are primarily visual and performative; narrative-based methods focus on stories, often told verbally; and redefined methods take existing research methods and rearrange them into something new. For Mannay (2016a: 32), creative methods help to resist the familiar, the assumed and the taken-for-granted, and in so doing they open space for new understanding. Mason and Dale (2011: 22–3) view all creative research methods primarily as redefined, which fits with our understanding of creativity as bringing together existing elements in a new way. In recent years the move towards understanding and generating redefined research methods has gathered pace, such that we now have a growing body of literature covering creative methods. This includes creative methodologies, such as the transformative research frameworks already mentioned. It also includes some overarching methods, such as ‘netnography’, which is ethnography conducted in online environments (Kozinets 2010). And it includes creative methods for various parts of the research process, such as the use of diaries to corroborate, gather or construct data (Alaszewski 2006: 42–3), or the involvement of members of the public in publicly funded research, with the aim of improving its quality and relevance (Barber et al 2012: 217).
Research has been defined as ‘systematic enquiry whose goal is communicable knowledge’ (Archer 1995: 6). Despite all those long words, research is also a normal human activity. We gather, analyse and use data constantly as we live our lives in our bodies. Let’s say you go to make a hot drink one day and find the electric kettle isn’t working. That presents you with a problem to solve. You might check that the kettle is plugged in and switched on. If it is, and it still doesn’t work, that’s some data you’ve gathered and analysed to help you decide what your next step will be: checking the fuse box, perhaps. We also gather and analyse physical and emotional data. A dry sensation in the mouth and slight headache, once analysed, might lead you to drink some water. Your phone ringing might make you feel excited (if you are waiting for important news) or happy (if you fancy a chat) or irritable (if you are hungry and have just received some delicious food): you would analyse the combination of your physical and emotional sensations to help you decide whether to take the call.
Generally, we do this kind of informal ‘research’ without thinking of it as such – sometimes, without thinking at all. Yet it can be surprisingly creative. Conventional research doesn’t recognise the potential of informal research, focusing instead on other tasks such as reading, thinking and writing. But informal and formal research are not mutually exclusive, and using informal research creatively can benefit more formal research (Markham 2013a: 65–6). For example, formal research questions often develop from informal research (Madsen 2000: 42).
Evaluation research is a form of applied research that is widely used in many settings around the world. Most approaches to evaluation offer a high degree of flexibility about which methods to use and how to use them (Arvidson and Kara 2013: 13). This enables creativity in evaluation research. For example, Mertens (2010) conducted a transformative multi-modal evaluation using technology (Box 1.2).
Box 1.2: Transformative multi-modal evaluation research by Mertens
Donna Mertens, from Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, refers directly to her work as transformative, and describes this as ‘a framework of belief systems that directly engages members of culturally diverse groups with a focus on increased social justice’ (Mertens 2010: 470). Gallaudet is the only university in the world specifically for deaf students, and staff are required to be fluent in American Sign Language (ASL). The university had a teacher-preparation programme to prepare teachers for working with deaf students who had an emotional or physical disability. Mertens led a transformative evaluation of this programme. Her first step was to gather a research team that reflected the diversity of the community of teachers in deaf education: two were ‘culturally deaf’ (born deaf and grew up using ASL), a third was also deaf but grew up using her voice and lip-reading, and had a cochlear implant that enabled her to function in the hearing world. The fourth team member was Mertens herself, a hearing researcher, fluent in ASL and with over 25 years of experience working in the deaf community. The team produced a multi-modal design including an initial phase of participant observation, interviews and document reviews. Initial findings were used to develop an online survey to gather more quantitative and qualitative data. The survey findings were then used as a basis for more interviews. This proved to be an effective method for the evaluation, the findings of which led to the university dean making a commitment to changing the programme (Mertens 2010: 473).
While this book is primarily aimed at an academic audience, many of the methods outlined here could be used by evaluation researchers.
Most of this book is based on published material, accounts of creative approaches in research that form part of written research discourse. Although some of these accounts are in paywalled journals, or available only in English or only to people with access to the internet, they are still accessible to a large number of people. Much less accessible are researchers’ informal exploratory uses of creative methods.
When I am analysing data or writing research prose and feeling a bit stuck, I often begin writing a poem, or start on a digital diagram using NVivo’s modelling function. Some of these poems and diagrams get finished and the diagrams (although not the poems) are occasionally used in publications (for example, Kara 2018: 10). More often I get part way through a poem or diagram and realise that I’m no longer stuck and can carry on with my analysis or writing. This is a private part of my work, informal and exploratory. I do it alone; I don’t expect ever to write about it at greater length than this paragraph.
I am not the only one to make personal use of creative methods for my research. Brittany Amell is, at the time of writing, a doctoral candidate at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Amell uses drawing and collage in her own research process, but again, this is informal and exploratory, although she has also mentioned it in published work (Amell and Blouin-Hudon 2018: 38). She says that these methods help her to see more deeply into her projects and to make connections that she might not otherwise make (Amell, personal communication, 2018).
I am sure that many researchers worldwide draw on creative methods in support of their work. No doubt some of the examples in this book grew from just such informal exploratory practices. It would be interesting to investigate this in more detail.
The history of research methods is full of multi-skilled people working across disciplines. Yet, by the start of the 20th century the Euro-Western world had reached a point where most researchers did research in only one area and were not expected to know about anything else. White, male positivists were in control, reasoning that research was a neutral activity, conducted in laboratories (and thereby somehow separate from society), and that researchers had no effect on the research process or its outcome. This approach to research has been called ‘disembodied’ (Ellingson 2017: 6; Thanem and Knights 2019: 10).
In the second half of the 20th century the fallacies in positivist reasoning became apparent. Researchers began to view their work as value laden, symbiotically linked with society and inevitably affected by the researchers themselves. As they developed this new paradigm researchers began to reach out beyond the bounds of conventional research, to the arts, other research methods, technology and society, to find more useful ways to explore the world around us. The next chapter will explore these in more detail.
1.How creative is your approach to research?
2.How creative would you like your approach to research to be?
3.If there is a difference between your answers to questions 1 and 2, what might you do about that?
4.Which of the five key areas of creative research methods do you find most interesting? Why do you think that is?
5.In your own approach to research, how and where does informal research contribute?
1I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for highlighting the usefulness of this term.
