All research projects include key stages, whichever topic is studied and whatever approach is taken. There is a research design, phases of data collection or data production and careful processes of analysis that lead to the dissemination of key findings and accompanying impacts.
As analysis is a key stage in all research projects, there is often an assumption that the nuts and bolts of analytical procedures are clear to researchers. However, the steps required to engage with the mass of data accumulated in a study, in order to define the key arguments that attend to the central research questions, are often shrouded in mystery.
Of course, there are many textbooks that set out how to undertake thematic analysis with transcripts from qualitative interviews or run statistical tests on quantitative data sets. But when researchers publish papers on their studies, there is often just a single perfunctory paragraph that tells the reader little about the ‘how’ of data analysis.
The need for transparency and openness about the complexities, confusions and intricacies of data analysis dominated the questions posed by the attendees of our ‘Creativity in Research’ webinar facilitated by Policy Press back in February 2021. We were prepared to share our combined experiences of creative forms of data production, working with participants in the modes of collage, sandboxing, film, walking, drawing and other examples of engagement. We were also well practised in communicating our approaches to dissemination and impact. But what people were really interested in was how we analysed creative data and how to analyse data creatively.
We were challenged to provide insights into the dark art of making meaning with research data, and it was not a challenge that we could respond to fully with over 200 attendees in one short webinar. But we did want to provide answers to these questions, for these webinar attendees, for ourselves and for our colleagues and students who had asked similar questions and felt overwhelmed and in need of guidance about the everyday intricacies of the analysis process.
This led us to come together as editors and work with authors to collate 31 chapters, 93 images and 15 tables, which in its entirety was published in 2024 by Policy Press as The Handbook of Creative Data Analysis. The book was launched at the International Creative Research Methods Conference in 2024 and the Policy Press stall sold out of books and ran out of order forms, confirming the need for a publication that encouraged transparency, openness and clear directions through the complicated path of creative data analysis.
It was an absolute joy to edit this book, and we learnt a lot about how to work with data, whether conventionally or creatively gathered, in innovative and ethical ways. We were introduced to a range of creative approaches that can be taken to analyse various forms of data including images, interview transcripts and quantitative data sets. In a short article, it is not possible to outline each chapter and its imaginative processes. The contributions are diverse, and in each case the authors have carefully communicated in enough detail for others to feel confident in trying these different techniques in their own projects of data analysis.
For example, in relation to the creative analysis of quantitative data, Kate Carruthers Thomas articulates the analytical process of translating survey data into a graphic novella. Alexandra Morgan, Andrew James Davies and Emmajane Milton share how they use the lenses of both discourse analysis and content analysis to explore how the headteacher role is articulated in job descriptions. The affordances of creating word clouds to provide a structural and strategic means of eliciting and comparing the stories within a data set are also shared by Louise Gascoine, Kate Wall and Steve Higgins.
In the field of creative written analysis, Jacqueline Dodding and Hazel Partington offer reflections on the analytical potential of writing reflexive accounts in poetic forms. Creative arts-based analysis features in a chapter by Karen Gray and Emma Lazenby who describe their analogue journey method and reflect on how making an evidence wall of key visual and textual material gave them a set of clues with which to interrogate meanings and find key points of interest. Naomi Clarke explains how, as a researcher and crafter, she embedded stitching throughout every stage of her doctoral work as a tool of reflexivity to reconsider her data.
Analysis is not an activity restricted to researchers, and Jess Mannion and the Relationships and Sexuality Research Team describe how their multi-stage co-analysis is designed to maximise accessibility and includes visual interpretation, member checking and content, art-based and embodied forms of analysis, ensuring that co-inquirers are meaningfully engaged across the study. For Karen Hammond and Nick Fuller, collegial academic collaborations are centralised in their account of a shared shamanic journey, which offers insights into creative qualitative data analysis and the complexities of researcher identity.
The authors demonstrate how different forms of analysis can be drawn on at different stages of the research process. This ongoing back and forth between the generation of data and generating understanding of the data is characterised with moments of serendipity, reconceptualization and revision; and the authors are generous in sharing their own learning so that readers of the book can be effectively supported to develop their own journeys of creative data analysis.
Dawn Mannay is Professor of Creative Research Methodologies at Cardiff University. Helen Kara is a researcher, author, teacher, and speaker specialising in research methods, particularly creative methods, and research ethics at We Research It Ltd. Alastair Roy is Professor of Social Research at the University of Central Lancashire.
The Handbook of Creative Data Analysis edited by Helen Kara, Dawn Mannay and Alastair Roy is available on the Bristol University Press website. Order here for £125.00 or £39.99 for the EPUB.
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