Attending Helen Kara’s course on creative research methods

This NCRM impact case study was produced following a conversation with Dr Kara Brisson-Boivin, Director of Research for Media Smarts, a national not-for-profit charitable organisation for digital and media literacy, based in Ottawa, Canada.

Background

Brisson-Boivin (PhD, Sociology) works as Director of Research for Media Smarts, a national charitable organisation, based in Ottawa Canada. MediaSmarts (formerly known as Media Awareness Network) came out of a TV violence initiative launched by the Canadian National Film Board in the early 1990s. The focus of the organisation is on education that enables "children, youth and trusted adults [to] have the critical thinking skills to engage with media as active and informed digital citizens" (Media Smarts website).

Brisson-Boivin and her research colleague McAleese (Research and Evaluation Associate), lead all the research projects for the organisation. These are often a mix of qualitative and quantitative projects. A key study, that is organised and run by Media Smarts is Young Canadians.

"It’s longitudinal (with an asterisk), because it’s Canada’s longest running study of Young Canadians’ Experiences Online. And... we’re currently analysing data from the fourth phase of that study that began in 1999. So roughly, every like five years, we go back into the field, and we do... focus groups and then a big quantitative survey. And I say it’s longitudinal in asterisks because we go to the same grades, but of course those students have changes as they, you know, age up in the system... but anyways, the point is that it’s been a study that’s been really important for the organisation as well as, sort of, highly sought after in the Canadian field in terms of our media and digital literacy, and digital media literacy issues."

The organisation also runs a project on Online Hate, and regularly bids for money for other research projects. It has just been successful in gaining funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada for the Moving On: Digital Empowerment and Literacy Skills for Survivors (MODELSS) to develop, deliver and evaluate a digital literacy programme for survivors of family violence living in shelters or transitional housing, over the next four years. It will be collaborating with service delivery partners from local, regional, and national family violence and Violence Against Women organizations across Canada. The programme will include digital triage content, providing important online safety, security, and well-being information to assist survivors (and their families) in crisis; and prevention and resilience content delivered through workshops to educate and empower survivors. These will focus on responding to and preventing technology-facilitated violence and building digital literacy skills so survivors can confidently participate in online communities. Some of the people that Media Smarts will work with include survivors from indigenous and newcomer communities.

Participation in NCRM training

The research team members need to present findings from their research to a wide and varied audience, such as parents, teachers, journalists, academics, policy makers, and politicians (sometimes team members need to testify to Parliament). All these audiences require a different type of content and material to enable them to engage with, and access, findings. Key reasons for Brisson-Boivin and McAleese’s attendance at the Creative Methods course were:

"But you know, this time, as we’re doing both the analysis, and thinking about report writing [for the Young Canadians project], we... really did want to think about: how can we creatively present this data? Are there other ways that we can mobilise it?... We really wanted to... expand our toolbox in terms of how we understand qualitative research, and also how we can make quantitative research more accessible, and frankly, a little bit more exciting for a wider audience."

"I think there’s been a huge motivation within the organisation to want to change something... But what we lacked was... like the teeth, to be able to like mobilise these ideas. So, one of the benefits of the course, is that having gone through the training, we could say ‘okay, you know, we’ve been through the training, we’ve got some expertise, we’ve got some... tools and teeth now’. That they know this is quite valid. And now we have the justifications for mobilising some of the new directions we wanted to take. So, I think we’ve had the desire to change, but we just didn’t have the tools to do it or, the like I say... the kind of proof... we needed to say... this is valid."

The team also wanted to consider creative ways of engaging with those being researched, and potentially, in the case of the MODELLS project, to bring some creative methods into working alongside different survivors, particularly those from indigenous and newcomer communities, where hearing, listening to, and building trust with these communities will be key to the project’s success.

The organisation knows that changes in methodological direction will require conversations with funders:

"How do we justify to funders, the use of some of these creative methods? Which was one of our kind of biggest questions to Helen, in the course. Because I think in the research community, or in the academic community there is an acceptance of these methods or... there is more acceptance of them, than, for example, with some of the funders we have in the government sector. It’s tricky to try to help them to see some of that value. So that was one of the other things that we were hoping to get out of the course – how to convey to funders why this is incredibly beneficial and in the long run, may be much better than the kind of typical, or traditional knowledge mobilisation pieces that we’re used to."

Impact

At the time that this conversation took place, Kara and her team were in the process of analysing data from the most recent phase of the Young Canadians’ study. Commenting on the impact of the Creative Methods Course, Brisson-Boivin said:

"Yeah, I think we’re kind of in the middle of applying some of these skills, right now, because as they say, we’re just in data analysis for the quantitative project, and we’ll be publishing reports over the next year. So, I can say, at, the sort of immediate term, we’ve really been rethinking how we’re approaching that project."

"So a strategic thinking around the reporting has happened, and I think some of the things we learned in Helen’s course, around – sometimes, you know, less is more. So really figuring out how to do... concentrated mini reports on a theme, for example, like online privacy, relationships, bullying. Where we can focus on the more creative things, like infographics, and... creative presentations of that data. And, really, I think, thinking a bit more strategically about audience. So not losing some of the like, rigor, or richness in the research. But really figuring out who’s interested in that, and who... needs the hard and fast facts in an accessible way, so they can mobilise them for their own work."

The research team also plan to write creative methods into new research proposals and funding bids:

"There’s going to have to be some additional steps put into... funding applications on proposals that explain the utility and value of that."

The impacts being seen by the organisation are embryonic, and currently difficult to evidence.

"I think the tricky thing, for my... organisation, is that I anticipate concrete things in the next eight months, and the next four years... I can’t say to you: ‘yes we did this’. But they’re in, you know, process... But... in the next four years we will be really mobilising a lot of the tools that we learnt on the course."