Storyboarding: An Anti-Oppressive Qualitative Research Method

Background: Despite the growing movement toward strengths-based, client-centered approaches to supporting parent survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV), most research on this topic uses traditional methods of data collection such as quantitative measures and traditional interview structures that can feel overwhelming and invasive. The use of visual methods to collect sensitive data can be a less-intrusive way for participants to convey their thoughts apart from dialogic interviews (Cross & Warwick-Booth, 2016). Storyboarding is one such research method (Medina-Munoz et al., 2016), allowing participants to share complex personal and emotional stories in a safer, less threatening way. This method dismantles inherent power differentials present within the research interview process. Storyboarding creates a space in which participants can control the information they disclose in a form that empowers openness and creativity (Herman & Van der Kolk, 2020). This research is the first in the United States to explore IPV using the anti-oppressive research methods of storyboarding.

Methods: As part of a qualitative study looking at the relationship between exposure to IPV and parenting, a robust and diverse sample of 16 female-identified individuals was recruited. Participation criteria required that individuals had previously been part of an IPV relationship as adults while also witnessing IPV as a child. Interviews began with an open-ended storyboarding activity in which participants wrote, drew, or otherwise visually expressed parts of their experiences with IPV and parenting. Participants were given as much time as they needed for the storyboarding followed by semi-structured, in-person interviews, with both methods lasting between 60 and 180 minutes. Storyboards were analyzed via iterative, thematic analysis by the principal investigator as well as two members of the qualitative research team using NVivo-12 software.

Findings: Content analysis of the storyboard process resulted in the identification of three themes: tone versus content, storyboard display, and the separation of parenting and abuse. Per the first theme, many participants spoke about their storyboards using paraverbals that both reinforced and differed from the content of their storyboards. Storyboard display related to the different forms storyboards assumed, such as timelines of events, series of smaller drawings, or journal entries. Finally, almost all the participants illustrated events related to experiences with IPV but did not depict any overlap in their storyboards between IPV and parenting. Themes highlighted the ways in which participants used the storyboard to help them reflect, organize their thoughts, and create a sense of ease in the interview space.

Conclusions and Implications: The storyboard activity created space for participants to initially process the general breadth of their stories. In several cases, this space helped participants feel more at ease for the remainder of the interview. In the words of Elizabeth, “...I was so nervous to share with you about my experiences with IPV. When I was able to draw something instead, I just felt refreshed and like I could ease in.” Using anti-oppressive, creative data collection methods such as storyboarding in research may help vulnerable populations to share their stories thereby potentially eliciting richer data regarding one’s experiences.