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Understanding the place and meaning of physical activity in young girls’ lives through participatory methods
Déirdre Ní Chróinín, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick
Eimear Enright, University of Queensland, Australia
Research Question
‘Can a one-off engagement with participatory methods produce different knowledge by
facilitating girls to share their understandings around the place and meaning of physical
activity, physical education and sport in their lives?’
Participatory methods are those that facilitate participants in…
“finding their own language to articulate what they know, and help them put words to their
ideas and feelings, and share understandings of their worlds, thereby giving participants more
control over the research process” (Enright & O’Sullivan, 2012, p.122).
Fielding (2004)
• Students as data source
• Students as active respondents
• Students as co-researchers
• Students as researchers
Data Collection
• 4 all-girls primary schools
• 102 girls age 11-13
• One-off data collection
– Individual letter– Group poster
102 individual
letters
Thematic Analysis(Braun and Clarke, 2006)
21 group posters
with accompanying written ‘art’ text
15 hours of voice recordings of the group poster task
Key Finding 1Intrinsic
Utilitarian
Personal experiences
DominantSocial Messages
Intrinsic – fun and friends
‘My favourite things to do is play basketball because its really fun just bouncing the ball around. I also like
football because its really fun kicking the football around. My other
favourite thing is running around the place I like this because it is just like
freedom and fun’ (LM MA).
‘I love swimming because its fun going under the water and
going down the slides’ (EOS MA)
Utilitarian – fit and healthy
‘people need sport to get fit and it is healthy. Sports is everywhere and it is very important because some people walk, run and they do
everything with movements…I like to be fit and healthy’ (PG SAM).
‘In this picture there’s a fat guy who joins a GAA club and with his hard work and dedication and some time he becomes healthy, skinny and handsome and all the girls like him’ (SAM3b).
Key Finding 2
’Don’t give up! Do what
you wanna do! Try at least 1 sport!!! Your spoilt for choice!!!’
(SBE 2).
‘The Main message of you poster is sports and activities
are fun and everyone should at least do one activity or sport’
(MA1).
Using Participatory methods
“I Keep Six Honest Serving Men ...”
I KEEP six honest serving-men(They taught me all I knew);Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.I send them over land and sea,I send them east and west;But after they have worked for me,I give them all a rest.
Rudyard Kipling
Using Participatory Methods
• Accessing ‘meaning’
• Recordings of ‘poster construction’
• When all you have is a parachute…
When all you have is a parachute:
• Drawing a tree's not a sports person
• It's not a sports person!• Jumping in puddles…• Yes, jumping in puddles, playing in
puddles• Wonderful! Fixed.• Ok then , then she's ice-skating…• Just change the wellie boot to like,
ice-skating…• And then the trees could be…Oh I
don’t know• So she could be like, an outdoor
skater• What d'ya mean a lake? • Yeah, a lake…really good for ice-
skating (SBE 5)
Conclusion
• ‘hold huge power and potential in helping us to communicate with and understand both the young people we work with as well as how the world is interpreted through their eyes’ (Pope, 2010: 205).
• Importance of ‘place and meaning’ - Help design experiences that are oriented towards positive outcomes for the participants.
