The Abductive Leap: Eliding Visual and Participatory in Research Design

This chapter seeks to problematise some of our assumptions about visual methods and their role in relation to participatory design and ethics in educational research. We make use of abductive reasoning (Peirce, 1878; 1903) to explore the ways in which other researchers but most specifically we have attributed causality and connection in this area. Our experience in exploring these assumptions to write this chapter suggests that the use of greater precision and transparency in framing the relationship between the researcher’s intent and the use of visual methods is a vital first step, which can set the context for a more reflective data collection process as well as a more reflexive discussion of intent, design and process.