Using the Pictor Technique in research with young people

In this presentation we reflect on an on-going project in which we are using the Pictor technique (King et al., 2013) to explore experiences of peer relationships amongst young people.

Young people, unused to participating in formal research interviews and discussing their friendships and peer relations with unknown adults, might well find it initially difficult to reflect on and discuss these matters with researchers. In order to facilitate discussion and in an effort to make our research participants feel more at ease in the research setting, we decided to try using a version of Pictor to begin our interview sessions. In this presentation, we discuss how we used and adapted the original technique with our research participants. Having something to ‘do’ (creating the Pictor charts) gave our participants a structured activity to engage in, providing them with some space and time to think about what it was they wanted to express, and to focus on aspects of their peer world important to them. Their Pictor charts provide a visual representation of their peer world which belongs to them, which they could then draw on and refer to in the interview. Using examples of some of the charts produced by our research participants, we reflect on how this use of Pictor has successfully worked to engage with young people in this research project.