2019 Annual Conference

Research to Practice

Concurrent Session (45 minutes)

Research poetry, valuable for its poignancy and creativity in analyzing and presenting data, can heighten comprehension of research content and move political policy by drawing on readers’ emotional connection to participants and inspiring activism. It can increase accessibility to research on marginalized populations such as individuals with disabilities.

The target audience is qualitative researchers, doctoral and post-doctoral students, and adult education instructors of research methodology with concerns about increasing accessibility to research data on marginalized populations. Participants whose social justice concerns have led them to an interest in expanding the understanding of individuals who are excluded from mainstream society, socially, economically, and politically, will see how to affect change by creating emotionally heightened connections between the research participants, the researchers, and the readers through the use of poetry drawn from interview transcripts.  They will gain insights and practical ideas for using alternative data presentation methods in qualitative research.

In order to promote human rights for individuals with disabilities, we must comprehend their lived experience. Results from two studies will increase participants’ understanding of how to use poetry to present qualitative research data that can heighten the understanding of disability experiences in today’s society and apply this same technique to other marginalized populations. Through a discussion of their reaction to different methods of data presentation, attendees will evaluate the effectiveness of research poetry in capturing and amplifying marginalized voices and evoking emotions that have the potential to raise awareness and affect change.

     Ruth Behar (1996) raised the question of whether or not emotional responses increased or diminished intellectual comprehension.  This presentation will show that it enhances understanding and produces a strong connection between the research and the reader.  It creates affective knowledge, and it can increase empathy and understanding. The value of research poetry is its emotional weight and creativity in presenting data.  It offers the ability to investigate multiple meanings, personal subjectivities, and voices of marginalized study participants while providing research data access to an extended audience.                   Poetry is not merely a unique means of presenting the data, but it also offers an alternate way of interpreting the data as the researcher pays attention not just to the content of an interview but to the rhythms and silences as well. Poetry, with its spaces and silences, can focus the researcher on the subtexts within society, concentrating research on the invisible players in the socially accepted hierarchy.  Research poetry provokes dialogue and adds counter-narratives that are emotionally evocative.  It is one way to heighten comprehension of research content and move political policy by drawing on the readers’ emotional connection to the participants and inspiring activism.

Contrasting techniques of sharing research data will be presented by providing results of two studies on individuals living with their own disabilities or living with family members who have disabilities. The process for developing research poems through data analysis and creative writing will be outlined, and the theories behind this process will be explored.  Participants will have the opportunity to experiment with their own data interpretation and poetic writing. Sharing research poems, a slide show presentation on how to create poems from collected data, and a poetry writing exercise for participants will be part of the presentation.