Method Meets Art

This book presents the first comprehensive introduction to arts-based research (ABR) practices, which scholars in multiple disciplines are fruitfully using to reveal information and represent experiences that traditional methods cannot capture. Each of the six major ABR genres - narrative inquiry, poetry, music, performance, dance, and visual art - is covered in chapters that introduce key concepts and tools and present an exemplary research article by a leading ABR practitioner. Patricia Leavy discusses the kinds of research questions these innovative approaches can address and offers practical guidance for applying them in all phases of a research project, from design and data collection to analysis, interpretation, representation, and evaluation. Chapters include checklists to guide methodological decision making, discussion questions, and recommended print and online resources. This book is aimed at students and researchers in departments of education, sociology, psychology, communications, nursing, and fine arts. It can serve as a primary or supplemental text for advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses in interpretive inquiry, narrative inquiry, qualitative methods, and research methods.