by Panagiota (Peny) Sotiropoulou

At the beginning of February 2024, I attended the in-person workshop on Using Diary Method in Social Research, organised by the SRHE and facilitated by Dr Emily Henderson, Dr Zoe Baker and Dr Ahmad Akkad.

Figure 1: Dr Zoe Baker presenting a group task during the workshop

As a reflective, life-long learner, I think there is no bigger satisfaction than sharing lessons learned from attending professional development opportunities like this with a wider audience. So, in this blog, I will present my main takeaways from the day and how I adapted what I learned to fit the diary method in a recent collaborative research proposal submitted for funding.

Using diary as a research method – my main takeaway messages from attending the workshop

1. Using diary as a method for social research is perceived as a bit mysterious, “somewhat off the beaten path” (Hyers, 2018:vi), as it is still an underused method, without a big body of literature surrounding it. For this reason, researchers should be prepared to receive some initial hesitation from potential participants and be familiar with relevant existing studies that have used this method, to support and argue in favour of their choice.
2. There is a difference between unsolicited (those pre-existing the research) and solicited diaries (those created for the purpose of the research). However, only the latter type of diary is relevant to researchers who are interested in incorporating diary entries in their research design to explore current topics.
3. Simpler forms of diaries (e.g. paper templates or online documents) seem to work better than specialist diary apps in terms of facilitating participant engagement and retention.
4. Two of the main advantages of the diary method are that it can provide access to settings that are hard for the researcher to enter (e.g. school classrooms) and that it provides the participants with the space, time and agency to think and decide what they want to share with the researcher, unlike an interview setting, for example, where participants have to react on the spot.
5. Diaries are a good way to research marginalised groups and sensitive topics and provide a perfect way to explore lived, micro-level experiences.
6. The success of a diary study is inextricably linked to the provision of clear instructions on when entries should be made and what participants should cover in those. In terms of the timing of entries, the main distinction is between interval-based (regular records kept over specific time intervals) and event-based sampling (records made every time the participant experiences something that qualifies as an event for the purpose of the research).
7. The diary requirements should be in balance with participants’ availability, so that the diary does not become an onerous task.
8. Diary studies come with a relatively high administrative burden, as researchers are required to sustain communications with their participants throughout the project to retain them and to monitor that their engagement is appropriate.
9. Participation in diary studies might result in increased reactivity/self-awareness for participants (i.e. participants realise their circumstances better after keeping a diary). This might be either positive or negative, depending on whether or not participants take steps towards positive change.

And now what? Adapting diary methods to my research practice

At the time of the workshop I was involved in developing a collaborative research bid to examine the lived experiences of minority ethnic staff and students in Welsh higher education institutions (HEIs). My participation in the workshop consolidated my thinking that including diary elements in this project would be a perfect fit, for several reasons:

1. Diaries would put the voices of minority ethnic staff and students at the forefront. By providing them with the space to create their own narratives, participants would be empowered to use their diaries to produce authentic and honest representations of their lived experiences.
2. Diaries would allow participants to record their experiences in real time, providing detailed and context-rich data. This immediacy could capture nuances that might be missed by standalone interviews or surveys.
3. The flexibility of diaries in terms of format (e.g. allowing for the inclusion of both written and audiovisual elements) and the ease with which they can be tailored to be submitted online would enable participants to adapt their diaries to what best suits their preferences and availability.
4. Diary entries can complement other research methods, such as interviews and focus groups, to provide holistic exploration of lived experiences, with the latter acting as debrief opportunities to further explore the former.

As this bid came in response to a public tender there was a strict budget, a defined timeline and some specific methodologies requested that needed to be met for our proposal to be competitive. Diary methods were not amongst those requested and the time required for managing participants in such studies as well as analysing relevant findings made the inclusion of a pure diary study unsuitable for this specific bid. However, recognising the unique potential that incorporating diary elements would bring in exploring everyday experiences of minority ethnic staff and students, we decided to adopt participant-led multimedia-elicitation as a viable alternative.

Specifically, we thought that we would ask participants to use Padlet to capture multimedia depictions of their lived experiences accompanied by a short, explanatory commentary for their choice, with staff and students having separate Padlets to populate. We were particularly keen to allow for multimedia posts, so that we could capture more appropriately the various textures and facets comprising staff and students’ lived experience in HEIs (Metcalfe, 2016) (e.g. the sound of a spoken language -or the lack thereof- the places of inclusion/exclusion, as well as abstract concepts like ‘friendship’ etc).

Padlet perfectly served this purpose, as the platform affords for a variety of post types, such as audio recordings, website links, photos, songs. Padlet also allows for the creation of online peer communities, as it provides participants with the opportunity to interact with each other’s content. This further boosted our thinking to use the co-created Padlets of our participants as the basis for a subsequent online focus group discussion with them. This would enable us to better understand the meaning of the multimedia included as well as the interactions developed on the Padlets, as a means to shed more light on how these represent the lived experiences of minority ethnic staff and students.

Our choice was inspired by Keenan (2023), who reflects upon the diarying aspects of photo-elicitation, highlighting how this method is under-used in higher education and yet optimal for unravelling lived experiences. This is because it allows participants to be both creators and interpreters of the data, engaging them “in acts of diarying – both in terms of recording and reflexively interpreting everyday life” (Keenan 2023: 93).

Conclusions

Had I not attended the SRHE workshop, my understanding of the benefits of the diary method and its appropriateness for exploring lived experiences of marginalised communities in higher education would not have been so well-informed. It was learning from this workshop that prompted me to incorporate diary elements in the research bid on exploring minority ethnic staff and students’ lived experiences in higher education. Although the bid outcome is not yet published, I have already had a personal win, being able to include a new methodology in my practice.

So, many thanks to the SRHE for organising the session, to the facilitators for pitching it at such a perfect level, to my fellow participants, who were fully engaged and enriched the session even more by sharing their experiences, thoughts, and practices, and, last but not least, to my manager, who is always so supportive of me expanding my methodology repertoire and pursuing development opportunities. And here is my final lesson learned; do not hesitate to engage in professional development activities, as they are both educational and inspirational!

Dr Panagiota (Peny) Sotiropoulou is a mixed-methods researcher at Advance HE’s Insights Team. Her main interests lie in EDI considerations in HE, with a special focus on issues related to race and ethnicity. Her areas of specialisation involve mixed-methods research designs, impact and theory-based evaluations. Peny has extensive experience in programme evaluation, leading on Advance HE’s internal programme evaluations, in addition to those embedded to bespoke consultancy projects (read some of her recent work here). Peny has been involved with a wide array of projects, ranging from reviewing barriers to doctoral funding to institutional reporting and complaints processes. She has also been heavily involved in the production and dissemination of Advance HE’s annual Equality in Higher Education: Statistical Reports, as she loves to engage in outreach activities promoting EDI considerations to various audiences.

Get in contact with her on Twitter/X (@penpenwise) or LinkedIn.