Trusting play to be meaningful data: using sand tray as a play-based research method with an adapted interpretative phenomenological analysis

We were curious about…using play itself as data for the purpose of research

Frequently, research designs with children participants will incorporate play to support connection and the development of trust between the children and the researchers prior to doing an interview or a questionnaire. Another frequent research design is to include a play section in their data collection as part of a mosaic method that may also include focus groups, drawing activities, or answering questions. 

For this research, we were curious what we could learn if we looked at play as meaningful and trustworthy data on its own. 

So we…asked children show me in the sand tray what lockdown was like for you” and analysed the video recordings of their play to put this to the test

The children’s play using the sand tray materials was analysed using process and content categories using an adaptive version of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) as described in more detail in this method’s paper. This paper can be used as a guide to explore play as data in a variety of settings and topics. 

We learned that…play can be meaningful research data on its own!

There are insights to be gained in both analysing how children play and what the content of the play is in a research setting to build knowledge and understand children’s perspectives.