Raising the Insignificant Details of Experience to Significance

The creative analytic paradigm is being developed as a form of generative social research in contrast to quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research. The methodology is centred on the concept of evocative objects used to generate clusters of ideas referred to as satellite topics. Data arises in a serendipitous way through focused experience rather than as a planned process of systematic data collection and analysis. The intended outcome within a professional practice context is conversational learning rather than propositional knowledge.
As a basic category of research there are potentially several versions of the creative analytic paradigm, including compilation of a conceptual canvas of satellite topics and use of multimedia as part of an exploratory journey to engage participants in a reflective process. The creative analytic paradigm supports raising the insignificant details of experience to significance e.g. noticing a child with a toy car, a pictorial timetable, a partition screen. Analysis is understood as an additive process of overlaying meanings while ‘turning towards’ the evocative object as well as by ‘turning away’ to broader themes. Opportunities for developing associations within a collaborative virtual environment are provided by the use of virtual tour software in conjunction with an interactive online space for collaborative reflection. Although this collaborative use of virtual tour software has yet to be developed, the presentation will include a prototypical framework based on images and video clips from early-years settings and a MySql database approach to support collaborative reflection.