Vignettes

Types of Vignettes

Vignettes can take a range of written, audio, and visual forms. Written text includes short scenarios and extracts from literature and newspapers. Audio vignettes include spoken narratives, music, songs, and sounds. Photography, painting, and line drawing have been used as visual vignettes. Audiovisual vignettes can include films and live performed acts.

The type of vignette used will be influenced by a combination of the research aims and questions, the nature of the research topics, and the participants involved. In qualitative research, vignettes are commonly embedded within interviews and group discussions.

The content of vignettes can be static or moving. A static vignette represents a one-off unlinked stimulus such as a short descriptive scenario. When a series of static vignettes are used, they risk a carryover effect from one vignette to another. The carryover effect refers to participants drawing from the context of earlier vignettes to aid interpretation of later scenarios. Static vignettes have also been criticized because participants may lose interest and tire of responding, often repetitively, to a number of unlinked scenarios. However, static vignettes are beneficial in their ability to cover a wide topic area and can also act as breakpoints when used alongside other methods.

Moving vignettes typically include extended scenarios such as narratives and film extracts. Longer vignettes can help to keep people interested during research encounters and may also save time in that contextual material need not be supplied for each new scenario. Like static vignettes, moving scenarios also risk careless responses when participants lose interest over time. Moving vignettes usually see the vignette progressing with questioning interspersed between scenarios. There is a risk that participants may become concerned with their answers, for example, if a story takes an unanticipated turn. Therefore, researchers should emphasize that there are no right or wrong answers when responding to vignettes.

It is common practice to use vignettes to be relevant and real to participants' own lives. Such vignettes have been based on previous research findings and [Page 919]constructed in collaboration with professionals and participant target groups. However, vignettes do not always require participants to have in-depth knowledge of the research topic, and some studies have constructed unrealistic vignettes to understand how individuals might behave.