Methods, Methodologies, and Research Findings

Farrell, Arizpe, and McAdam


This article discusses the the different ways that immigrant and non-immigrant children interpret a picture book. The researchers work with a group of 10 children aged between 10 and hall. Half of those students were considered immigrants. The reason this research was conducted was because the researchers were concerned that immigrants would not be able to express themselves as freely as non-immigrants. 


The findings concluded that the main difference between the immigrants and the non-immigrants was that the non-immigrants needed more help with writing their comments and that it was the immigrant children who made the more insightful comments. They concluded this was because of their experience with immigration and they are more used to having to consider pictorial clues to make sense of the text. These findings are not surprising at all to me. It would make sense that the immigrant children would have an easier time deciphering pictures than non-immigrant children because they are more dependent on pictures than text. 


Some of the methods of interpreting the data included textual and artistic features such as intertextuality, metafiction, design, color, and perspective, as well as analyzing the author/illustrators intentions and identifying the implied audience. 


In the paper, they discussed the use of annotated spread as a methodological tool. They describe in their findings that this has been an effective tool for gathering data. The annotated spread they used included responses that were experiential, interpersonal, compositional, interpretive, and other.