COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the way we live our lives, particularly regarding the way we work, learn and communicate with others (Hooper et al., 2020; Teti et al., 2020). Significantly, during the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers across the globe were also required to rethink their approaches and find alternative ways to undertake planned studies (Kara & Khoo, 2020; Howlett, 2022). For many researchers in the social sciences, a core change was that data collection via interviews and focus groups moved from being largely ‘in person’ to being undertaken in digital spaces. While technology (e.g., communication software such as Zoom, Skype or Microsoft Teams) has significant benefits here – facilitating ‘real-time’ conversations between individuals, often over spatial and temporal distances – it has been argued that it also creates some challenges and requires researchers to reflect on their perceptions, both of what fieldwork is and how it is done (Howlett, 2022). In this presentation, we undertake such reflection in relation to the impact of Covid-19 on our own research and consider the challenges involved in exploring difficult topics through online conversations. In doing so, we draw on our experience of delivering a series of online research workshops with pre-service physical education (PE) teachers, designed to explore our work around trauma-aware pedagogies (TAP) for PE (Quarmby et al., 2022).

Childhood trauma is recognised as a significant issue that has been exacerbated by factors associated with the Covid-19 pandemic (WHO, 2020). Trauma is thought to result from a range of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) (Felitti et al., 1998; Smith, 2018) and is understood to be an overwhelming experience that undermines a person’s belief in the world as a good and safe place (SAMHSA, 2014). It has been noted that the impacts of trauma can often ‘play out’ in young people’s behaviour within various social contexts, including within the field of school (e.g., via disengagement, disruption, conflict with others). As such, there are growing calls for practitioners to become ‘trauma-aware’ (O’Toole, 2022), including those working specifically in the context of PE (Quarmby et al., 2022). Our recent work in this area has sought to engage pre-service teachers of PE in conversations about trauma and how best to understand, recognise and respond to it in practice. Such conversations are often challenging, given that ‘trauma’ can be a sensitive topic and practitioner experiences are very much context specific. Moreover, they are made more difficult, perhaps, when undertaken in an online environment where participants - often unknown to each other - are physically distanced and conversations/interactions are less direct (Howlett, 2022).

Within this presentation, we draw on this recent work and look to articulate some of the efforts undertaken to address this challenge, focusing in particular on the use of GIFs (Graphics Interchange Format - a type of digital file in which the size of images/short animations are reduced to facilitate easier access and sharing) as a data collection tool and as a means of articulating complex ideas, experiences and perspectives. GIFs have been identified as being particularly valuable in terms of their capacity to engage others, to express moods and to tell stories (Wallbaum et al., 2016; Biggs et al., 2021). Moreover, in addition to being used/taken at face value, they can be repurposed or reinterpreted, allowing them to be taken out of their context and applied in a more abstract way (Bakhshi et al., 2016). As such, we argue that there is value in considering the role GIFs may play in both generating data and facilitating difficult conversations within a research context.

In exploring the use of GIFs as a research tool, we draw on our experience of delivering a series of online research workshops with pre-service PE teachers, designed to explore our work around TAP for PE (Quarmby et al., 2022). Full ethical clearance was obtained for this research from the authors’ institutions. Workshop participants were recruited via personal networks, university PE teacher education programmes and social media (e.g., Twitter). In total, 22 individuals participated across three sets of workshops: the majority were from England and Scotland, with one participant from Australia. The interactive workshops were delivered online (via Microsoft Teams) between May and August 2021, with participants each taking part in 2x2-hour sessions. The first session sought to: i) provide a background to key concepts; ii) consider how trauma may manifest in/be addressed via PE; and iii) introduce our TAP principles. The second session then sought to: i) examine the conceptual relevance of the TAP principles; ii) consider how they might be enacted in the participants’ contexts; and iii) explore the concept of teacher self-care within trauma-aware practice. Each session contained a combination of academic content, individual tasks (e.g., word association) and group reflections (e.g., shared understandings of/conversations about the TAP principles). These group tasks also involved co-creation, in that they involved participants working collectively – and with the researchers – to consider how the principles might be enacted in different ‘PE, moments’ (e.g., ‘getting changed’, ‘dealing with incidents’). Within this context, GIFs were available as a tool for participants to use as a means of expressing a particular perspective in response to a question (e.g., ‘what might a ‘good’ PE experience look like for a trauma-affected pupil?’) via a Padlet (a form of digital noticeboard). The conversation/dialogue generated by activities in each of the workshops was recorded using the Microsoft Teams function, and subsequently converted into an audio file for transcription. In addition, text from the ‘chat’ was transferred to a Microsoft Word file, along with screenshots of Padlets and any GIFs used within them. While a broader thematic analysis was undertaken on the full data set (following Braun & Clark, 2006), for the purpose of this presentation we focus on exploring the use of GIFs within the research process. In doing so, we draw on the work of Goffman (1981) to consider how GIFs functioned as a means of both initiating and extending conversations within the research context.

It is argued that a core value of GIFs is that they enable affective and embodied experiences to be shared (Tolins & Samermit, 2016). Moreover, when employed within a group context, there is a capacity for GIFs to give rich detail that is then aided by contextual clarification and discussion. Certainly, within our study it was clear that GIFs were used in some cases as ‘performance of affect’, that is, showing actions/responses that directly related to the behaviours being discussed. In this way, GIFs functioned as visual cues, communicating ideas of, for example, particular emotions/responses by teachers or pupils (anger, anxiety or stress) or embodied actions that pre-service PE teachers felt would be important in interactions with trauma-affected pupils (listening, responding, caring). As such, they could be seen to identify an individual's 'affective stance' towards particular ideas. Moreover, through extended discussion in a constructive and supportive environment, there was scope to consider shifts in footing (Goffman, 1981) as participants’ critical appreciation of trauma-aware practice developed. This was enabled by the capacity for GIFs to be used in more abstract ways, such as presenting responses via metaphors (e.g., a balloon GIF representing the notion of ‘feeling deflated’). In these cases, there was an opportunity to explore the reasoning behind particular image/action choices, positioning GIFs as helpful conversation starters and a means of drawing all participants (and researchers) into a shared discussion about both intended and alternative meanings. Thus, while broader research has identified GIFs as being valuable for thinking through ideas and grappling with research questions (Biggs et al., 2021), we argue that our novel research within the context of PE also evidences their capacity to initiate and extend research conversations around complex areas of practice.

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