The modern UK veterinary profession: photo-elicitation interviewing reveals that small animal and surgical images dominate

More than 80 per cent of vets are employed in clinical practice but other veterinary roles are vital for society. However, even clinical practice does not seem to fulfil some modern graduates, and an increasing number of veterinarians are leaving the profession to pursue other careers. Research suggests that less than 50 per cent of veterinarians would choose to undertake their career path again, so the profession faces a ‘workforce crisis’. Through semi-structured photo-elicitation interviewing, this study has explored the image that students embarking on veterinary education have of the profession. The students’ dominant image of the profession, and their perception of the public image, was small animal practice. A large proportion (n=16, 80 per cent) of participants saw themselves working in clinical practice, with many (n=8, 40 per cent) aspiring to focus on surgery. The image of the veterinary profession has changed since the 1970s when the James Herriot mixed practice model was well known to the public. The dominant small animal and surgical image emerging demonstrates a need for members of the profession to work together to educate public and entrant perception, emphasising the diversity of veterinary careers and their value to society, to allow aspiring veterinary entrants to develop a range of career goals.

Developing Interactive Elicitation: Social Desirability Bias and Capturing Play

Drawing on research from a mixed-methods project on gaming we argue for a qualitative methodological approach called “interactive elicitation,” a form of data collection that combines elements of photo elicitation, interviewing and vignettes. After situating our broader research project exploring young people’s experiences of violent open-world video games, we outline the process of conducting interactive elicitation, arguing for a mixed-methods approach where participants are observed and interviewed both during and immediately after interacting with particular cultural artefacts, in this case the game GTA V. We reflect on the initial design of the research methodology, the problematic aspects of conducting the research – focusing on social desirability bias – before proffering adaptations to our approach in relation to complementary work in the field of Game Studies. Ultimately, we argue for immediacy in relation to research on cultural experiences and the importance of social desirability as an asset in framing interaction, both of which have implications for sociological and interdisciplinary research more widely.

Photo-elicitation in prison ethnography: Breaking the ice in the field and unpacking prison officers’ use of force

Research papers on prisons have occasionally been illustrated with photographs. Yet rarely have visual methods been used critically in prison ethnography; image-making and images themselves have been used illustratively rather than as constitutive sites of knowledge production and, therefore, as objects to be interrogated in their own right by the researcher through, for example, participant collaboration. This paper focuses on the use of ‘photo-elicitation’ interviewing as a method for unpacking prison officers’ use of force. The discussion is based on an ethnography conducted inside an Italian custodial complex that hosts both a forensic psychiatric hospital and a prison. Prison officers, psychiatric staff and prisoners were invited to discuss a number of images produced by the researcher–in the wing where they were working and/or living–representing the use of force and violence, thereby helping the researcher to address what Joe Sim (2008: 187) calls an ‘inconvenient criminological truth’ and at the same time giving the participants a voice.