Taking Lego Seriously

The Lego Serious Play website was very interesting. Although it isn't one of the required readings, I thought some of the points made on their website were very compelling, and relevant to getting different kinds of results from face-to-face research.

I thought that the introspective nature of the research particularly interesting. Instead of having to verbally answer a question, the people build their 'identities' and answer questions about themselves out of Lego. According to the interview on the website, David Gauntlett is trying to understand a research problem that cannot be easily described through answering a question with words. Being able to build, and rebuilt an identity until it the person thinks that it is an accurate answer to the question asked, or as a description of his/her identity. He is looking at the ways people tell their stories by representing themselves. To further illustrate this point, One of the comments from a participant stated: "I thought that the exercise helped to reveal slightly undiscovered feelings, concerns and hopes.” What I found most fascinating on the website was the way people represented themselves. One of the first examples is my favourite. Participants were asked to build a small creature, then change that creature to how they felt about a Monday/Friday. Before I read the description underneath the walrus, I knew it was a Friday because of the way the person changed his/her figure.

After thinking for a bit, I was brought back to Knight’s text, and how structured his methods of face-to-face research were. Alternately, Serious Lego Play seems to be an original way to get different groups of people (low-paid workers, students, academics etc.), to speak to each other, and explain themselves, so that qualitative data may be found – which was Gauntlett’s goal. Engaging in a creative method made the subjects think about themselves in ways an interview or focus group may not have been able to (Gauntlett). After reading this article, I have been persuaded to think that creativity in terms of method is important to get new, and different results.