As people, we love stories. We find them easy to connect with and provide us with the opportunity to consider different perspectives to our own, allow us to learn and can strengthen or challenge our opinions.
That’s why, when we decided to conduct research to understand people’s attitudes and behaviours connected with sport and physical activity following the easing of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, we opted to use video ethnography and create a series of short stories captured on film.
What's ethnography?
For those who are less familiar with ethnographic research, it is a method whereby researchers learn about, and observe a person, or a group of people within their own environment such as at home or within their local area.
Using this approach allowed us to gain a holistic overview of people’s lives and explore the role of sport and physical activity played within them.
We commissioned Ipsos to conduct ethnographic research with five people (Andy, Usman, Margaret, Stuart and Aleesha).
Ethnographers spent a day with each person and their household, observing what they did and conducting interviews whilst capturing everything on film.
When analysing the footage, we considered the different aspects of each person’s life: physical, mental, social, financial and environmental and how these aspects interact with health.
The stories captured in this research explore different themes, such as: people’s relationship with space and their local area, understanding what influences and motivates them to move, how they deal with disruptive moments and the role physical activity plays in their lives contextually.
We've produced four videos exploring each of these themes, a summary and a research document detailing what we learned.
