Digital storytelling methodologies: Recommendations for a participatory approach to engaging underrepresented...

While counseling psychologists made substantial proposals to advance qualitative research since the special issue on related methods was published 15-years ago (Haverkamp, Morrow, & Ponterotto, 2005), the field continues to demonstrate an overreliance on quantitative methods. Though important for producing knowledge we can depend on, excessive use of these methods poses a barrier for counseling psychologists to address the needs of the communities that are at the core of our discipline's values-those who are marginalized and underserved in society. In alignment with our values of social justice, advocacy, and empowerment, we propose counseling psychologists adopt a methodology within a critical paradigm to better address issues of inequality and inequity when working with underrepresented communities, such as digital storytelling. Rooted in a movement to increase access to art for marginalized communities in the 1970s and 1980s, digital storytelling is an arts-based research methodology that captures first-person narrated accounts of peoples' lives through the use of stories, photos, and videos, and empowers communities to be a part of research to create social change. We provide recommendations for using digital storytelling in counseling psychology research as outlined through 5 phases, including Phase I) digital storytelling's critical paradigm, Phase II) project development, Phase III) implementation, Phase IV) data analysis, and Phase V) dissemination. While doing so, we draw on examples from 2 digital storytelling projects we are familiar with, Immigrant Stories and OrigiNatives, providing a framework for a digital frontier in counseling psychology research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).