Considering the Vignette Technique and its Application to a Study of Drug Injecting and HIV Risk and Safer Behaviour

TLDR

Vignettes—story-based stimuli drawn from prior research—are used to examine perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes, and have been employed mainly by North American psychologists in quantitative surveys and, more recently, in a few qualitative studies. This paper evaluates the value and challenges of the vignette technique and applies it to investigate drug injectors’ perceptions of HIV risk and safer behaviour inside and outside prison. The authors draw on social‑science literature to design vignette-based surveys that assess drug injectors’ attitudes toward HIV risk and safer practices within and beyond the prison environment.

Abstract

Vignettes are stories generated from a range of sources including previous research findings. They make reference to important factors in the study of perceptions, beliefs and attitudes. Vignettes have primarily been used by psychologists in North America and used in quantitative surveys but more recently they have been used in a small number of qualitative studies. Drawing from a range of studies in the social sciences this paper considers the value of vignettes together with the difficulties associated with the technique. It introduces the technique in a study that explores drug injectors’ perceptions of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) risk and safer behaviour inside and outside the prison system.