Cartoon drawing as a means of accessing what students know about HIV/AIDS: an alternative method

Combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in Uganda has involved massive public education campaigns. One of the challenges of these campaigns has always involved the need to simultaneously respect and transcend cultural taboos around direct discussions about sexuality and sexual issues, particularly among youth. Research consistently shows that drawing, as a means of investigating what students know, has the potential to reveal students’ perceptions of given concepts and provides an alternative to predominantly language-based methods. Visual methods, however, have rarely been taken up in research on students’ sexual health and HIV/AIDS knowledge. This interpretive case study examines the use of cartoon drawing as a unique tool for understanding Ugandan secondary students’ conceptions of HIV/ AIDS, particularly concepts that are not directly discussed culturally.