Técnicas projetivas: aplicações, limitações e potenciais para o uso em pesquisas em turismo

Abstract

This article describes a group of research techniques known as projective techniques as useful methodological tool to research in Tourism. These techniques involve the use of stimuli that allow participants to project their subjective or deep beliefs on other people or objects. There are many methodological possibilities between which the researcher should choose in order to develop a research according to the aimed data. However, it is necessary some knowledge regarding their characteristics, potential and limitations so that this decision can be carried out appropriately. Discussion about methods and research techniques in tourism are of great value to this kind of choice and the present work seeks to contribute to this debate. This theoretical essay focuses on the projective research techniques, presenting its origin, utility, form of application and analysis, effectiveness, as well as notes on their application in tourism researches. To this end, we performed a bibliographical research and a systematic review of articles gathered through the research repository “ScienceDirect” where we found 253 scientific articles related to or with the use of projective techniques. Observing the journals’ areas and the numerical distribution of the articles published we noticed that most of the journals (with articles on or with the focused techniques) are from the areas of Psychology or Medicine, but five articles of the Tourism area were found and analyzed. We conclude that, although there are still few adopters of this group of techniques, there are some advantages that can be better explored by tourism researchers.