Collecting Qualitative data 3

Question 1

What is an interview according Sparkes & Smith, 2014?

Answer 1

• social activity where two or more persons actively engage in embodied talk, jointly constructing knowledge about themselves and the social world as they interact with each other over time throughout a range senses, and in a certain context.

Question 2

What are the Strengths and Limitations of an interview?

Answer 2

Strengths - good, rich, storied data from participants about their experiences over time and across contexts
Limitation - language dominant technique, need for alternative or supplementary method

Question 3

What is an observation according to Sparkes and Smith, 2014?

Answer 3

record the mundane, taken for granted, and unremarkable features of everyday life that interviewees might not feel were worth commenting on

Question 4

What are the characteristics/strengths of observations?

Answer 4

• explore both what is said in interviews and what is done in practice
• enable the examination of peoples lives in real time
• getting to know people, rather than just know about them

Question 5

What are the different types of observers?

Answer 5

-complete observer - the researcher does not actively participate but observes what occurs and how
-Observer as participant - researcher mostly observes but may have minor role in participating in the field
-Participant as observer- researcher immerses in daily activities of the social group whilst still observing
Complete participant - the researcher immerses themselves in the culture of the social group and observes whilst fully participating

Question 6

What are diaries and what are the strengths?

Answer 6

• Frequently kept record of thoughts, feelings, and ideas about personal experiences and observations
• Allows participants to report on experiences as they are lived
• Collect rich data without relying on retrospective recall
• Capture data over a period of time
• Used as a reflection tool

Question 7

What is a limitation of observation and diary?

Answer 7

• observation relies on researcher view or perspective

- Diaries make induce participant burden

Question 8

What are the characteristics of visual methods?

Answer 8

• Generate, interpret and communicate knowledge
• Supplement or alternative to dominance of language-based research methods
• Images act on us in powerful ways

Question 9

What is Participant action research?

Answer 9

• committing to facilitating social or institutional change
• Actively involves participants in research process and product
• Knowledge is more powerful as it is collaboratively produced
• Own language to share understandings of the world
• More engaging and enjoyable means of generating data

Question 10

What is time lining and what are the characteristics of it?

Answer 10

• Graphical elicitation that visually represents how participants make sense of experiences over time
• Temporal graph or plot of an experience as it unfolds
• Potential to build rapport during interviews and facilitate a sense of comfort
• Actively engage participants through reflections on life events

Question 11

What are the digital methods and characteristics?

Answer 11

• The internet
• Many people interact with the internet acting as computer mediated beings
• Broadcast our lives through social media, blogs and webcams
• Unique (re)presentation of an individuals self as it lived through and reconstructed by people

Question 12

What are some advantages to a blog?

Answer 12

• Easily accessible
• Instantaneously provides substantial amount of data
• Contain archived information for longitudinal research
• Global access to participants

Question 13

What are limitations to digital and visual methods?

Answer 13

digital - web pages can change and disappear from the web, ethical dilemmas and need to be conscious of the Digital divide