Collecting Qualitative Data

Abstract

Is there more to qualitative data collection than (face-to-face) interviews? This book answers with a resounding yes, and introduces the reader to a range of exciting, often novel, techniques for collecting qualitative data in the social and health sciences. Collecting qualitative data provides a practical and accessible introduction to everything from gathering blog data to asking participants to write stories in response to a researcher-designed story ‘cue’; the story completion method. The book is divided into three sections – textual, media and virtual – and provides stepwise guidance on methods that are under-utilised within qualitative research, or that offer new and interesting angles to qualitative researchers. Contributors from a wide range of disciplines share their experiences of implementing a particular technique and highlight both its potentials and pitfalls. What unites all the methods featured in this book is that they are ideally suited to student projects and other time- and resource-limited research. The book is written both for readers new to qualitative research and for established researchers seeking to broaden their methodological repertoire or seeking inspiration to get out of an interviewing treadmill!