How do we do qualitative interviews in the era of social distancing?

I love qualitative research. For me, the best part about qualitative research is talking with participants face-to-face. Sure, we can talk to people on the phone or by video chat software, but nothing conveys the immediacy and vitality of their lived experience like sitting across from them, looking into their eyes, watching their hands, noting their posture, as they thoughtfully answer our questions. In the era of COVID-19 and social distancing, when we can’t interview our participants face-to-face, what can we qualitative dissertators do to ensure we collect robust, rich, deep, thick data?

Accept the new normal

For those who had their hearts set on doing face-to-face in-person interviews, it’s time to grieve a little and get busy. No matter how much we might want to be together, we can’t right now. Your interview participants don’t want to breathe your air, even if you are willing to breathe theirs. You still want that doctorate, don’t you? Accept the new normal and move on.

Some of you might already have planned to conduct live interviews using a remote method—telephone or video chat. If that’s you, you can charge into this brave new world without breaking stride. However, if your dissertation proposal required you to have sit-downs with your participants, maybe over a cup of green tea in a university conference room, you will need to adjust your approach, because times have changed. Drastically and quickly.

Experiment with new ways to talk to participants

As an introvert, I’m perfectly happy working alone in my cave. However, even I need human contact once in a while. Connecting by telephone fulfills that need, although not perfectly. When I was collecting data for my dissertation research, some years back, I talked to ten people about their experiences with the phenomenon I wanted to explore. I conducted one follow-up interview by phone. I much preferred the in-person interview experience; plus, I think the data from the in-person interviews were deeper and richer than the data collected by phone. It’s easier to probe participants’ answers when we see them squirming or fidgeting. Subtle behaviors are missed when we can’t see faces and gestures.

In addition, I am a visual learner. That means I need to see faces when I’m communicating. In fact, I can’t hear as well if I can’t read lips and body language. In this new era of communicating during a pandemic, I’m learning to connect by video chat. It’s the next best thing to being there live.

I’ve tested several platforms, including Zoom, Google Hangouts, Google Duo, Wire, and Skype. (I’m not cool enough for an iPhone, so I haven’t used Facetime.) I’m sure you have more experience chatting by video than I do, so I’ll leave it to you to choose your preferred platform. So far, I prefer Google Hangouts and Wire. What is your preference?

Adapt to your participants’ preferences

When we are doing interviews, our preferences don’t really matter that much, do they? We need to adapt to the preferences of our participants. It’s hard enough to get people to talk with us for an extended interview. Getting them to download, install, and launch a platform they haven’t used before is a heavy lift, especially when we usually aren’t compensating them for their time.

Before you set up your interviews, test several different platforms yourself. Offer different options to your prospective participants. Help them set up and launch their preferred platform.

Make sure you can see and hear adequately. Identify audio and video recording capabilities. If you are new to collecting data by video chat, test your procedures with several people first. You may need to get some extra gear—for example, an external recording device, a better microphone, and a lot of disk storage space if you plan to record the video.

Identify the limitations of your data collection approach

Collecting data by telephone and video chat has inherent limitations. Obviously, your telephone participants must have access to a phone. Most people these days have phones. You can probably adapt your data collection plan without too much trouble.

For video chat, your prospective participants need Internet access and some sort of video chat platform. They don’t need a computer. Most video chat platforms function well on smartphones. Finding Wi-Fi could be challenging. In my area (Portland, Oregon), the Multnomah County Library continues to offer W-Fi, even though the libraries are temporarily closed. You, as the interviewer, should be working from a system with a large monitor, if you want to be able to see faces and body language.

Some groups are just plain difficult to reach, even in-person—for example, seniors, addicts, the homeless—reaching them now may be impossible in this new age of social distancing. Interviewing members of these groups will require some ingenuity and creative technology.

Pay attention to the data collection practices of the U.S. Census Bureau, when its researchers finally decide how to reach those hard-to-reach groups. Maybe you can adapt their approaches to collect the data you need.

Prepare to start over

It’s not your fault this pandemic happened now. It’s definitely inconvenient, to put it mildly, and we wish it hadn’t happened, but it did. Pretending it isn’t happening (my default) or blaming someone or something is not productive. Disasters happen. I thought it would be the earthquake that threw us for a loop, but nope, it was a virus.

We hope disasters don’t happen to us, but here it is. Your task is simple. As you are doing what you have to do to endure this lock-down, decide how much you are willing to compromise your concept and your data collection approach. I hope you don’t need to redo your entire concept. However, if you want that Ph.D., you may need to start over.

Imagine all the new research opportunities

One way I’m coping with my fear and grief is by imagining how I would study this experience. Assuming I survive, of course. You may find yourself needing to revise your dissertation approach, maybe rewriting your proposal entirely. I’m sorry if that is your challenge, but you can do it.

A friend of mine was working on her master’s in international business when the Berlin wall came down. Rather than revising her theses and adjusting her data collection approach, she quit her master’s program. I hope you don’t do that.

Plan for a future

The pandemic we face now is possibly the most disruptive force we will experience in our lifetimes. If we survive this, imagine all the facets of human behavior that need to be studied. For social scientists, every moment of this unfolding disaster is a dissertation waiting to be written. Please grieve, regroup, and get busy. The world needs your research now more than ever.

February 3, 2020February 3, 2020

How to keep moving forward when you feel you can’t go on

Working on our dissertation requires meeting deadlines. However, life happens! What if something unexpected derails our plans? We all encounter unanticipated obstacles, events, or circumstances that stop us from making progress on our goals. Some events are worse than others—for example, getting sick, losing a job, or in my case, losing a beloved pet. My writing projects fell by the wayside as I tried to figure out how to get back on track. I describe some of my attempts to process the experience, including ignoring my pain, confronting my pain, and mourning my loss.

Option 1: Ignore the pain

Ignoring emotional pain for me means immersing myself in tasks to distract myself from feeling. As an avoider of feelings, I naturally tried this option first. Fortunately (I guess), the day after my cat died, I received a large editing project with a tight deadline. What a relief. While I was editing and writing, it was hard to think about anything but the work. I put my broken heart on hold. Nights were sleepless, but I got a lot done during the day, as long as I kept working and not feeling.

If you can maintain this level of compartmentalization, I applaud you. The only thing that kept me going was the deadline. After I submitted the paper, I put my writing projects on hold and embarked on Option 2—Confronting the pain.

Option 2: Confront the pain

Confronting the pain can take many forms. For me, it took the form of cleaning house. I was appalled to realize that I had “decorated” my apartment to suit my cat. Everywhere I looked were cat seats, cat beds, cat perches, cat water dishes . . . painful reminders of what I had lost. I felt compelled to start cleaning. I dismantled the cat seats and cat perches, washed the cat beds, and piled the cat dishes into a box to donate. I stacked up all the cat toys, cat food, and cat litter to donate to my brother who has five cats. I rearranged furniture to suit the human occupant. Gradually, I reclaimed my space.

However, while I was moving furniture, I wasn’t getting any work done on my writing projects. My projects hovered in my mind while I did mountains of laundry and swept up tumbleweeds of dust and cat hair. I told myself I would get back to the writing eventually. However, days turned into weeks while I distracted myself from the pain by cleaning things I hadn’t touched since I moved here sixteen years ago.

I recommend we all clean our spaces occasionally. However, if I were to give myself advice now, I would say clean a little a day if it makes you feel better, but don’t try to clean everything. Spend at least an hour per day writing so you don’t lose touch with your writing self.

Option 3: Take time to mourn

Any kind of loss can be devastating. Losing a job, losing a pet, losing a home—any loss can derail us from the path to our goals. Any loss needs to be acknowledged and mourned.

For example, a friend lost her home to a fire. She described months of disorientation. She would make a plan to write and then remember she no longer had a computer. Simple tasks became difficult and sometimes impossible, even after she replaced the essential household goods that she had lost. Losing her home affected everything, including her writing life.

Some losses are insurmountable. My loss was big (for me) but not as big as losing my home would have been. I can put my loss into perspective.

I didn’t want to write about this. It’s embarrassing to admit the death of my cat kept me from writing. For the past month, I wondered if I would write again. Nothing seemed interesting to me anymore. I’m still wondering what happened. I was on one track, chugging along toward my goals, and now I find myself alone on a different track, destination unknown.

Summary

All losses change us. All losses need to be grieved. If something bad happens to interrupt your writing plans, you’ll cope as best you can. You can try to ignore your pain. You can confront your pain head on. You can assimilate your pain and mourn. I hope you will keep writing. I hope you won’t give up your goal to finish your dissertation and earn your PhD. It might not seem interesting or useful now, in the midst of your sorrow, but the world needs your contribution, so please get back to it as soon as you can.

January 1, 2020January 1, 2020

Year-end reflections from a former dissertator

It’s that time of year. You know what time I mean: The time when desperate dissertators swill coffee, scarf down holiday cookies, and hunker over their computers, trying to write as much as they can on their dissertation proposals or manuscripts before it’s time to go back to work.

Are you in a reflective mood? Maybe you feel pensive, a little melancholy, about the progress you’ve made this year. Maybe you feel chipper and optimistic about the great things to come. The end of the year is a fitting time to reflect on progress made in our scholarly endeavors and set our intentions for the future. I’m doing a little reflecting myself as we welcome in a new year.

A time to reflect on our scholarly progress

Are you making progress on the milestones in your Ph.D. program? It can be slow-going, I know. During most of the eight years of graduate school, I taught at a career college. Monday through Thursday, I taught morning classes, drove home for lunch, and drove back to campus for night classes. Fridays were for grading and prepping. I spent the rest of the weekend writing.

Faculty and students had a week off during the summer and a week for the winter holidays. Often we worked on Christmas Eve, right up to 10:20 p.m.

With such a haphazard writing schedule, I struggled to finish my dissertation proposal. Sometimes I felt I was making progress; other times, I felt I was writing in circles. Each time I uploaded my latest debacle to the course room, I would have a couple weeks to pick up the pieces of the rest of my life while I waited for my Chair to rip my paper to shreds.

Gradually, I morphed from student to scholar. After eight long, painful years, I defended the dissertation and earned the Ph.D. In the process, I learned how to write a lot.

Now, six years later, my writing projects are different but my goals are similar. I still have a lot to do. However, without the structure and discipline of a Ph.D. program, I have to rely on myself for motivation.

Reflecting on the past year, I feel as though I’ve been busy. What was I working on all year? I’m sure I did something! New Year’s Eve is a good time to stop and write a list.

I published the second book in the Desperate Dissertator Series. Aligning the Elements, seems to be finding a following. I guess I’m not the only one confounded by this challenging topic.
The article about rich pictures I published with The Qualitative Report at the end of 2018 has had 434 downloads this year. People like anything with pictures.
I published two articles (rants, really) with Medium on my favorite topic of for-profit higher education.
I made time for nonscholarly writing as well. I wrote a novel and finished a memoir, both of which I hope to publish in 2020.
I dusted off my teaching persona. I taught business classes to artists to help them bring their art into the world.

A time to set intentions for the future

Speaking of hope, now is the time to set our intentions for the future. I resist this endeavor mightily. In the past, my intentions have rarely been fulfilled. Yipes, look how I just used passive voice to describe my failure, as if I had nothing to do with it, as if some external force has repeatedly failed to “fulfill” my intentions. That bit of writing points out the vagueness of passive voice, as well as the problem with my goal-setting.

I think my intentions evaporated by February every year for three reasons: my goals were too broad, I wanted to be perfect, and I let my thoughts and feelings get in my way.

My goals were too broad

I failed to identify specific actions I could take to achieve my goals. Now, instead of setting an intention to “write a journal article,” I break the goal into small actions and I put them on my calendar. To write a journal article is my overarching objective, but to achieve the objective, I define the steps I need to take to get there:

research journals
choose one journal
identify the journal guidelines
write my research questions
write an outline of the article
gather current research
prepare the list of references
identify data sources
conduct the analysis
write up the results
write the discussion
write the introduction
submit to the journal

I wanted to be perfect

I fell into the trap of perfectionism. Of course, we all want what we write to be perfect the moment it flows from our brain to the page. If only! Even on a good day (when I’m well-rested, alert, and enthusiastic about writing), I rarely get it right. Human endeavors are fraught with imperfections. I’m not exempt.

During the past year, I accepted the fact that perfection is unattainable. I stopped obsessing over every little thing and focused on getting things done. It worked!

If you find yourself repeatedly editing the same assignment, or not writing at all, stop for a moment and do an internal check to see if a desire for perfection might be part of the cause. Nobody expects dissertators to be perfect. Some Chairs and universities set stringent guidelines, rules, and expectations, which we do our best to meet. However, the truth is, the dissertation is the beginning of our research careers, not the culmination. Since I graduated, I’ve learned a lot about writing, editing, and conducting research. You will, too. In the meantime, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done.

I let thoughts and feelings hinder my progress

Like most humans, I have thoughts and feelings about many things. This past year, I have been honing the idea that my thoughts and feelings are superfluous to accomplishing my goals. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think it’s possible for us to suppress all thoughts and feelings, nor do I suggest we try. However, sometimes I let my thoughts and feelings hinder my ability and willingness to take action. Therein lies my downfall.

Do you get trapped in negative thoughts? Do you let your feelings overwhelm you? I have come to believe it doesn’t really matter what we think and feel. The Universe doesn’t respond to our thoughts and feelings. It only responds to what we do. Our actions move us closer to our goals.

It seems like a no-brainer, I know. I’m a slow learner. I’m also a moper and a complainer. Unfortunately, not much gets done when I mope or complain. I can waste a lot of time complaining: not enough time, not enough money, no one understands, oh woe is me.

This past year, I’ve been experimenting with a new approach. I write out my thoughts and feelings about my project before I sit down to work. I do my whining and ranting on paper. Then I set it aside and get busy. When thoughts and feelings interrupt me (e.g., this will never work, this is stupid, I’m such a terrible writer, I’m hungry, where’s my cat), I drop them into my mental “do later” bucket and carry on with my work. I won’t say I’m always successful. Sometimes I have to take a nap. However, this past year, I’ve accomplished much more than I thought I would. That’s progress.

My hope for you

I hope you find some good writing time this winter. If not, I hope you make some time to write, good or not. Writing a few paragraphs is better than writing zero paragraphs. Put your writing time on your calendar. Make a date with yourself. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done. The world needs your contribution. Please don’t give up.

I wish you all the best for a happy, healthy, productive new year.

Sources

Booton, C. M. (2018). Using rich pictures to verify, contradict, or enhance verbal data. The Qualitative Report, 23(11), 2835-2849. Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol23/iss11/13

Booton, C. M. (2019). Aligning the elements [Desperate Dissertator Series, No. 2]. Portland, OR: Crossline Press. ISBN 978-1099364761.

Booton, C. M. (2019, July 5). R.I.P. Gainful employment rule. Medium. https://medium.com/@carolbooton/r-i-p-gainful-employment-rule-11115f38f33f

Booton, C. M. (2019, March 16). Friends don’t let friends enroll at for-profit colleges. Medium. https://medium.com/@carolbooton/friends-dont-let-friends-enroll-at-for-profit-colleges-4445a70ca12b