If you are an academic who has qualitative research projects planned, you may be wondering how to collect your data while the world is on lockdown to limit the spread of coronavirus? Self-isolation and social-distancing measures do not need to mean an indefinite delay to your project. There are, in fact, tried and tested ways to conduct qualitative research with the public online. The Covid-19 crisis could even mean that people have more free time and are keen to break up the monotony by taking part in research.
In addition to the fact that there is very little choice in the present climate, here are some other potential benefits to doing qualitative research online:
- It’s a lot less expensive than paying for a venue, travel and accommodation and biscuits for everyone.
- You won’t need to spend as much time organising it (hopefully)
- Less travel is obviously better for the climate
- You can be far more flexible about timing
- There is potential to make research more accessible to a diverse range of people.
With that in mind, we at the Dipex Charity have written a series of blogs to help you start to plan qualitative data collection online. We have blogs coming for you on:
Please get in touch if you have any questions or would like us to write about any other aspect of doing research remotely: [email protected]
Stay safe everyone.