Data Collection

Gratton & O’Donnell:

In this paper, Gratton and O’Donell first mentioned research was difficult to conduct in rural and remote area in Canada. Therefore, researchers collected data remotely. Most of the work used discussion listservs and chat rooms. However, using emails would cause the problem of being hard to develop rapport relationships and mutual trust with their participants. On the other hand, using emails to collect also has its advantage. Participants would have more time to think and to shape their responses. Researchers also found that lack of social presence is one drawback of using emails conducting research. Therefore, much of work discussed the necessity of using video-conferencing as research tools.

The model proposed in this work was to collect data by video conferencing. The data included quantitative and qualitative data. Participants’ videoconferencing with each other enhances their social presence. Questionnaires provided participants with opportunities to engage with deep thinking. On the hand, this method also has some drawbacks. Although participants could see others’ faces during video conferencing, the atmosphere is different than face-to-face session.

Matthews & Cramer

Being different than Gratton and O’Donnell’s piece, this piece of work discussed conducting research with undeserved population. Video conferencing tools provides new opportunities to complement the drawbacks brought by telephone interview in terms of people could see each others’ face. Non-verbal data becomes easy to collect. Another benefit by using video-conferencing tools is to have multiple layers of data at the same time. Audio data could be created at the same time as the video data.  Other data collection technique could be using internet based groups. However, as we’ve discussed before, there is risk of having persona and acting accordingly. Another method of collecting data online is to create web-based group. It creates a virtual community for special populations. It also helps to construct rapport relationships with participants.

Drawbacks of collecting data from internet are over-relied on internet. Some undeserved groups have difficulties of access to Internet or computers. Motivations and trust on researchers would also have an impact on the willingness to participate in the study. 

Paulus:

Qualitative researchers often need multiple data resources to triangulate your data. Digital tools made the data collection easier and more natural. It will also give researchers more nuanced way to analyze data. Like Matthews and Cramer, Paulus et al also mentined another good source for collecting “naturally happening” is online communities, such as blogs and social groups, but this would raise ethical problems as people might use real names and identities.