Online Qualitative Research

The debate over the role and validity of online qualitative research is one we are following with great interest.  It's hard to disagree with those who fear the limitations of the lack of direct interaction, body language and emotional connectedness of face-to-face fieldwork...  But the potential gains in terms of flexibility have to make it worth serious consideration, for certain specific projects.

Some potential advantages are the ability to access very time-poor or hard-to-reach respondents in a way that is convenient and easy for them, as well as bringing together respondents from different areas (even different countries).  There are respondents who will rarely if ever be able to take part in face-to-face research - perhaps they live very remotely, or are housebound, have full-time carer commitments etc... engaging with them online offers new opportunities for your research.  And no tube strike, blizzard or flu epidemic can wreck your carefully-planned fieldwork either.

Choosing a platform for your online research project will depend on a number of different factors, but you will need to consider, amongst other things...

• Do you need people discussing 'live' in real-time - if so use an instant message, voice-over-ip or webcam-based approach.  Or is an asynchrous methodology better suited (for example if respondents are able to log on at any time of day or night, and/or you want more in-depth and considered threads of responses to develop than is possible in live chat)
• How comfortable are your target respondents likely to be at using the necessary technology?  Might a voice-based or asynchronous approach be better than IM?  Will they be familiar with using a forum or bulletin board..?

Software options are developing rapidly, and we can now offer you the use of our own webconferencing platform for small groups and depths - so if you've never tried online research, why not give it a go?

 There are many other issues, and if you haven't considered online research as a serious option, we suggest you download our paper on Recruitment for Online Qualitative Projects for further reading.