Think outside of the box: choose your method to suit your problem

In Qualitative Research Methods for Everyone: An Essential Toolkit I provide a toolkit of methods for readers to draw from as they feel appropriate. This toolkit approach to methods requires:

1) careful consideration of what methods are available

2) understanding what each one offers (and doesn’t offer)

3) thinking about how each might be relevant for what sorts of research questions (and methodological approach)

4) being aware how they might fit together

5) thinking about what would be best for your research participants, practically and ethically, and

6) being ethical, reflexive and responsive in practice

The book has chapters on interviews, group discussions, ethnography, and being creative with methods, but within these main headings I introduce a great deal of diversity. I love researchers to think outside of the box.

Interviews can be long or short, in groups or with individuals, one-off or returning, creative and dynamic, planned or spontaneous, face to face or online, historical or contemporary, more or less informal, and can take place in all sorts of settings and venues. Crucially, Interviews yield insights into how people express themselves, to whom, and how they understand their own experiences. Interviews can also reveal things you had not thought of. But, they do not necessarily tell you what a person actually did or would do. They focus on thoughts, even thoughts about actions, more than on actual actions.

Group discussions (or focus groups) can be small or large, spontaneous or planned, a bit challenging or more comfortable, face to face or online, repeated or one-off, with a group of strangers or with friends. They can incorporate arts-based techniques, and even involve walking and filming, singing and listening. They are creative and dynamic and are a good way of generating phenomenological insights into how people feel, think, talk about something. But, once again, do not assume this is what people actually would do, or even what they would say in a one-to-one interview.

Ethnography and participant observation can take place over a long period of time or in short bursts. It can use opportunistic, short interviews and many other forms of data collection, including creative and participatory ones, and document or structural analysis. It’s a great approach for being able to talk to people as they do things, for observing what they do as well as what they say, for tapping into things that are hard to talk about. But it is a challenging approach requiring careful consideration with regards to time and ethics and it requires a lot more than just ‘hanging around’.

Creative methods are as many and as adventurous as your imagination allows. You can use arts-based approaches, do things with people, use online and offline methods, walk and talk, collaborate, and co-produce. Qualitative research is essentially creative, flexible and responsive: putting a spotlight on being creative merely encourages us to be embrace that creativity. They can help people express themselves (perhaps in other ways than verbally), they can work with participants in identifying patterns, they can locate understandings in the communities and unspoken rules that shape people’s choices.

But don’t choose any method just for fun – always think carefully about your aims and objectives, practical considerations, and your ethical stance. Always think about and work with your participants.