Episode 20: Qualitative Research in a Digital World

In this episode, Alexandra Panos interviews Jessica Nina Lester and Trena Paulus about doing qualitative research in digital words. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for digital methods and strategies has never been stronger. This conversation addresses important practice and theoretic questions for approaching digital inquiry.

Digital Tools for Qualitative Research - Trena M. Paulus, Jessica N. Lester, Paul Dempster

Doing Qualitative Research in a Digital World - Trena M. Paulus, Jessica N. Lester

The following includes the transcript of the talk. (please excuse minor transcription errors)

Alexandra

Hello there and welcome to qualitative conversations a podcast hosted by the qualitative research special interest group of the American Educational Research Association. I'm Alexandra Panos an assistant professor of literacy studies and an affiliate faculty member in research and measurement at the University of South Florida. I also have the pleasure to serve as program coach with Cassie Quigley for the call SIG. And I'm delighted to be here with doctors Trina Paulus and Jessica Nina Lester to talk about the role digital tools play in qualitative research. Dr. Paulus is a professor in the Research Division of Family Medicine and director of undergraduate research and creative activities, as well as an affiliate faculty member with the Applied Social Research Laboratory at East Tennessee State University. Dr. Paulus's scholarship is primarily in the area of methodological innovation, especially as it intersects with new technologies. Dr. Lester is an associate professor of inquiry methodology in the School of Education at Indiana University Bloomington. Her scholarship focuses primarily on discourse and conversation analysis, disability studies, and more general concerns related to crop qualitative research. Dr. Paulus and Dr. Lester have co authored with sage, the 2014 book digital tools for qualitative research, and an exciting new and in press volume, titled doing qualitative research in a digital world. Thank you both so much for joining it today and sharing your time and energies. Thanks for inviting us. Yes, thank you so much. I'm truly excited to learn from you both and really just want to dive right into our conversation if that's okay. And I wanted to start with

Alexandra

a question that situates us in the here and now, given the shifts that have happened worldwide over the last 10 months with the covid 19 pandemic? Can you share a bit about what from your perspective, this really means for qualitative researchers? And how digital tools might play into this?

Trina

Yeah, so it's kind of this been this weird experience of being in the right place at the right time, or being in the right place at the wrong time? I don't know. But you know, COVID-19 is impacted all researchers in significant ways, for sure. And, you know, we had started writing this new edition of the book,

Trina

fully revamped book that's coming out shortly, a couple of years ago, actually. And then when COVID-19 hits sage really asked us to try to wrap it up, because researchers really needed some guidance for how to basically do their research in a new way.

Trina

And so how do we make sense of those spaces? How do we look at online interaction as a source of data as qualitative researchers, you know, we are interested in the human experience and understanding it as qualitative researchers, and that is now completely emeshed with, you know, doing business, doing education doing everything online. So, you know, there's new opportunities here, even though you know, most people have been, you know, there there are researchers have been doing this for a while, we all kind of have to consider how online spaces might be treated as a source of data, how our experiences are different.

Trina

And so while I think kind of one of the first things people want to know is how do we do interviews in (continued)