Qualitative research in any discipline is dictated by the researcher’s ability to access participants and elicit their ideas. In chemistry education research (CER), survey techniques have been used to increase access to participants and diversify samples, while novel interview tasks and prompts have been used to improve the elicitation of participant ideas. While surveys can increase participation and remove geographic barriers from studies, they typically lack the ability to obtain detailed, thick description of participant ideas that tend to be fostered by in-person interviews. Despite many advances in communication technology, minimal research in CER has investigated how to use technology to minimize the limitations of traditional qualitative research approaches. This presentation will discuss the development of a novel interviewing method that overcomes access and elicitation limitations. The method was tested during a study of chemistry outreach practitioners and synthesizes diverse research approaches from literature outside of CER. The method combines electronic surveys, semi-structured questioning, instant messaging, and student artifacts for implementation <i>via</i> multimedia-based interviewing software. The development and implementation of this method will be presented, accompanied by evidence supporting the fidelity of data collection and the trustworthiness and transferability of conclusions. Since this method harnesses freely available technology, implications for qualitative research will also be discussed to shed light on how using the internet for off-site investigations can increase sample diversity and transferability of findings.

Modern qualitative studies: A novel qualitative method that improves access, elicitation, and sample diversification for enhanced transferability applied to studying chemistry outreach

2019 Spring National Meeting

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