6/9/2020 The Best Laid Plans… Qualitative Research Design During COVID-19

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Published on March 23, 2020 By Sharon M. Ravitch
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ualitative research seeks to identify and incorporate the complexities of
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itself—not just the ndings—in ways that challenge researcher power
and the imposition of interpretive authority. Researcher and research
design responsiveness requires what is sometimes referred to as
an emergent design approach. This means that elements of a study’s research design,
such as participant selection and data collection methods, are carefully reconsidered in
1
relation to emergent understandings and realities of participants’ views and
experiences. As Ravitch and Carl (2020) state,

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researchers need to respond to these in real time once the research is under
way. In fact, the primary criterion of qualitative validity is delity to participants
and their experiences rather than a strict adherence to methods and research
design.

Qualitative research design includes: 1) site and participant selection; 2) data collection
methods; 3) data analysis strategies and techniques (Ravitch & Carl, 2020). In this post, I
address the rst two domains in relation to COVID-19. The researchers I know—both
seasoned and new—are quite concerned about the data collection aspects of research
design given sudden changes in the world. What follows are things I’ve been discussing
with students and colleagues since the novel oronavirus arrived and changed the world,
and therefore our research in that world, in incalculable ways that will unfold for years.

In this moment of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the ideas of emergent

design and researcher and design responsiveness take on new meaning and import; they
can serve, I argue, to connect more traditional qualitative methods with participatory
frameworks and critical and humanizing methodologies such as trauma-informed
methodology and Chronic Illness Methodology, which I describe below.

Site and Participant Selection Changes

Suddenly, researchers have a range of new concerns about our research. These include
participant access given that most of the United States, indeed the world, is practicing
social distancing at home. Concerns range from 1) identifying participants given that
people are no longer congregating together physically in naturally occurring groups and
organizations, and 2) asking people for time to do interviews, focus groups, or other
asks for time (this is true even when people had already secured participants) given the
burdens placed on everyone by this pandemic. These concerns are central given that
life has radically changed since completing their research designs—people are
displaced, working from home, out of work, looking for jobs, juggling family
responsibilities sometimes including kids and elderly parents during the workday,
unwell or taking care of people who are ill, and so on. This global moment, importantly,
necessitates learning a set of new skills necessary to design and conduct valid,
humanizing research online.

Below are ways to consider these

design changes, embedded in live
examples of research design changes
made since coronavirus. For example,
Beckett designed a case study that was
to examine leader agility in complex
adaptive systems in a Fortune 100
company. He had just nalized his
interview protocol and received IRB
approval when COVID-19 halted the
workplace, creating sudden access
issues given international pandemic
ux. He was going to interview
executives from 3 countries face-to-
face, which can no longer happen. As
well, his topic and research questions
needed to change given the enormity of
this new global development and how it
relates to his topic.

Don’t let challenging times obstruct your research

1
progress! Beckett needed to pivot. He decided
that rather than interview a dispersed
group of 40 business leaders once
about critical incidents of team agility, he will engage more deeply with a smaller group
in the US. Beckett chose a US-based leadership team (12 people) and shifted the focus
to a case study on leading with agility through coronavirus. This still builds on his

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protocol to re ect the new research questions and shift in participant demographics.
And because they believe it will be generative in real-time to learn from his research,
the team agreed to participate in a more intensive data collection process. Beckett
submitted an addendum and interview protocol to IRB and they approved the switch.

Another example is Camilla, a doctoral student who’s a school principal and who just
passed her dissertation proposal defense on exploring black girls’ perceptions and
experiences of safety in an under-resourced urban middle school. With COVID-19, the
school closed making access to students di cult. As well, the issues she wanted to
explore—racial microaggressions and racialized stress—suddenly feel less urgent than
nding food and shelter for students and their families. Camilla believes the research is
even more important now—it provides an opportunity to check on the students’ well-
being while in transient living situations. She’s exploring opportunities for virtual data
collection with less girls more intensively for a shorter duration. She was planning to
interview thrice weekly for three months, but since she can’t access the larger group
over time given that the structure of school is no longer there, and moreover, given that
they’re struggling in myriad ways. If not, Camilla will pivot again and interview her
colleagues—fellow principals, teachers, and school counselors—to understand their
experiences and ideas for exploring and supporting student well-being and safety in
the current pandemic. Camilla is clear about keeping her existing theoretical framework
(literature review). This pivot makes that possible and, importantly, it will contribute to a
much-needed literature on crisis leadership in complex adaptive schooling systems.

It’s important to state that issues of equity in relation to participant access and
representation are central to deciding if and how these choices make sense or create
validity or ethical concerns. One plus of design pivots may be greater access to a wider
range of participants, though in pandemic it is hard to know. Importantly, this raises
issues of representation—if the most vulnerable in society are unable to engage in
research because their lives are exponentially turned upside down, their stories and
anything built from our research excludes them.

Data Collection Method Changes

Most of the world cannot leave our homes which raises questions about conducting an
entire data collection process using online methods. People wonder if they should 1)
postpone data collection; 2) conduct interviews and focus groups online (and/or change
to a study using extant sources), 3) employ di erent data collection methods since
interviews are virtual and working from home precipitates issues of privacy and
con dentiality (on both sides of the screen), all of which must be addressed and
explicated in the research design.

A colleague conducting research on di cult conversations about family dynamics is

now forced to conduct online interviews since participants are home, which she worries
about for disclosure and con dentiality reasons. She worries about asking participants
for their time and to be interviewed about family dynamics while home. She asked the
women who had already agreed to be a part of her study if they were able to join a
virtual focus group to discuss options once everyone needed to do at-home social
distancing. Together, they developed a new data collection plan in which they: 1)
started a Google doc for group-think generally and for speci c weekly email prompts
for data collection purposes, 2) created a WhatsApp group and gave written permission
to use all chats as data, and 3) shared transcripts from the rst interview—and instead
of doing a second round of interviews, the participants will comment on their own
interviews, layering in additional insights and concerns, and then they will have an
online focus group to discuss what they were all thinking and feeling after they read
their individual transcripts. This is a creative work-around that enables the research to
continue. It’s a great example that even with new challenges come new research design
1
possibilities. An emergent design mindset supports this.

In contrast, some work-arounds are ethically problematic. Jono could no longer access
participants for his dissertation research because, as a transient population (migrant
workers), they’re currently scattered given COVID-19. He asked if he can simply re-
analyze his old data from a year-old pilot study that had di erent research questions
and address the new questions with these data. This is not an ethical solution because
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the analysis and undermine validity.

Researcher and Design Responsiveness as Ethical Stance in Global Crisis Times

Trauma-informed methodology foregrounds learning about trauma and its intra-

psychic and interactional e ects, cultivating a research environment comfortable to
those who’ve experienced trauma, and recognizing the resilience and resources of
individuals and communities who have experienced or are experiencing trauma (Pak &
Ravitch, in review). Trauma experiences can in uence behavior and responses in
interviews and focus groups. Memory loss, lack of focus, emotional reactivity, and
di erent versions of the same story can be signs of trauma as it is exhibited during
interviews and focus groups. While we cannot essentialize, it is important to raise
awareness of these possibilities for any individual.

Trauma-informed methodology has always been important for the broader population
given its foregrounding of the a ective and social-emotional dimensions of interviewing
and the need to be intentional in relation to possible trauma histories playing out in the
present. I argue that trauma-informed methodology should become much more widely
used in current research studies. Given that we are, I believe, in a moment of collective
trauma—both our own trauma and vicarious trauma—we must attune ourselves to
both its inner and outer reverberations, for ourselves and our participants. It is
important to engage people with an understanding that all traumas are not the same,
and while the pandemic is shared trauma, it lands into the lives of already-vulnerable
populations in ways that cause more severe di usion e ects.

As well, many already have trauma histories completely separate from COVID-19 that
must be considered with compassion. Interviewers and focus group facilitators should
be familiar with possible signs of trauma and not assume a participant is being evasive
or dishonest if their responses or communication styles depart from more familiar
ones. Additionally, it’s vital to consider the intersection of trauma with aspects of social
identity and structural inequity including culture, gender, ethnic, race, social class and
caste, religion, immigrant status and so on.

Related to better aligning research with our shared humanity, I draw on Melissa
Kapadia-Bodi’s Chronic Illness Methodology (2016), which is an intentionally embodied,
relational, critical approach to designing and conducting research. Chronic Illness
Methodology is a methodological approach that “views research as an embodied
project, acknowledges researchers’ and participants’ bodies and lived experiences as
central to the research process, encourages participants to take up space in the
research process, supports an active concern for participant well-being throughout
research and writing, and enables a critical focus on participants’ layered and societally
contextualized stories of their own lives… Chronic illness methodology is for all bodies.”

Critical humanizing qualitative methodologies, in these times, help us to engage

cosmopolitanism—the idea that we are all connected, dependent on, and responsible
to, each other as humans—as we rethink and work to dismantle de cit orientations and
false, socially constructed binaries relating to illness/wellness and ability/disability as
the embodied struggles of the human family (Appiah, 2006). Engaging this kind of
critical and humanizing methodology seems, to me, the only way that our research can
proceed with humility and authenticity in these fraught and challenging times. We must
un-learn so much now as we re-learn forward; all of which requires an emergent design
mindset and a collectivist orientation.

Recommendations

Moving data collection wholly online creates speci c validity

and
1 ethical issues that need to be identi ed and addressed
as part of research design (see Ravitch & Carl 2020 for
resources). Be intentional in planning for and rehearsing
online data collection situations (interviews and focus
groups) so the research experience is generative, positive,
engaged, and enriching.

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6/9/2020 The Best Laid Plans… Qualitative Research Design During COVID-19

Home Read about

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More strategies for developing data collection instruments and
Mittenfelner Carl’s
techniques for approaching participants with care given the approach to qualitative
ubiquity of trauma right now. research design.
Approach study participants with respect, humility, and
appreciation for their time. Make every e ort to schedule
around their needs (e.g., childcare, work schedules). Let them know that an
ideal interview scenario will provide them a con dential space.
Develop a brief script to begin online interviews and focus groups that 1)
addresses, with compassion, the current di cult moment of Coronavirus as
well as changes in the interview format/process caused by the pandemic. Do
this before the general framing of interviews and focus groups (Welcome,
informed consent, etc.).

Most of all, at this strange and scary time of distancing in the world, I wish you good
health, safety, peace, and goodness. Qualitative researchers generate powerful stories
of healing, connection, and transformation. Right now, we can be truth-listeners and
truth-truthtellers for the world, which means we have a unique set of skills to serve as a
light in dark times. If you’d like to stay in touch, or have questions, follow me on Twitter
@SharonRavitch.

References

Appiah, K.A. (2006). Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a world of strangers. New York, NY:
W.W. Norton & Company.

Kapadia-Bodi, Melissa, “Stories of our working lives: Literacy, power, & storytelling
in the academic workplace” (2016). Dissertations available from ProQuest.
AAI10158578.
https://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI10158578

Pak, K. & Ravitch, S.M. (2020, manuscript in review). Critical Leadership Praxis. New
York, NY

Columbia Teachers College Press, Practitioner Inquiry Series.

Ravitch S.M. & Carl, M.N. (2020). Qualitative research: Bridging the conceptual,
theoretical, and methodological. (2nd Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishing.

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Sharon M. Ravitch

Sharon M. Ravitch is a professor of practice at the University of

Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. She co-founded
Penn’s Inter-American Educational Leadership Network and serves
as the principal investigator of a number of multi-year international
applied development research initiatives, one in Nicaragua and
several in India. Ravitch has published ve books, the most recent the second
edition of Qualitative Research: Bridging the Conceptual, Theoretical, and
1
Methodological (with Nicole Carl).

View all posts bySharon M. Ravitch | Website

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Nancy Simms  2 months ago

Thanks for the article – it has given me a few things to re ect on. I am required to pivot in
my qualitative research design, as COVOD 19 prevents me from face-to-face interviews. I
am thinking of administering an open-ended questionnaire followed by conducting web-
1
based interviews. I wonder if I can get some feedback regarding challenges that I might
experience.
0 Reply

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