Qualitative fieldwork research on sensitive topics sometimes requires that interviewees be granted confidentiality and anonymity. When qualitative researchers later publish their findings, they must ensure that any statements obtained during fieldwork interviews cannot be traced back to the interviewees. Given these protections to interviewees,…

The purpose of this study was to examine (a) factors that influence effective cross-cultural collaboration, and (b) challenges and issues that face researchers in cross-cultural collaboration. During the summer of 2010, 20 researchers and student interns from Ghana Education Service, Chicago State University (CSU-USA), Winneba University of…

Qualitative research methodologies employed by the Center for the Study of Evaluation (CSE) Evaluation Use Project over the last six years are reviewed. The report is neither a paean to qualitative methods nor an attack upon them. It represents a self-examination by CSE of its attempts to apply qualitative techniques to an important, and…

Discusses research strategy and data collection methods in field studies of unapprehended illegal immigrants living in the United States and suggests ways to increase the reliability and validity of interview responses. Also provides a bibliography of recent field studies of undocumented immigrants. (Author/GC)

Two innovative methods for collecting and analyzing qualitative data are vignettes and pre-structured cases. Vignettes are descriptions of situations or problems written by a professional, with a suggested outline and comments provided by a researcher. Advantages of this method are strength of impact of the written descriptions and efficiency of…

Describes results of a field study where 74 people were interviewed about their experience with using either an electronic or a printed version of a brief project description. The popular belief that electronic information systems are more efficient was not confirmed. Methodological problems of comparative media studies are discussed. (Author/LRW))

Describes a field study in which the researcher developed a feminist materialist alternative to the subject object dualism in ethnography; critiques the discourse of naturalistic ethnography and presents various political and ethical implications for forms of feminist and critical theory and praxis. (GLR)

This paper discusses the importance of pilot studies in the development and implementation of a research project, focusing on the use of a pilot study to revise conceptual and methodological issues in dissertation research on higher education leadership. It examines the hermeneutic circle, as described by M. Heidegger, that stresses the importance…