Techniques for Collecting Qualitative Field Data in Education Research: Example of Two Studies in Information Technology Field

Qualitative research methods have gained attention in education research because they enable investigation of several people-related issues that cannot be researched with the use of quantitative methods. Qualitative data are mostly collected as unstructured text by using variety of techniques. Collected data are grounded in research participants’ experiences and everyday practice. Application of well-established methods for data collection and analysis ensures that research findings accurately present the investigated phenomenon. In this paper, the excerpts from two studies that use different techniques in collecting qualitative field data are presented. The studies are related to university level education within the field of Information Technology. Both authors in the course of their research used the principles of grounded theory to analyze the qualitative data. According to the experience that they have gained in this process, they reflect on some problems they encountered during the process of collecting data, discuss the pros and cons of their choice and exemplify the most fruitful data that emerged in their studies. The paper concludes with some suggestions for further research in the field.