Creative "Enacted" Methods

When working on Doing Qualitative Research Online I realized that the old categories for describing methods types-- whether conducted online or not--  need an update. I decided to classify them as:

• Extant: Studies using existing materials developed without the researcher’s influence.

• Elicited: Studies using data elicited from participants in response to the researcher’s questions.

• Enacted: Studies using data generated with participants during the study.

You might not have heard the term enacted: I coined it to describe data collection methods that go beyond the interviews, focus groups, or participant observations that use questions or prompts to elicit responses. Enacted approaches involve multiple interactions and a deep degree of collaboration that 
involves researcher(s) and 
one or more participants.

Simulations, role-plays, games, field experiments and arts-based methods fall are examples of this level of researcher/participant interaction. The ability to generate data in a realistic or hypothetical scenario, rather than asking participants to recall their experiences links these styles of data collection. Modern information and communication technologies make it possible to generate data with participants, and record rich multimodal data. Join the Get Creative! Research with Pictures & Stories webinar, where I'll share some examples.

You can now read Doing Qualitative Research Online (2016) now on SAGE Research Methods. Chapter 9 focuses on enacted methods. You can also read Cases in Online Interview Research (2013) for some innovative case studies.