The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Collection
- Uwe Flick - Freie Universtität Berlin, Germany
How we understand and define qualitative data is changing, with implications not only for the techniques of data analysis, but also how data are collected. New devices, technologies and online spaces open up new ways for researchers to approach and collect images, moving images, text and talk. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Collection systematically explores the approaches, techniques, debates and new frontiers for creating, collecting and producing qualitative data. Bringing together contributions from internationally leading scholars in the field, the handbook offers a state-of-the-art look at key themes across six thematic parts:
Part I Charting the Routes
Part II Concepts, Contexts, Basics
Part III Types of Data and How to Collect Them
Part IV Digital and Internet Data
Part V Triangulation and Mixed Methods
Part VI Collecting Data in Specific Populations
Professor Flick’s Handbook offers several pathways to understanding qualitative data -and the appropriate methods - for discovery, exploration, analysis, storage, retrieval, and sharing, as well as working with multiple methods. The materials about cultural contexts, reflexive accounts, and especially the use of electronic documents illuminate the challenges and solutions of more sophisticated qualitative analysis.
The Handbook of Qualitative Data Collection brings together the leading scholars to express the dynamism and creativity which now cut across all disciplines and topics. The major types of qualitative data collection include interviews, focus groups, narratives, conversation analysis, discourse analysis, observations, ethnography, performance and hermeneutics, and videography, with pragmatic ideas about how to conduct each type of data collection. Two major sections discuss and analyze digital data collection, and how to use these data alone of with other forms of qualitative data. The critical issues of induction, generalization, sampling, and triangulation are presented with clarity and elegance. This Handbook will be foundational for years to come.
My co-teacher and I offer two PhD courses in qualitative methods. At that level of teaching, we do not have one single text book: we offer a selection of readings including text books. Most of these books are published by Sage. This new volume from Flick is extremely rich and of a high academic level. It is perfectly suited for our course and needs. My co-teacher and I hope that our course participants will read some of the chapters for their PhD and also use it when they are asked to teach their first courses.
