8th Biennial ACSPRI Social Science Methodology Conference

This presentation reports on the interview method used in a PhD project inquiring into international students’ living and learning experiences before, during, and after COVID-19. To capitalise on the increased online activities in class settings and in general during the early phases of the pandemic, I drew on Trace Interviews (Dubois & Ford, 2015) and Social Media Scroll Back Method (Robards & Lincoln, 2019). This led me to formulate an online prompt interview as an extension of these existing methods - with a few key differences. Firstly, the online activities/online accounts in the interview work as prompt rather than the main research interest. The online prompt interview uses the online activities to bring about participants’ past or current behaviour, attitudes, or feeling when presented with or surfing through their online accounts across learning management systems (LMSs), e-mail, and social media. Secondly, I used the following strategies in the interview process: (1) Participants were asked to surf multiple accounts during the interview (at least one LMS or E-mail, and one social media), and (2) participants have more control and power as they can decide to show or not show their online activities to the interviewer. To demonstrate the flexibility of online prompt interview, I will present my experience with asking participants to review multiple online accounts during the interview session. I also explore the pros and cons of the method and how the online accounts, though different, gave various angles to answering the main research question.

Recording link: https://acspri-org-au.zoom.us/rec/share/hgwslXAzf4qmRv8ipyQ8zMAGRA6ZC19EJzm11t5vL9ztJQFO7ZqqwZRhGSozzL4.GZreddTQcQGSpJ3u?startTime=1669254563000