In addition to the traditional use of participant observation, interviews, and surveys, qualitative researchers have developed a variety of other methods to obtain information in their studies. Visual data from film and still photographs are now supplemented with video and computer techniques and are used in many settings. Focused group interviews, once in the domain of market researchers, are now regularly used by qualitative researchers as well. Elicitation techniques, such as triads, pile sorts, and freelists, originally developed by cognitive anthropologists have been widely adopted to help understand the inner workings of the members of a group. In this brief volume, these three sets of methods are explained in simple, practical language. The authors describe when and how to use these sets of techniques for community research, market research, and formative evaluation and other health, social welfare, and educational settings both domestically and internationally.

Author Biography

Jean J. Schensul: Institute for Community Research, Hartford Margaret Diane LeCompte: University of Colorado, Boulder Bonnie K. Nastasi: SUNY Albany Stephen P. Borgatti: Boston University