Campbell, T. (1997). Technology, Multimedia and Qualitative Research in Education.  Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 30(2). 122-133.

This interesting article by Campbell begins by postulating that technology can have a positive impact on educational research practices.  The author differentiates qualitative (seeking the insiders point of view in order to generate a hypothesis) from quantitative (seeking to establish causality from a prepared hypothesis) research methodologies.  

She then discusses the different types of qualitative research which includes:

• descriptive (process description);
• interpretive (explanation of process or occurrence);
• verification (confirmation of assumptions); or
• evaluation (assessment of a policy).

The research strategies employed by the investigator are suggested by the research goals.

The impact of technology has occurred in the collection of data, which typically consists of interviews, observations, and/or document or artifact collections.  The capturing of the vast amounts of verbal language that is characteristic of qualitative research has been greatly facilitated by laptop computers and other technologies such as scanners.  A database of research data can be examined for patterns as well as obvious gaps in information.

The data analysis has undergone a renascence through the use of software specifically designed for the needs of qualitative research.  Campbell cautions that the methodology built into the software should be accounted for in its initial selection, since this will affect the results produced.

Technology has the potential to greatly affect the presentation of research findings given its multimedia nature.  This allows authors to present their work in a creative manner that has a higher likelihood of being read.  Extensive background information such as ethnographies—the essence of qualitative research—can be presented easily using HTML.  As well the physical constraints of paper-based publishing are not relevant in electronic forums, allowing longer documents to be shared.

A danger exists however.  The importance of establishing the credibility of the author of research is much more challenging in electronic mediums such as the internet.  As well ethics and privacy issues are of paramount importance when the entire networked world potentially has access to the data you collected.