Conducting Qualitative Research of Learning in Online Spaces

Qualitative researchers have grappled with how online inquiry shifts research procedures such as gaining access to spaces, communicating with participants, and obtaining informed consent. Drawing on a multimethod approach, Conducting Qualitative Research of Learning in Online Spaces explores how to design and conduct diverse studies in online environments. The book focuses on formal and informal learning practices that occur in evolving online spaces. The text shows researchers how they can draw upon a variety of theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, and data sources. Examples of qualitative research in online spaces, along with guiding questions, support readers at every phase of the research process. 

Hannah R. Gerber is an associate professor in the Department of Language, Literacy and Special Populations at Sam Houston State University in Texas, where she teaches graduate courses in digital epistemologies and virtual ethnography. To date, Gerber’s research has focused on adolescents and their videogaming practices, examining confluences of learning across various literacies in multiple online and offline settings. She has conducted research in diverse environments such as homes, libraries, and schools, and within inner city, rural, and international contexts such as North America, Middle East, and South East Asia. She has given lectures and keynote addresses on her research at conferences and universities around the world. Gerber’s recent publications can be found in English Journal, Educational Media International, and The ALAN Review. She is co-editor of Bridging Literacies with Videogames. Sandra Schamroth Abrams is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at St. John’s University in New York. Her research of digital literacies and videogaming provides insight into agentive learning, layered meaning making, and pedagogical discovery located at the intersection of online and offline experiences. Her recent work appears in the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Education, Journal of Literacy Research, and Educational Media International.  She is author of Integrating Virtual and Traditional Learning in 6-12 Classrooms: A Layered Literacies Approach to Multimodal Meaning Making (Routledge) and co-editor of Bridging Literacies with Videogames. Jen Scott Curwood is a senior lecturer in English education and media studies at the University of Sydney in Australia. Her research focuses on literacy, technology, and teacher professional development, and her current work investigates young adults′ writing practices in online spaces and teachers′ integration of digital tools in content area classrooms. Curwood′s recent scholarship has appeared in the Journal of Literacy Research, the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Teaching Education, and Learning, Media, and Technology. Alecia Marie Magnifico is a teacher educator and a learning scientist whose research focuses on writing, digital literacies, and learning in formal and informal environments. Currently, she is an assistant professor of English teaching at the University of New Hampshire, where she teaches courses on English teaching, digital literacies, and research methods. Magnifico′s research interests focus on understanding, supporting, and encouraging adolescents′ writing for different audiences. Much of her writing in this area describes and theorizes composition across formal and informal contexts, although she also works with teachers to design curricula and assessments that engage digital tools and multiple literacies. She enjoys the challenge of developing research methods to represent what happens in these complex, social learning spaces. Magnifico′s recent work can be found in Literacy, the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and E-Learning and Digital Media.