https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5460-8068
ABSTRACT
During the COVID19 crisis, school closure was a frequent feature of Government responses. The Children’s School Lives (CSL) national cohort study of primary schooling in Ireland had to be adapted and transferred online as an interim response to the unprecedented impact that the pandemic had on the research environment. Adapting longitudinal qualitative research in response to a global pandemic brought specific challenges. In addition to moving data collection to remote methods, longitudinal studies also needed to maintain a focus on retention of research participants and sustain an analysis that informs the longitudinal design of the study. Based on reflective research practice during the COVID19 pandemic and through the collaborative production of methodological knowledge, this paper contributes to the literature on remote research during times of crisis. However, it also extends this literature as the methodological learning can be applied beyond the very particular circumstances of a pandemic.
Introduction
The use and evaluation of online and remote research methods has been developing within the academic research community long before the COVID19 pandemic (Braun et al. Citation2017 Archibald et al. Citation2019,). Weller (Citation2017) refers to the increasing use of digital communication technologies as the new ‘methodological frontier’ in social research. Whereas Weller, like other scholars pre-pandemic, focuses on the potentials and pitfalls of online versus in-person data collection, the discussion during (and following) the pandemic has rapidly developed into consideration of overcoming disadvantages and how to maintain ethics and research quality whilst adapting to online and remote tools (Lobe et al. Citation2020; Torrentira Citation2020; Newman et al. Citation2021, Richardson et al. Citation2021; Watson and Lupton Citation2022). In addition, the onset and aftermath of the pandemic has compelled researchers to reflect on new methodological and epistemological questions (Howlett Citation2022; Willis et al. Citation2023; Todd and Rose Citation2022; Kim et al., Citation2023).
Longitudinal studies present researchers with unique methodological challenges but also opportunities in terms of developing innovative strategies and methods to manage data across time (Carduff et al. Citation2015). In their research note specific to longitudinal studies, Crivello and Favara (Citation2021), highlight several ethical and practical considerations and challenges that presented for researchers during the COVID19 pandemic. Coining the concept ‘ethics of disruption’, they refer to weighing up and mitigating the risks of continuing longitudinal research during a pandemic (Crivello and Favara Citation2021,, p. 2). Although the ethical and practical concerns they raise matter across all study designs, they specifically note that considerations of temporality, vulnerability and relationship combine in longitudinal cohort studies. Further, Wöhrer et al. (Citation2020, p. 1) highlight the tendency among longitudinal qualitative researchers to publish findings with less frequent documentation of methodological reflections. In this paper, we reflect on the research experiences that presented during the second wave of a longitudinal research study when conducting data collection remotely for the Children’s School Lives longitudinal study. To extend the literature on this topic, this paper reflects on specific challenges related to operating remotely as a research team and the practical task of designing remote qualitative research methods that are inclusive and non-intrusive while carrying out the research and analysis in a safe and effective way.
The Children’s School Lives Study
The Children’s School Lives (CSL) study is an Irish national longitudinal study of primary schooling that is following two age cohorts (A and B) of children across five years (Devine et al. Citation2020). CSL is Ireland’s first in-depth study of primary schools contributing to the development of national policy, informed by the voices of children, their families, their teachers and school leaders. The overall aim of the Children’s School Lives study is to explore the intersection of influences in children’s everyday lives across family, school and community as they transfer into, through and out of primary schooling. The primary school cycle in Ireland is 8 years long, from Junior Infants (age 4/5 years old) to sixth class (12 years old). There are six fieldwork waves in the study for each cohort, following children in one cohort (B) from second class to their first year in post primary schools and from pre-school to second class in the other cohort (A).
There are 189 primary schools participating in the research study with thirteen of the 189 primary schools taking part additionally as case study schools. In the case study schools, researchers explore the experiences of everyday life in primary school in-depth, spending more extended time in each school, documenting the voices of all members of the school community and real time events that influence children’s school lives. This element of the research also includes a CSL family study, which includes interviews with parents and grandparents of our study children.
On March 12th, 2020, primary schools in Ireland were subject to a nationwide lockdown to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The initial two-week lockdown was extended to the remainder of the academic school year, which finished in June. Ireland was second to Poland in Western Europe for school closures (UNICEF Citation2021). This gave rise to an unprecedented period of remote learning, teaching, and leading in the Irish primary school system.
In response to school closures during the COVID19 pandemic, the qualitative research in the CSL case study schools was conducted remotely. We conducted the interviews and focus groups via online digital platforms and smartphones. It is important to note that our relationships with the case study schools and participants was established prior to the pandemic through the first wave of the study, which had already occurred – for Cohort B one year before the pandemic, for Cohort A four months before the onset of pandemic. We were thus building on these pre-established relationships and previous positive experiences for research participants. Nonetheless, in line with the study ethical approval, participants were given the choice to opt-out of the study if they did not wish to engage in the remotely conducted research wave. All case study schools (see ) in each cohort participated in the ‘Covid-19 sub-study’ and continued their participation across all future waves.
Table 1. School characteristics of cohorts A and B case study school.
The data for this paper were developed utilizing the corresponding author’s research notes in addition to discussion notes taken from weekly research team meetings throughout the research process. Colleagues (paper co-authors) were invited to collaboratively input to this paper further enhancing the collaborative approach to reflective research practice. The purpose of the paper is to provide a reflective resource for practical and conceptual use methodologically. Reflective practice in research can lead to methodological developments and innovation whilst also having a cognitive benefit for researchers (Mortari Citation2015). Given the large core team associated with the collection of data in the case study schools this discursive approach to the methodology has been a core part of the evolving research design and this approach proved to be a significant resource during remote data collection.
Researching remotely: key reflections
Pre-COVID19, our research tools were prepared for face-to-face interactions and for immersive research in the field. Moving to remote research for the case study schools demanded adaptation and innovation in equal measure in terms of revised approach and focus. Moreover, we were intent on maintaining the effectiveness and quality of research (Tremblay Citation2021). Ahmed and Ali (Citation2023, p. 157) refer to a central concern of maintaining the rigour and credibility of the research during disruptions to the research process. Although writing specifically in the context of developing countries, the role of, and learning from, ‘emergent research design’ discussed by Ahmed and Ali (Citation2023) is applicable to research concerns globally during the COVID pandemic. Notwithstanding the importance of evaluating remote methods for maintaining research quality in terms of the richness of data, given the pandemic context, we were also mindful of the need to develop research methods that were ethical, non-intrusive, inclusive, and safe for research participants. At the same time, working remotely as a research team presented additional challenges in terms of planning and working collaboratively.
Ethical implications of researching during a pandemic
Although writing specifically in relation to research related to self-harm and suicide, Townsend et al. (Citation2020) refer to researchers halting research to avoid any unnecessary burden on respondents including any health and safety risk exposures, whilst also cautioning that the pandemic research environment means that results will require cautious interpretation. If a research study continued during the pandemic, for Townsend (ibid, p. 382) ‘the research community must be very clear about who will benefit from the research, how it can be implemented to inform policy and practice, and in what time frame’.
These ethical concerns presented for the Children’s School Lives (CSL) study and underpinned the decision whether to continue collecting data during school closures. Marzi (Citation2023) makes an important observation that the pandemic context did not mean research became less important but sometimes more pressing, especially if the research continues to have the potential to influence policy and social change. Likewise, Newman et al. (Citation2021) note the significant gains for policy and practice from qualitative research during a pandemic. Building on pre-established relationships meant that the CSL study was ideally situated to meaningfully engage research participants and capture experiences of school closures during the pandemic. It could in turn inform policy and practice for any future emergency-related school closures as well as generating important data in terms of online and remote learning. The benefits in this regard were high and the health risk was minimal given the decision and capacity to move to remote research methods.
Designing research methods that are inclusive and non-intrusive
Once the ethics of safety and rationale for continuing with a study during a pandemic have been addressed, the next set of fundamental ethical issues present in terms of designing and conducting remote research (Lobe et al. Citation2020; Sy et al. Citation2020). This means adhering to already approved ethical practice and making necessary amendments to ensure that the move to remote methods is non-intrusive and inclusive for research participants. For the CSL study, we moved interview and focus group methods to online and phone platforms. However, we also adapted research schedules and the timing of interviews and focus groups to take account of remote settings for participants and researchers.
The rapport between the researcher and research participant is significant when research moves online or to a remote method (Shamsuddin et al. Citation2021) and the pre-established relationship in the CSL study played a pivotal part in maintaining a positive rapport. Weller (Citation2017) maintains that the quality of the relationship between the researcher and participant is essential to the quality of the data in short-term and longitudinal studies. For Weller, rapport is a pre-requisite for minimizing social distance and establishing trust, which was especially important for remote research during the pandemic. The challenge would have been all the greater in terms of building rapport with research participants if the study was only commencing whereas the CSL study was entering the second wave of data collection. This positive rapport aided trust in the relationship and helped to maintain the continued engagement of research participants from hard-to-reach participant groups in the CSL study such as parents in low-income families. Even with a new interviewer on the team at this time, it was the commitment to the study and acknowledgement of the importance of research by the participant schools to make sense of or bring stability into a turbulent time, that also helped with retention.
Lobe et al. (Citation2020) provide an extensive overview of considerations and practicalities when moving to online research and maintain that online qualitative methods are simply online versions of traditional tools. The issue of quality and effectiveness is only one aspect of consideration as there is a need to ensure that the method, although adapted for effectiveness and quality, is non-intrusive and inclusive. Self and Ryazantsev (Citation2021) notes that virtual methods of interaction can alter the research relationship while still generating in-depth exchanges. In the CSL study, we had to ensure that research participants, if doing the interview from a home setting, had the opportunity to say no to participation if it was too intrusive into homelife. If the participant agreed to the interview, we had to ensure that the timing and sensitivity of the questions was altered to take account of the home setting.
Ensuring that the study methods were non-intrusive was an extremely important aspect of research design to ensure retention of research participants at a vulnerable period in school life given the wider implications of the pandemic on school settings, staff relations and relations with parents. Schools have traditionally provided teachers and parents with a physical boundary, between school, home, and work, although this has been slowly eroding due to increased use of digital systems in educational settings (Page Citation2017). In this context, the ever-increasing use of technology during the pandemic facilitated opportunities for an expansion of blurred boundaries between school, work, and home (Symonds et al. Citation2020). Therefore, an important aspect of the research activities was that the team remained mindful of and moderated this stress for the teachers and families involved.
The CSL study is collecting data across a representative sample that reflect all school types in Ireland. This means that the research involves schools with a high proportion of low-income families who may be considered hard-to-reach when it comes to research participation (Dodson and Schmalzbauer Citation2005). Researchers have reported benefits for marginalized populations from online or remote research, including greater power and status equality in the process (García et al. Citation2016, Kaufmann Citation2019 in Self and Ryazantsev Citation2021). But Self and Ryazantsev (Citation2021), drawing on Hanna (Citation2012), maintains that the best way of empowering participants is to allow them to choose which mode of interview they prefer and feel most comfortable with. This emerged over the course of the research when one participant [a parent], stated the interviews provided a ‘meaningful distraction’, achieving something positive as it was ‘great to talk to someone different and to feel useful during the lockdowns … .’ For the researchers there was a sense of reciprocity that was also important – a rewarding sense of ‘giving something back to participants – directly’ during the remote research process, which was important in terms of sustaining team morale and motivation. Noting that the application of reciprocity is usually reserved for discussion in action research, Trainor and Ahlgren Bouchard (Citation2013) maintain that there are opportunities for applying a broader approach to reciprocity throughout the research process and von Vacano (Citation2019) states that reciprocity can refer to a complete range of approaches.
Socio-economic inequality in the lives of research participants also needed to be factored into considerations around access to digital technologies, if using online research tools. Indeed, a key finding from the CSL study during this wave was the digital divide in children’s school lives with respect to access to internet and IT devices Crean et al. Citation2023. Informed by our own knowledge of the social and cultural contexts of our case study participants from the first wave of the study, especially barriers to research participants from lower income households, we offered participants the choice of phone or online interviews.
Gender and family inclusion also emerged as an interesting issue in terms of increased participation of both parents in this and subsequent waves of the study, influenced by the transition to online methods. While our first wave of in-person research with families was more likely to include mothers, as they were predominantly present at the school gates, during the recruitment period or their details were most often available to or used by the schools (Buzard et al. Citation2023). Our remote research wave resulted in a modest, but notable increase in the number of couples including same-sex parents, who participated when interviews were conducted on-line (through e.g. ZoomFootnote1). From a gender inclusion perspective, the move to remote research enabled a greater input from both parents, which was evidenced in the family interviews and focus groups, mitigating a potential gender gap in data across the waves of the study. This interaction, then impacted positively on the recruitment of fathers and couple engagement in interviews in further waves, four and five of the CSL study, as some parents had already been familiarized with the study interviews whether they were involved themselves or by observing their partner being interviewed during lockdown.
Conducting the research and analysis in a safe and effective way
Although safety in terms of health and wellbeing was the initial consideration for continuing with the research during the pandemic (for both the research team and research participants) and for the choice of research tools, the issue of safety also presented when designing and conducting research in the need to ensure anonymity, confidentiality and security whilst researching remotely.
Gray et al. (Citation2020) compare the storage and security differences across virtual platforms given the fact that secure data generation and storage matters in terms of ethics and general best research practice. Lobe et al. (Citation2020) also describe security differences between different platforms and applications when working remotely. Daniels (Citation2019) and Shamsuddin et al. (Citation2021), although writing with respect to different research methods, describe common safety issues related to the use of visual online platforms in which others could appear aside from the research participant. In the CSL study, we used passwords and security settings within the Zoom platform to ensure that we safeguarded against some of these risks. We also had clear protocols for the secure transfer of interviews from home laptops to a secure storage system within the University IT system. It was also essential to secure additional ethical approval for the conduct of the research during the lockdown period.
In addition to safety and security, maintaining research quality and effectiveness is a key consideration during remote research. Sy et al. (Citation2020, p. 602) refer to the gold standard in qualitative interviewing of face-to-face interviews, which is traditionally associated with the potential to elicit honest views on sensitive topics by building trust with research participants. Ensuring that this benefit transfers with the traditional interview method when moved to a remote context is significant in terms of maintaining research quality and effectiveness. For CSL, we were acutely aware of the need to adapt the interview schedule, timing and length of interview depending on the participant’s circumstances. When using a phone recorded interview rather than an online platform with a camera, researchers were more reliant on the research schedule to elicit data as there was less opportunity to probe questions based on a participant’s body language or facial expressions. The length of the interview was also altered (Dodds and Hess Citation2021) and this placed a higher importance on having the right questions in advance rather than reliance on probing and further analysis during the interview process. Gray et al. (Citation2020) state that the benefits of video research are less documented than face-to-face interviewing and their paper provides an insight into the attributes of Zoom that contribute to high quality and in-depth qualitative interviews when in person interviewing is not feasible. The Zoom interviews conducted as part of the CSL study did allow for more probing as the researcher could respond to body language and facial expressions. The quality of interviews was also facilitated by the fact that the participants were in the comfort of their own homes (Turner et al. Citation2021).
Working collaboratively as a remote research team
Notwithstanding, the focus of this paper on local collaboration during a global crisis, there has been a gradual growth in remote research teams over the last few decades through international collaboration. This growth in collaborative research at an international level is evidenced in metrics such as co-authorship (Kosmützky Citation2018) and a change in the aims and authorship in some academic journals (Todd and Nind Citation2017). Reviewing seventeen years of research, Ramos-Villagrasa et al. (Citation2018, p. 136) note that ‘the science of teams is going through one of its most exciting moments’. Brown et al. (Citation2023, p. 2) referring to this ‘emerging “science of team science” field’ based on reflections on the benefits and challenges of collaborative research work, note that less of this analysis has been given to collaborations within humanities and social sciences. With respect to educational mixed methods research teams, Poth (Citation2019) maintains that little interest is shown in analysing the complex environments that surround the development of research teams. The need for a greater focus on the social sciences is warranted in the high growth rates for international collaboration within the social sciences, which ‘currently have the highest growth rates in international collaboration’ (Gazni et al. Citation2012 in Kosmützky Citation2018, p. 14).
Noting the need to do more on the ‘science of teams’ within the social sciences and with a growing focus on the ‘internationalization of research’ (Woldegiyorgis et al. Citation2018), the findings in this paper, although based on remote research collaboration during a global pandemic, also contribute to methodological consideration for international research teams. Written pre-COVID19 pandemic, Morrison-Smith and Ruiz (Citation2020)- refer to the challenges for virtual teams who rely on technology to communicate and cooperate. As much as being impacted by practical factors such as technical difficulties or limitations, virtual teams also experience what Morrison-Smith and Ruiz refer to as social and emotional factors such as trust, motivation and conflict. The role of trust in research collaborations can be applied in general to global research collaborations outside of a purely crisis context (Kerasidou Citation2019). In the COVID19 research context, these practical and socio-emotional factors were very much to the fore with respect to research teams. The CSL research team were working and collaborating via zoom and telephone contact with no in-person meetings or research work.
In addition to practical and socio-emotional considerations, there were also relational aspects to the virtual research team with potential to impact on the effectiveness of virtual working. Yang et al. (Citation2022) talk about strong and weak ties within teams and the ease of information flow when ties are strong or pre-established before remote working. For team members who joined the CSL research study during the COVID pandemic, this meant that the team included members who had never met in person, even pre-pandemic. Reflective of effective management and the quality of the team members, there were little to no impediments to working collaboratively despite these relational, practical, and socio-emotional conditions. This in part could also be attributed to the strong collaborative working culture developed and established pre-pandemic and a clear sense of mission and vision with respect to the research objectives. Using weekly team meetings was the main mode of group discussion and sharing of tasks. Weekly management meetings in addition to the research team meetings meant that important and/ or emergency decisions could be made promptly and effectively.
A key aspect of the CSL research team experience was the learning across the team, especially for early-stage academics learning from those who were more advanced scholars. Brown et al. (Citation2023) have also noted the importance of mentorship in the research process. Reflecting on the role of the research team during the pandemic highlighted this mentorship in a way that may not have been identified without an opportunity or need to reflect on the research process, which learning from the pandemic offered.
Informal opportunities to talk to colleagues is an important part of building trust and relationships in a team, which was difficult during remote working. However, team members of the CSL study made a point of meeting for virtual ‘coffee chats’ and informal telephone conversations to debrief or compare experiences during remote fieldwork. The chat function served as a useful tool during remote meetings as team members could share resources and clarify any miscommunication as the conversation progressed online. The use of emails and instant messaging was also utilized as a form of ongoing communication. Based on the evidence (Morrison-Smith and Ruiz Citation2020), we can assume that these informal chats and opportunities to share learning and expertise enhanced trust, respect, and positive experiences among the remote research team.
The importance of the research team is also acknowledged in terms of research effectiveness as experienced and established researchers impact positively on maintaining quality and effectiveness in the research process (Richardson, ibid, p. 3). Effective collaboration means that researchers can maintain equal levels of quality across the research study thereby protecting the reputation of the study during a vulnerable research period and producing reliable data. The issues of validity and reliability were also enhanced through the constant cross referencing and sharing in the research team.
Given that researchers were working from home environments, some with children out of school due to school closures, there were ethical and practical considerations with respect to privacy and security and maintaining a work/life balance. The experience and expertise of the research team members played a key role in mitigating against the negative impact of remote working in the context of taking measures to ensure professional boundaries and prioritizing privacy and security in the conduct of work tasks. This impacted on the scheduling of interviews for researchers and the distribution of research tasks across the research team. Yet, these challenges also gave the researcher insight into similar issues facing our interviewees, which created a connection between researcher and interviewee that was important in building trust during the research process.
The socio-emotional considerations for research during the pandemic was also impacted by the emotional context in which researchers were operating. The pandemic presented families with loss and illness, and this impacted on the emotional toil for researchers working during the pandemic. Bergman Blix and Wettergren (Citation2015) note that the role of emotions in qualitative research is receiving increasing attention. Yet, in practice, recognition of emotional labour is not explicit in research designs, and this came to the fore during the pandemic as researchers managed the emotional landscape with little guidance.
The importance of viewing emotions as a crucial part of the research experience and developing strategies to manage emotions during research (Hubbard et al. Citation2001, Holland Citation2007) needs to be integrated into research design from the outset. During the CSL fieldwork, researchers ‘managed’ emotions on a greater scale than what was expected. On some occasions, participants were communicating their sense of angst, isolation and frustration with the lockdown situation, which were critical data for the study, yet these interviews created challenging emotional engagement for the researchers involved. In one instance, a grandparent in the study died from COVID-19 and the researcher had to acknowledge and respond to these developments as part of their research work.
Again, having supportive colleagues and good management was significant during these points in the research work. However, the learning here is that the emotional toil and labour of research needs to become a standard part of research design especially when researching during times of crisis. However, there is also wider application here as the need to identify and acknowledge the socio-emotional aspects of research collaboration presents specific considerations for international research characterized by North–South research partnerships. As Crossley and Holmes (Citation2001, p. 400) state ‘issues relating to colonial history, economic power, culture, language, gender, class, race and ethnicity are invariably involved, but seldom addressed or openly discussed’.
Collaborative production of new knowledge
Rakhudu et al. (Citation2016, p. 4) document the evolving process of research collaboration and refer to how it improves and changes over the course of its life cycle. The longitudinal design of the CSL study allows this collaborative process to evolve over a significant number of years compared to shorter timeframe studies. This is relevant in terms of how the research team worked effectively during the pandemic, building on previously established working relationships, but also had an impact in the aftermath and opportunity to generate new knowledge as a research team. This is evidenced in the growing number of multi-authored publications arising from the CSL study in the aftermath of the pandemic. This has a greater benefit for early-stage researchers who benefit from multiple publications.
The collaborative process of analysing data and producing academic papers was enhanced during remote research working as the research team established more regular meetings and sharing of electronic files to compensate for not meeting in person. The more regular meetings and online sharing of documents led to more efficient ways of collaboratively producing research tools and subsequently reflecting on research practice. The time-efficiency of online meetings meant that the CSL team could meet more often. This allowed for more enhanced mentorship and learning but also innovative ideas and approaches to research themes based on collaborative discussions and understandings.
Conclusion
The COVID19 school closures required the CSL research study switch to remote methods but there were clear gains from doing so in the development of inclusive and non-intrusive remote research approach. Integrating remote tools into the research design for future data collection waves will play a significant role in further learning about the use of remote research in a qualitative study. Moreover, it will procure the positives to gained from combining in-person and remote research choices for research participants.
In addition to research gains for the CSL study, there are significant methodological learnings from reflecting on the move to remote research that apply within and beyond the pandemic context. The practical, socio-emotional, and relational aspects of remote research across research team members and research participants impact on the overall methodological design and success of a research study in moving from an in-person to remote research context. Given the longitudinal context of the CSL study, the combined issues of temporality, vulnerability and maintaining relationships/ retention also presented during the shift to remote research. Learning from the CSL move to remote research during the COVID19 pandemic shows that the design and success of research methods is intrinsically aligned from the outset. Conducting research during a public health pandemic raises immediate ethical considerations for the health and wellbeing of research team members and research participants with a key question as to the benefit of doing the research and the minimizing of risk. In the case of the CSL study, once the research was assessed as necessary and appropriate, the considerations then turned to ethical and effective research design and conduct.
Although, there has been considerable focus on the design and conduct of research within academic literature on the move to remote research during the pandemic and to online and virtual research more generally, there has been much less focus on the role of the remote research team. Working collaboratively during a pandemic is a task and challenge in and of itself, as well as being fundamental to the success in shifting from in-person to remote research. The longitudinal design of the CSL study brought additional challenges and opportunities to collaborative research work. The importance of strong ties between the researchers, the holding of regular meetings, and opportunities to debrief and have informal conversations are critical in building an effective team that can work collaboratively remotely. This paper has also captured how the sharing of knowledge as a remote research team has positive outcomes in terms of the collaborative production of new knowledge.
The learning here is also more widely applicable to international collaborations for which remote working is common and precedes the COVID19 pandemic considerations. Highlighting the need for more research focus on the micro-level of international collaborative teams, Kosmützkya (Citation2018) identifies specific challenges for international teams such as the diversity of team members and diverse institutional and national contexts. To strategically support international research engagements, Bagshaw et al. (Citation2007) reflect on the importance of managing conflict through valuing diversity and promoting reflexivity, trust and collaborative dialogue.
Reflecting on methodological considerations for remote research working, therefore, is not new given the growth in international research collaborations (Woldegiyorgis et al., ibid) but it also came to the fore for co-located teams during the COBID19 crisis. Indeed, given the context of growing concerns about an increase in ‘precarious’ local or global incidents such as climate change and political unrest, documenting this understanding and knowledge of the remote research process has become a priority for social research.
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Notes
1 Zoom is a communications platform that allows users to connect with video, audio, phone, and chat.
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