Digitization of Qualitative Research: Biographical Narrative Interviews with Teachers in Digital Space

That qualitative educational and biographical research is not detached from social and technical developments like COVID-19 and the increased digitalisation of social life is illustrated in the article. The chapter argues that qualitative educational and biographical research has been interwoven with digital elements in many ways since the advent of digitisation in research. Even though many attempts were already made to conduct interviews in digital spaces before the COVID-19 pandemic, its impact has reinforced this in a sustained way. Not only has there been a significant push to conduct interviews in digital spaces, but methodological debates on related issues like trust and rapport have ensued. Research practice insights into conducting biographical narrative interviews with teachers in digital spaces will be provided. It is shown that with the procedure, rich data with a high level of biographical detail can be collected, which show many similarities to those in conducted in co-presence. Furthermore, it is discussed to what extent conducting digital interviews, which did not correspond to the ‘gold standard’ of qualitative research in co-presence in pre-pandemic times, must find its way into the canon of qualitative research due to the increasing digitalisation of the life worlds of the interviewees.