Field Methods for Academic Research: Interviews, Focus Groups and Questionnaires in Business and Management Studies

Data is at the heart of most academic research and this book is about how to collect data outside of a laboratory. There are many different ways in which data can be collected and this textbook focuses on three of the most important for research students to be aware of and master. These are data collected through interviews, data collected as a result of focus groups and data collected with the use of a questionnaire.

The writing of this book was inspired by observing just how badly these topics are often taught and so I have laid out straight forward but quite rigorous approaches to these data acquisition methods.

These three data collection methods are not especially difficult but if they are not implemented correctly the data acquired may not be of much value to the researcher. Therefore, it is really important for researchers to be familiar with an effective way of implementing these methods.

it is important to note this book does not attempt to advise on how to analyse or interpret the data which is acquired through these field methods. That task is left up to other books.

The appendices in this book contain a number of examples of questionnaires as well as some additional advice in the use of questionnaires in academic research.

Readers of this book have my best wishes in achieving their objectives through their work with academic research.