Topic:
Methods: interviews, focus groups, oral histories
Practice: sampling

Read for class:

• A-Z entry on interviewing in the Sage Qualitative and interviewing for interviewing data gathering  Sage Communication 
• A-Z entry on oral history in the Sage Qualitative 
• A-Z entry on focus groups in the Sage Qualitative and Sage Communication 
• A-Z entry on sampling decisions in the Sage Communication and sample in Sage Qualitative

Do for class:

• Perform a brief field observation exercise based on our readings and discussion from last week. You need to begin that observation with a curiosity of some kind. For example, you can watch people in line at your favorite coffee house. How do they pass the time in line? Your observation does not need to be long, but it needs to give you the chance to take some field notes and then reflect on the process. Upload your observation and related noted as a single file to the google folder for this week. 
• Post an article in our shared google document from your field that uses an interview, focus group or oral history and aligns with who you are as  a scholar/teacher/practitioner. (The point of these is so you can see how scholars use these methods and write about them. 🙂

In class:

• discuss your observation field exercise 
• discuss interviews, focus groups, oral histories
  • with attention to the differences and when to use each 
• discuss sampling