Data Collection Techniques - Appreciative Inquiry

A popular technique to be used within data collection methods of interviews, focus groups, and observations is the Appreciative Inquiry. Appreciative inquiry analyzes issues on an organizational level and tries to understand what is working well within the organization and what isn’t (Preskill & Catsambas, 2006). To analyze things on an organizational level the researcher should speak to the employees because they are the ones who make up the organization. Appreciative inquiry has four steps which are: inquiry phase, imagine phase, innovate phase, and the implement phase (Mertens, 2015). We will discuss these next week.

Preskill, H. & Catsambas, T. (2006). Reframing evaluation through appreciative inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mertens, D. M. (2015). Research and evaluation in education and psychology: integrating diversity with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. Sage