COVID-19 has necessitated innovation in many parts of our lives and qualitative research is no exception, as in-person qualitative data collection has been complicated by the constraints of social distancing and the prioritization of participants’ and researchers’ safety. Consequently, virtual methods have quickly gained traction. However, there is little research that comprehensively explores the range of practical, rigorous, and ethical considerations that arise when designing and engaging in virtual qualitative research. Addressing this gap, we examine the process of designing and conducting a virtual qualitative study, using specific examples from our case study of student homelessness in Houston, Texas that drew from semi-structured interviews and the analysis of over 50 documents. Garnering insights from Salmons’ Qualitative e-Research Framework (2016), and benefiting from 22 technical memos that documented our process, we profile the challenges we faced—and choices we made in response—as we designed and conducted our study. Our findings suggest that in practice, engaging in virtual qualitative research, particularly in the era of COVID-19, is a purposive exercise that requires thoughtful, careful analysis around a number of methodological challenges as well as ethical and equity-oriented questions. Our exploratory work has timely implications for qualitative scholars in the current COVID-19 context, but also showcases the potential to conduct high-quality, rigorous, ethical qualitative research in a virtual format, offering a glimmer of hope for more equitable qualitative research in contexts of crisis and beyond.

COVID-19在我们的生活的许多部分都需要创新，定性研究也不例外，因为面对社会的距离限制以及参与者和研究人员安全的优先考虑，面对面的定性数据收集变得很复杂。因此，虚拟方法已迅速获得关注。但是，很少有研究能够全面探讨在设计和进行虚拟定性研究时出现的一系列实际，严谨和道德方面的考虑。为了解决这一差距，我们使用半结构化访谈和对50多个文档进行分析得出的德克萨斯州休斯顿学生无家可归案例研究中的具体示例，研究了设计和进行虚拟定性研究的过程。从Salmons的“定性电子研究框架（2016）”中获取见识，并受益于记录我们过程的22篇技术备忘录，我们在设计和开展研究时概述了我们面临的挑战以及做出的选择。我们的发现表明，在实践中，尤其是在COVID-19时代，从事虚拟定性研究是一项有目的的练习，需要对许多方法论难题以及道德和公平问题进行周密，仔细的分析。我们的探索性工作对当前COVID-19环境下的定性研究者具有及时的意义，但同时也展示了以虚拟格式进行高质量，严格，符合伦理学的定性研究的潜力，为在环境中进行更公平的定性研究带来了一线希望危机及以后。