Rabbit trails

Rabbit trails are one of my favorite aspects of conducting qualitative interviews. As the researcher, I can’t help but formulate ideas about what information is going to result from my questions. Often I am accurate in my prejudgments, but occasionally I ask a question that opens up a door of data that I had not anticipated, but is full of rich and meaningful data. For instance, I asked an administrator about the history of the Shanghai program and how it began and he shared about the inauguration speech of the current university president. During this speech, over 12 years ago, the president projected a vision for making inroads to higher education in China. This foundational vision that was cast in his speech started a domino effect that over the course of more than a decade resulted in the foundation of the shanghai program. Here I was anticipating an answer to my question that I believed would center around a 3-5 year period, but I learn that it all started with a presidential inauguration address. These gems of information that are totally unanticipated are one of my favorite aspects of qualitative research.