Enacted: Generating data in research events Janet Salmons, PhD

What are “enacted” Methods? In enacted methods researchers construct an situation that allows for data to emerge or be generated in response to various kinds of verbal, written or visually-communicated prompts or tasks. Such situations are referred to here as research events. An online environment, community, forum, virtual world or game is selected or designed as the event setting. This kind of research is highly collaborative, and participants may take roles as co-researchers who co-construct new knowledge.

Researcher’s observations How is data collected? Data may be captured or collected within the research settings, or external to the setting in journals or forums established for this purpose. Visual, verbal, written, and/or multimedia data can be collected from: Audio or video, logs or archives of events; posts or chats captured by the software used for the research setting Recorded of events Participants’ reflections in the form of narratives, drawings or links to online materials they selected during the research event Journals or Diaries Field notes, images or screenshots; collection of digital artifacts Researcher’s observations Interviews or questionnaires conducted during or after the research event. Post-event questions