Disaster STS Network

COVID-19 Rapid Student Interview Project

Contributors

About

This project aims to provide an engaging project for post-secondary students (undergraduate and graduate) to gain experience with qualitative research methodology while contributing to public discussions about everyday experiences with COVID-19. We also hope to highlight the impacts of COVID-19 on people with different kinds of jobs, in different kinds of households, in different places around the world.

All interviews will be fully voluntary and anonymized to protect the privacy of interviewees. Interview data will contribute to the Transnational STS COVID-19 Project, helping build public resources about COVID-19 built from a diverse array of experiences and perspectives. Students are welcome to participate through classes or on their own.

The data collected will be used to create thematic “PECE Essays” on the Disaster STS Network platform. A PECE essay (like this page) is a collection of items, in this case quotes and excerpts from the collected interviews as well as information and other resources relevant to the topic, organized into an online collage with text added for context. For another example of a PECE essay, click here.

Return to PECE Essay Landing Page

Interview Questions

What are some things that you don’t understand about Covid-19, the way it has spread, public health recommendations, or responses to it by state, institutional, and individual actor
What is your view of the way governments at different levels -- city, county, state, national -- has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic?
What kind of job do you have and how has it been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic? Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your income?
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your living arrangements and household dynamics? What have been the great challenges?
What experience have you had with health care as the COVID-19 pandemic gained momentum?
What stresses and stressed behaviors have you observed in the people you have been around as the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded?
What have you observed to be most comforting to people amidst all the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic? Are people thinking about this COVID-19 in religious terms, for example?
What special resources have you been able to draw on to to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic? Have you had access to any income replacement programs, for example? Have family or neighbors been able to help you with childcare?
Where do you get information about COVID-19? Do you trust the information you have access to?
How have your interactions with friends, coworkers, and others inside your social network changed?
How has your emotional state changed since Covid-19 began to affect your everyday life?
What examples from history have been helpful for you in understanding this crisis and why?

Click above to return to the Transnational STS COVID-19 Project

How to Participate

Participation is open to post-secondary school students (18+ years old) anywhere in the world as both individuals and as part of a class. If you are a student interested in participating as an individual, or a faculty member that would like to have their class participate, please use this form to contact us.

Notice for Interviewees

Notice for Interviewees

Sample Instructions for Classes

Sample Instructions for Classes

Other Resources

Doing Fieldwork in a Pandemic by Deborah Lupton