ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the major methods of empirical research and their potential in conjunction with their specific characteristics. It focuses on interviews, observations, content analyses, group discussions and experiments. Interviews as a method of empirical data collection are not a clearly defined method but comprise a bundle of different approaches that can be more or less appropriate depending on the research question and research situation. The classical approach is the oral or personal interview where an interviewer with a questionnaire approaches a person belonging to a usually representative sample and asks for an interview. The higher comparability of standardized interviews has resulted in the term quantitative interview in contrast to non-standardized, free or unstructured interviews that are sometimes described as qualitative interviews. Textbooks provide comprehensive guidelines on how to word questions and how to structure questionnaires. Accordingly, content analysis as a method of empirical research deals with the observation and analysis of social interaction manifested in verbal documents.
