This discussion paper considers some of the practical and ethical aspects of doing qualitative interviews using synchronous online visual technologies within a shifting research context. It is argued that the immediate access to potential participants and subsequent data collection necessitate adjustment to the ways in which qualitative researchers understand and apply ethics, accountability, and responsibility in their data collection processes. We examine the parallels between interviewing face-to-face and interviewing using technology from a practical and integral perspective. In the online environment researchers require a heightened sensitivity and awareness of their attitudes, knowledge, and skills before, during and after the interview to ensure that the process is safe, rigorous and meaningful for collecting comprehensive qualitative data. To do this, we consider how to plan, conduct and end online interviews using voice over internet protocol.

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The purpose of this paper is to explain and describe the use of presuppositional interviews as means of the researcher being able to expose their own, often unknown, assumptions about the phenomena of interest. Within this, we provide a philosophical and practical account for the development and use of a presuppositional interview from an insider perspective to expose insights which influence researcher reflexivity and directly impact on the research process. Author A’s hermeneutic phenomenological study seeks to gain insights into the lived experience of children learning mathematics in outdoor environments, such as forests and woodland. The paper describes how the reflexive method of presuppositional interviewing helped him to understand more about his research position and find a clearing in his ‘Being in the Wood.’ A template for a presupposition interview schedule is presented.

Tutoring in one form or another is a consistent feature in the higher education learning experience. However, the tutorial relationship involves an intricate mix of intra and interpersonal dynamics which influence short and long-term learning. In this paper, work from a phenomenological study of distance learning students provides transferable insights about the immediate and lasting impact of the tutorial relationship. Ideas from Heideggarian hermeneutic phenomenology are translated to the context of contemporary higher education to establish how achieving a sense of being-with has affective implications to help students to strengthen resilience and the capacity to challenge, confirm and develop confidence in their new learning, thinking and actions. The discussion introduces and unravels the nature of academic care in relation to working with learner vulnerability to enhance ability. Re-conceptualizing the tutorial as a form of academic care can provide support and security for learners at a time of unsettlement without lessening their autonomy. We argue that by creating an atmosphere of academic care, learners are empowered and inspired to be courageous and curious, both in the immediate and longer-term. The discussion refocuses the tutorial relationship through ideas and applied strategies for successful future-facing tutoring practices, without major upheaval to the existing operational tutoring infrastructure within the HEI.