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This paper reflects on the value of diary methods in the context of a qualitative, longitudinal narrative inquiry exploring the higher education decision-making of further education students in England. Event-based diaries were used alongside interviews and focus groups over a 14-month period to gain in-depth insights into the reasons and influences informing their decision-making trajectories. I explore the challenges, successful approaches and advantages of employing diary methods with young people in this context. Challenges consisted of maintaining participant engagement, which was overcome by combining methods and incorporating a reactive co-participatory element. Yet, a number of advantages emerged from participants' engagement with diary keeping which enhanced the richness of the data; this inspired deeper reflections on decision-making and influences and provided a private space for participants to disclose personal difficulties that could not be obtained via interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Google Docs is a widely used online word processing software. Despite its broad popularity in business and education, Google Docs is under-utilised as a tool to facilitate qualitative interviews within research. In this article, we reflect on our experiences as two PhDs using Google Docs to conduct synchronous, online, written interviews. We present two case studies, which, to our knowledge, are the first to utilise Google Docs to conduct web-based written interviews. In doing so, we (a) outline the development and implementation of the methodology, (b) highlight the key themes we identified when considering the benefits and challenges of conducting interviews using this technology and (c) discuss possible future uses of the methodology. We argue that synchronous web-based written interviews via Google Docs offer unprecedented opportunities for qualitative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]