Hello all, I'm supervising a doctoral candidate at an early stage who has started experimenting with e-mail elicitation of data from students at our university in the United Arab Emirates. She's researching reading habits among our 95%-ESL student body, and recently experimented by sending an e-mail to all students, just saying "Do you like reading?". She's had quite a few responses, and is thinking about various aspects of this data: 1. quantitatively (e.g. how many answer "yes" and how many "no"). 2. quantitative data on how many non-responding students open the email and how many delete it without opening (this information is available at the click of a mouse to any sender for mails within the university email system). 3. reasons, examples, etc that students give about reading. 4. assumptions that students seem to make about her question (e.g. whether they interpret the question as being about reading in their first language (Arabic) or their second (English)). 5. targeting the responders (and possibly non-responders/deleters) as interviewees, either by e-mail or through personal contact, as appropriate. She's wondering about a) validity issues in e-mail "interview" data, and b) the potential of such minimal prompts/data for contributing to a study of an overall aspect of student culture. I wondered if anyone could offer ideas/ suggestions/ sources/ experiences in collecting and using this kind of data (not necessarily online - for example it's reminiscent of Milgram's "Lost-Letter Technique"). Thanks! David :-D