Moving from Offline to Online: How COVID-19 Affected Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have faced a lot of challenges related to their daily work. This article introduces a special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist, which particularly focuses on methodological challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a brief review of the literature as well as the studies in this issue, we argue that the pandemic has sparked significant methodological innovations with respect to design, data collection, study documentation, and scholarly collaboration. We distinguish two types of innovations, both conceptualized as the outcome of an unprecedented external shock. First, “methodological compromises” that enabled data collection during the pandemic, but are inferior to established approaches. These methodological compromises, therefore, may be abandoned in post-pandemic times. Second, there are also “methodological game changers” that are superior to classic approaches and thus may prevail in the long run. Regardless of the type, we call scholars in the social and behavioral sciences to systematically test, compare, and evaluate the methodological innovations brought to us as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction

In 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 led to a significant change in our daily lives worldwide. From one  day to the next, recommendations or even rules were issued by authorities, such as to stay at home or meet as few people as possible. While these rules affected the way we lived, they also affected the way we worked. For instance, scholars across all fields had to work from home, have online meetings, or present their work at “virtual” conferences. In addition, scholars had to teach their students from home (Rashid & Yadav, 2020), which was especially challenging and time-consuming for scholars who had never done online courses before (e.g., Ibna Seraj et al., 2022). Given that research publications are one of the most important indicators of good professional performance, scholars were also facing the challenge of writing, submitting, and eventually publishing their papers. All these significant transformations of the work-life were particularly challenging for caregivers. Also, for young scholars (Rashid & Yadav, 2020), pursuing a research career under these circumstances was difficult and potentially stressful.

Since at least some of the pandemic-related restrictions lasted for a very long time (i.e., more than 2 years in many countries), researchers had to find ways to conduct research, that is, collect data. In the social and behavioral sciences, there is a broad range of qualitative and quantitative methods that—according to pre-pandemic best practices—are thought to require the physical presence of researchers, for instance, when doing experimental research in controlled laboratory settings or when conducting focus groups on sensitive topics in a safe meeting environment (e.g., Rashid & Yadav, 2020). These designs, all of a sudden, were not possible anymore during the pandemic. Scholars, therefore, had to look for alternatives and new solutions. Given the significance of scholarly publications, stopping research activities was out of the question. So, what could be done?

In this special issue, we attempt to answer this question from the perspective of the social and behavioral sciences in general and communication research in particular. We highlight how scholars have adapted their methods and designs in order to continue to produce high-quality research. Most importantly, this special issue reflects on how we can continue to use this body of methodological knowledge generated during the pandemic. We begin with a brief introduction to the available evidence on how the pandemic has changed research activity. In particular, we focus on changes in research productivity as well as changes in research topics and research methods. We then summarize the key findings of the articles in this special issue and conclude with some observations and perspectives for future research.

Literature Review

The pandemic has affected almost any aspect of scholarship. First of all, scholars have looked at changes in research productivity. Interestingly, many journals reported an increase in submissions compared to the time before the pandemic (Di Girolamo & Meursinge Reynders, 2020; Harper et al., 2020). In addition, in the broad field of behavioral and social sciences, studies indicate that the total number of article submissions did not decrease during this time period (Liu et al., 2022). The pandemic brought a myriad of new (and exciting) research questions, and social and behavioral sciences were certainly much needed (Bavel et al., 2020). However, a closer look at the studies published during the COVID-19 pandemic reveals some biases. Some reviews show that studies focusing on the COVID-19 crisis were mainly produced by authors in the United States (Ho et al., 2021; Lei & Wang, 2024). Although Lei and Wang (2024) also showed a predominance of studies from the United States, in their review, they also show that publications on COVID-19 in the field of health communication show a fairly large volume from many different countries. In terms of research collaboration, location played a major role. Liu and colleagues (2022) showed that when researchers from different universities collaborated on a research project during COVID-19, the universities to which the researchers belonged were geographically close to each other.

Moreover, some studies found a clear gender bias, showing that overall publications from female scientists decreased during the COVID-19 crisis (Harper et al., 2020). This was also observed for the social and behavioral sciences, suggesting that “female researchers’ productivity dropped significantly relative to that of male researchers” (Cui et al., 2022; p. 707). While Ucar and colleagues (2022) find similar results regarding the gender gap, they additionally show, by focusing on a longer period (2017–2020), “that gender parity that has been observed over the past few years partially reversed during the lockdown period” (p. 10). In addition, female assistant professors in particular had lower research productivity (Cui et al., 2022).

Second, besides research productivity, there was also a change when it came to the selection of research topics. Various fields have witnessed a strong rise in COVID-19-related topics (e.g., Harper et al., 2020). Some researchers have even argued that, in some research fields, COVID-19-related topics acted as replacements for other relevant topics (Riccaboni & Verginer, 2022). Research topics related to the COVID-19 crisis have also been very present in the broad field of social and behavioral sciences (e.g., public health communication: Nan et al., 2022; Nan & Thompson, 2021; misinformation: Mheidly & Fares, 2020; smartphone use and social media effects: Matthes et al., 2021; Stevic et al., 2022). What is more, Bavel and colleagues (2020) presented various topics related to the pandemic in the field of social and behavioral sciences, such as studies related to threat perceptions, social norms, political polarization, or social isolation and connection. In general, available evidence suggests that overall research productivity did not seem to suffer from the pandemic (e.g., Liu et al., 2022). However, there was a shift in research topics with an increase in COVID-19-related research.

Besides productivity and research topics, we also need to examine how the restrictions during the pandemic have changed the ways how we do research. In particular, the practices of social distancing may have caused researchers to rethink previous methodological designs and practices. In a cross-sectional survey study with principal investigators of health research projects, Bratan and colleagues (2021) found evidence that research projects could not be implemented in the way originally planned. The main reasons were that data collections, as well as measurements, were not possible as planned due to the restrictions caused by the pandemic. The measures imposed in response to COVID-19, including social distancing, or the closure of universities, changed the working environment of researchers and the conditions for collecting empirical data (e.g., Lobe et al., 2020). At the same time, COVID-19 became one of the most important research topics of the time (Martins et al., 2023; Ruiz-Real et al., 2020). How exactly these two developments have changed the methods used, and thus the research itself, has yet to be reflected upon in detail.

There was a strong need for methodological innovation. As one key innovation, scholars have used and further developed digital methods for data collection. There was a shift from face-to-face data collection to digital data collection approaches, for instance, with the use of video-based online interviews instead of face-to-face interviews (Lobe et al., 2020). In a crowdsourcing project, Lupton (2022) collected approaches and literature on methods for fieldwork during the pandemic. Similarly, the journal Survey Research Methods (Kohler, 2020) published a special issue on survey research during COVID-19 to explore the potential of the method in studying the crisis.

At the same time, however, these innovations brought new challenges, such as platform security (Lobe et al., 2020), or the exclusion of certain participants who have no or only a few devices or fewer digital skills (Kennedy et al., 2021). Likewise, with respect to online surveys, scholars have pointed to opportunities (e.g., access to respondents) as well as challenges (e.g., convenience sampling) of the method (Hlatshwako et al., 2021).

COVID-19-related studies were burgeoning. Editors diagnosed a variety of methodological approaches (e.g., Nan & Thompson, 2021). In a scoping review of health communication research related to COVID-19, Lin and Nan (2022) found that quantitative approaches are somewhat more prevalent than qualitative approaches, and few studies use mixed methods. Among quantitative studies, survey research is by far the most important method, and there are few instances of content analysis or experiments. For qualitative work, qualitative content analysis and interviews were the most common methods used. Martins et al. (2023) noted a similar trend, with a clear emphasis on survey research in articles on COVID-19 published in communication journals. However, in comparison, researchers from different communities, for example, in Brazil, preferred content analysis the most, and survey research was only second (Martins et al., 2023). Differences also emerged when it came to sampling: While survey studies in international journals mostly consisted of representative samples, researchers in Brazil predominantly used convenience samples (Martins et al., 2023). This may point to structural constraints in terms of funding, most likely differing between the countries.

This Special Issue

The current special issue adds to this literature by highlighting how scholars have adapted their research methods in light of the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, the lack of interpersonal contact—both between research team members and between researchers and participants—was one of the main obstacles to conducting empirical research. Schatto-Eckrodt et al. (2025) illustrated how the already complex task of designing and implementing a linkage study grew even more challenging due to contact restrictions. Research teams had to rethink how to approach and interact with their participants. This is especially true for qualitative and mixed-methods research, as three articles in this issue illustrate. Schmid et al. (2025) developed the remote self-confrontation interview method to study participants’ immediate reactions to media content during the reception process. Borchers et al. (2025) rediscovered the use of audio recording devices in combination with written instruction as simple and efficient tools for collecting qualitative data on parent–child interactions in families’ homes. Stehr et al. (2023) explored how focus group interviews, once a traditional in-person data collection method, should be designed to increase the flow of communication during the sessions. The move from behavioral experiments to online services was also accelerated as participants could no longer be observed in the lab. These new tools are most likely here to stay, so having Gong and Huskey’s (2025) tutorial introducing an end-to-end build of an online experimental pipeline and corresponding data analysis is beneficial and will act as a step-by-step guideline for conducting online behavioral experiments. Finally, Kermani’s (2025) analysis of COVID-19-related communication in the Iranian Twittersphere shifts the focus to another aspect of the pandemic, its global nature. While we know quite a lot about the discourses in Western societies, other regions, which were equally affected by the pandemic, are under-researched. Kermani (2025) helped to close this gap. While doing so, the article also uncovers the limitations of established computational methods concerning non-Western languages. They must be overcome to enable truly international research in a global crisis.

Take Homes and Future Perspectives

This special issue aimed to answer the question of how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we do research in the social and behavioral sciences. The answer to this question is complex, involving many facets of the research process, from the issue of research productivity to the selection of research topics and methods. Based on the collection of studies in this issue, we understand the COVID-19 pandemic as an unprecedented “shock” to the research community. This shock has necessitated and fostered significant methodological innovations, mostly with respect to data collection.

However, the very nature of these innovations may have differed from study to study. In some studies, scholars have suggested what we call “methodological compromises” to enable the collection of data that would otherwise have been impossible in times of COVID-19. A focus group discussion, for instance, can certainly be done online. In fact, online focus groups are not new to social and behavioral science scholars (e.g., Abrams et al., 2015; Cheng et al., 2009; Stewart & Shamdasani, 2017). Yet the key advantage of a focus group is that the mutual engagement of the respondents can lead to a certain dynamic. Most of the time, it is necessary that participants are fully engaged without much distraction. The dynamics between (undistracted) participants can then foster new and deeper insights. Certainly, online and offline focus groups each have their advantages and disadvantages. For some research questions, an online focus group may be totally fine. For others, the “good old” offline focus group may still be the better strategy because respondents are less distracted (e.g., Falter et al., 2022). In other words, for some research questions, the pandemic may have led to adjustments in research methodology, that is, the use of digital methods of data collection. However, in post-pandemic times, these adaptions may no longer be necessary, and scholars can (or perhaps even should) return to established methodological procedures. We argue that authors of post-pandemic studies need to elaborate on whether they want to return to pre-pandemic practices or maintain methodological compromises established during the pandemic.

However, not all methodological innovations can be framed as compromises. In other studies, as illustrated in this special issue, scholars have suggested innovations that are superior to the pre-pandemic methodologies. One may call them “methodological game changers.” The reason is that such innovations have opened up new perspectives or led to the generation of hitherto unknown insights. The new methods may bring significant advantages over traditional approaches, such as efficiency, independence of time and space, and greater respondent anonymity, just to name a few aspects. These kinds of innovations are meant to stay, they can be regarded as methodological paradigm shifts (therefore, game changers).

In post-pandemic times, scholars in the social and behavioral sciences are called to explicitly reflect on post-pandemic methods as “comprises” or “game changers.” In addition, given the speed with which these innovations were implemented, we lack systematic research on how methodological innovations have shifted our research logic and, therefore, also the nature of the findings. That is, if a new method is suggested, a common strategy is to design a study that systematically compares new and old approaches. In the context of COVID-19, however, we almost completely lack such comparisons. We, therefore, hope that scholars in the social and behavioral sciences will design studies in which they compare traditional methodological approaches with what we call methodological compromises and methodological game changers. The pandemic has led to a myriad of methodological innovations. Now is the time to systematically test, compare, and evaluate them.