The vocational education implementation is one of the success factors for government to improve the quality of human resources, mainly toward producing skilled workers. Various researchers have studied the phenomena of vocational education. Unfortunately, studies on research methods in relation to vocational education phenomena are limited. Hence, this paper examined the research methods on the phenomena of vocational education, based on few case studies in Indonesia. Indonesia has many challenges as such Indonesia is a country with the fourth highest population globally, high level of unemployment, relatively rapid growth of new autonomy, and most number of islands in the world. In fact, Indonesia has different characteristics and needs of human resources from each region.•This article discusses the methods to explore the phenomena of vocational education through case studies in Indonesia.•This method article discusses the division of question groups and deployment of questionnaires through the referral and stages of research.•This method article is the alternative basis for preparing research steps related to study the vocational education phenomena.