QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

1
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

• CASE STUDIES ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

2
I. CASE STUDIES

• A. DEFINING CASE STUDIES
• 1. Use multiple sources of evidence (or cases)
  to investigate real-life phenomena in its
  real-life context (Yin 1994).
• 2. Includes both single multiple cases (which
  may be used comparatively).
• 3. Multiple procedures used--no single
  methodology, although borrows from many
  techniques (esp. history criticism).
• 4. Often used in medical or legal research, as
  well as historical analyses PR.

3
Case Studies, cont.

• B. Characteristics (Merriam 1988)
• 1. Particularistic--focus on a particular
  situation, event, program, or phenomenon.
• 2. Descriptive--a detailed description of topic.
• 3. Heuristic--helps to understand the
  phenomenon, to provide fresh insights, to give
  new perspectives, etc.
• 4. Inductive--reasoning from a particular case
  to more general conclusions.
• 5. Most attempt to discover new relationships
  rather than verify existing hypotheses

4
Case Studies, cont

• C. Advantages of case studies
• 1. Provide great detail, or thick descriptions
• 2. Serve as spurs to further research
• 3. Can suggest both how why something has
  occurred
• 4. Can deal with a wide spectrum of evidence,
  including documents, historical artifacts,
  interviews, observations even surveys

5
Case Studies, cont

• D. Disadvantages of case studies
• 1. Takes time effort to produce a rigorous
  case study
• 2. Massive amount of data often hard to
  summarize (esp. if generated over a long period
  of time)
• 3. May have problems with external validity

6
II. ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

• A. Husserlsocial science should be eidetic,
  concerned with essential objects relationships
• B. Defining ethnomethodology
• 1. Coulin (1995)---the empirical study of
  methods that individuals use to give sense to and
  at the same time to accomplish their daily
  actions communicating, making decisions,
  reasoning (p. 15).
• 2. Garfinkle (1967)--the study of practical
  actions, according to the policies (or rules)
  used by individuals to make sense of those
  actions, combined with the phenomena, issues,
  findings, and methods that accompany their use
  (Frey et. al., p. 32).

7
Ethnomethodology, cont.

• C. Seeks to understand how the rational,
  taken-for-granted character of everyday life is
  accomplished.
• 1. Looks at the methodologies (or situated
  procedures) people use to figure out orderly ways
  of doing things
• a. How people perform (or enact) culture (not
  just on what people say, but what they do, such
  as various ritual behaviors, etc.
• b. The main question is not focused on the
  activity, but participants emergent sense of
  its objectivity, factuality, orderliness (L
  T, p. 40) or how they understand those rituals

8
Ethnomethodology, cont.

• 2. The practice of creating a consistent
  appearance is social realitycontent not of
  concern, but the sequence of activities social
  actors use to create coherence.
• D. Two key concepts
• 1. Social life is enacted in contexts
• a. People use resources available to them
• b. Expressions based on context are termed
  indexical
• 2. Evidence for the social order is found in
  actors verbal written accounts of activities,
  seen as a central means of constructing their
  social realities (L T, p. 41)

9
Ethnomethodology, cont.

• 3. By interpreting actors background
  expectancies can depict methods used to create
  sustain intersubjectivity
• 4. Includes qualitative conversational analysis
• a. Conversational analysis focuses on ordinary
  talk people use
• b. Increasing examines significance of rules
  (e.g. Cushman, 1977, Pearce Cronen 1987)
• 5. Also includes case studies ethnomethodology
  (e.g. workplace studies)
• 6. Some would include performance ethnography

10
Ethnomethodology, cont.

• D. Procedures for collecting data
• 1. Must decide what to study
• 2. Define a problem develop a preliminary
  research question (or questions).
• a. Will you be studying a particular group of
  people, a particular setting?
• b. Or will you study a particular behavior (or
  communication act)?

11
Ethnomethodology, cont.

• 3. Gain access to the data (the library can
  provide archival evidence, but you must observe
  and interview people on-site)
• 4. Make decision whether or not you will do
  observations, conduct interviews, or both
• 5. Observations can be overt or covert, with
  different roles for the researcher
• a. Observations move from general to specific
• 1) First, is descriptive or impressionistic
  observations
• 2) Then move to more focused observations
• 3) Then more specific, selected observations

12
Ethnomethodology, cont.

• b. Often work in teams to enhance validity
• c. Observations permit researchers to study real
  people in action, also taboo subjects, but only
  applicable to a few settings, influenced by a
  number of factors
• 6. Depends on a bracketing process, a posture of
  ethnomethodological indifference (the researcher
  does not judge people actions)
• 7. Also involves experimental breaching, the
  deliberate upsetting of established
  patterns/routines to reveal the rules
  participants use to organize experiences

13
Ethnomethodology, cont.

• 6. Intensive interviews can also be used.
• a. Purposive sampling often is used to find
  interview subjects, although can also call for
  volunteers, or use a network sampling technique.
• b. Two basic settings-
• 1) On site at the respondents normal job or home
  (preferred)
• 2) A neutral spot away from the field of
  action--sometimes need to ensure honesty
  confidentiality.

14
Ethnomethodology, cont.

• c. Unlike ethnographic interviews, do more formal
  in-depth, intensive interviews
• d. Several types
• 1. Life-story interview
• 2. Critical incident interview
• 3. Episode analysis
• a) reconstruct a scene or dialogue, etc.
  representing a recurring pattern in a
  relationship
• b) Can combine with account analysis, asking
  people to explain what occurred

15
Ethnomethodology, cont.

• 4. Protocol analysis asks people to verbalize
  intentions, thoughts, feeling as they engage in
  a particular activity (e.g. watching TV)
• 5. stimulated recall
• a. Interviewees respond to a stimulus, like a
  recorded conversation
• b. Then describe what were thinking feeling at
  the time