Final Exam Flashcards
(96 cards)
1
Q
What are the 10 major differences between qualitative and quantitative methods?
A
- General Approach
- Quantitative research can be both deductive and inductive- When inductive: Is it true? Attempt to prove.
- x = y
- x inversely related to y
- x positively related to y
- x causes y
- x > y
- x < y
- No relation between x and y
- Qualitative research is mostly inductive
- What is true? Attempt to discover.
- What is the nature/meaning of x?
- What is the relationship between x and y?
- In what conditions does x occur?
- How does x occur?
- What are the causes of x?
- What are the consequences of x?
- Where does x occur?
- When does x occur?
- What are the stages whereby x occurs?
- When inductive: Is it true? Attempt to prove.
- General Approach
- Observations - Data
- Quantitative -Observations are quantified (translated into numbers) for purposes of statistical analysis
- Qualitative -Observations are presented as words, themes, categories, models, images, etc.
- Observations - Data
- Concepts
- Quantitative - Concepts are decontextualized and transformed into variables and attributes (propositions/conceptualization → hypotheses/operationalization)
- Qualitative -Concepts are developed throughout the research process and are context-dependent
- Concepts
- Approach to Research
- Quantitative- ”Reconstructed Logic”
- Standardized, formulaic
- Qualitative
- Standardized, formulaic
- ”Logic in Practice”
- Messy, ambiguous, uncertain research path that unfolds throughout the research process
- ”Reconstructed Logic”
- Approach to Research
- The truth of a phenomenon will not be found by testing hypotheses about it but by discovering it through the very process of inquiry
- Teaching: Steps vs. State of Mind
- Approach to Sociology
- Quantitative - social SCIENCE- Variable language
- Hypothesis-testing
- Universal laws
- Generalizability
- Qualitative - SOCIAL science - Interpretation
- In-depth understanding
- Transformation
- Approach to Sociology
- Relations with Research Subjects
- Quantitative- Vessels of information
- Subjects of social forces
- Units of aggregates
- Qualitative - Participants
- Partners in research
- Active agents
- Creators of meaning and social reality
- Relations with Research Subjects
- Sociological Knowledge
- Quantitative- Characteristics, orientations, actions are standardized to find out what is most common about them
- Generalizations
- Predications
- Qualitative - Participants’ original interpretations, experiences, points of view, understandings are key
- Processes
- In-depth understanding
- Sociological Knowledge
- Importance of context
- Quantitative- Search for universal laws that are true everywhere and at all times
- Context-free
- Qualitative - Humans’ actions, orientations, interpretations are always shaped by the contexts in which they occur
- Context is key
- Importance of context
- Researcher’s Role
- Quantitative- Neutral, rational, objective, detached, expert who collects and analyzes information
- Absent from research report
- Qualitative - Student of the phenomenon who is involved, interacting, reflexive, participating, utilizing his/her social skills
- Present in research report
- Researcher’s Role
- Sociological Stories
- Quantitative- Numbers
- Complex language
- Formulas
- Relations between variables
- Acceleration and excess: information, communication, numbers, catastrophes, disasters, solicitations, events
- Numbers Numb us
- Qualitative - Communicability
- Making the reader “see” and experience the other’s reality; up close, in detail, and from within
- Sociologists as interpreters
- Sociological Stories
2
Q
When and where did ethnography become an important method in American Sociology?
A
- Late 19th century - early 20th century → Native Americans
- Chicago School - Small Town
-First major urban ethnography - early 20th century, Chicago School - Urban school
3
Q
Fieldwork
A
-Research method which consists in going to a particular setting (“field”) in order to collect observations about people in their natural environment
- Typically, this collection of observations entails:
- Recording sensory data/observations
- Interviewing individuals
- Interacting with them and participating in their everyday life, practices, rituals, etc.
- Analyzing texts found in the field
4
Q
Participant Observation
A
- a. Tool with which to collect observations
- b. Position the researcher occupies in the group or setting
5
Q
Ethnography
A
- ”Ethno” = people, culture
- ”Graphy” = writing
- Written description of an “ethnos” (people and its culture)
- An ethnography is the result of fieldwork
- Sociologists as interpreters
- Ethnography is a work of translation
6
Q
Verstehen
A
- Empathic understanding
- Best way to understand someone is to participate in his/her mind
- Such a participation necessitates sustained face-to-face interaction
7
Q
What are the different positions a researcher can occupy in the field?
A
- Complete participants
- Participant as observer
- Observer as participant
- Complete observer
- The ethnographer’s positions in the field are dynamic and negotiated
8
Q
Complete Observer
A
- Don’t know they’re being observed; not affecting them
- Don’t get much detail
- Observe from afar
- Don’t know they’re being observed
9
Q
Observer as Participant
A
- Know they’re being observed, but get (better detail?) because you’re closer
- Participate every now and then
- One of most common
10
Q
Participant as Observer
A
- Participant first, observer second
- You can tell them or tell them later, which will probably change their behavior
- One of most common
11
Q
Complete Participant
A
- Join group without ever telling them you’re doing research
- Don’t know they’re being observed
12
Q
What is the purpose of fieldwork?
A
- To collect observations about people in their natural environment
- Study a group of people
13
Q
What are the 7 keys to fieldwork?
A
- Verstehen
- Empathic understanding- The best way to understand someone is to participate in his/her mind
- Such a participation necessitates sustained face-to-face interaction
- Verstehen
- Involvement
- Need to participate; be there physically
- Involvement
- Induction
- We conduct ethnography because we don’t know much about subjects; we don’t want to prove something; just understand
- Induction
-4. Naturalism
- Non-Interference
- Go into field to study the group and provide a translation of what you’ve learned, but don’t interfere with it; provide best translation without interfering
- Non-Interference
-6. Mastery of various tools
- Coping skills
- (A) Observer’s role
- (B) Relations with members
- (C) Interactional skills
- (D) Sensitivity and flexibility
- Coping skills
14
Q
What are the unique difficulties of fieldwork?
A
- Being a stranger?
- Finding a match between the researcher’s identity and salient identity?
15
Q
What are the necessary preparatory steps before starting fieldwork?
A
- (1) Questions and theoretical orientations
- They are relative
- Position yourself theoretically
-(2) Genuine interest
- (3) Field selection
- Make sure it’s accessible
- Best to go somewhere you’re not from
- (4) Assessment of ethical and political ramifications
- Ethical problems
- Political ramifications
- (5) Personal assessment
- Should you be the one to do it? What are the risks? Does it hit too close to home?
- (6) Socio-historical context
- In order to have good ethnography, need to give information about the rest of society in that time frame. What else is happening in the world?
- (7) Sociological relevance: “So what?” questions
- How is ethnography relevant?
- (8) Literature review (even stats!)
- (A) Clarifies research questions
- (B) Simulates new ideas
- (C) Demonstrates familiarity and establishes competence
- (D) Establishes links between existing knowledge and present research
- (E) Provides information about the field
16
Q
What are the essential components of a “field”?
A
- Individuals
- Interactions
- Setting
- Time - particular moment in time, year, month, day
- Culture
- Structure
- These all work together to create a field
- Ethnographer? (In center) and social historical context?
17
Q
What tools does the ethnographer use in the field?
A
- Observation (sensory data)
- Interviewing (talking to people)
- Interaction and participation (in their daily activities)
- Textual analysis (material things – studying them)
Research instruments are tools we use in order to collect the data/information/observations we need in order to answer our questions
- We can only get at the information we need by interacting with our respondents
- The interacting self is our research tool
- Every researcher is his/her own research instrument
- We must calibrate the self for the task at hand
18
Q
What are the three essential components of any culture?
A
- Material - anything man-made
- Symbolic - language, religions, music
- Practices - established ways of accomplishing daily activites
- What are its parts?
- Relationships between parts?
- Contributions of parts to the whole?
19
Q
How to maximize the chances of success when negotiating with the gatekeeper?
A
- Don’t be too opinionated
- Accept gatekeeper’s terms
- Vague interest
- Studied naivete, competent ignorant
- Lit review
20
Q
What are the different stages of entry into the field?
A
- (1) Gatekeeper/Key Informant
- Don’t be too opinionated
- Accept gatekeeper’s terms
- Vague interest
- Don’t tell them you’re questions; it could close off avenues of discovery
- Studied naivete, competent ignorant
- Lit review (will help you)
- Establish competency by asking good, interesting questions
- Ignorant - “I don’t know”
- (2) Stranger
- Most difficult stage
- Accept mistakes and learn from them
- Assess strengths and weaknesses
- It can be uncomfortable
- (3) Guest
- Members accept the ethnographer’s presence
- Invitations and spontaneous conversations
- (4) Friend
- Trusted ally, confidante
- They will trust you more as a friend
- (5) Member - “Going Native”
- Embraces the culture studied
- Spokesperson for the group
- Becomes a member of the group
21
Q
What does it mean to “go native”?
A
- Embraces the culture studied
- Spokesperson for the group
- Becomes a member of the group
- Fifth step (becoming a member)
22
Q
How should ethnographers proceed when leaving the field?
A
- (1) Gradual process
- (2) Tell respondents - indicate to people you’re reaching ending of your stay
- (3) Promise to keep in touch
- (4) Keep your promise
23
Q
What are important differences between ethnographic and everyday observations?
A
- Everyday/Casual Observations:
- (1) Motivated by personal needs and questions
- (2) Sloppy, overgeneralized, selective
- (3) Fleeting
- (4) Unrecorded
- (5) Experienced
- Ethnographic Observations:
- (1) Motivated by sociological questions and theories
- (2) Long, frequent, systematic, conscious, disciplined, validated
- (3) Repeated, and carried out under a variety of conditions
- (4) Recorded
- Don’t trust memory
- Need to ask for permission to record, unless completely undercover
- (5) Analyzed
- Not just respond to sensory information
- Observations in general = sensory data
- Act of noting a phenomenon, often with instruments, and recording it for scientific or other purpose
- We should not limit our observations to seeing and hearing but use all our senses
- Non-interventionist
- Naturalist
24
Q
What are the different stages or levels of observation?
A
- Descriptive (big circle)
- Focused (medium circle)
- Selected (small circle)
- Overlap a bit
- Goes from descriptive → focused → selected over time
25
How to enhance the validity of one’s observations?
- Various observers
- If another researcher finds what you do → more valid
- Negative cases
- Field is organized according to patterns → find exceptions to these patterns (negative cases)
- Correspondence triangulation
- Use different methods to study same phenomenon (3 methods?)
26
How to enhance the validity and reliability of one’s observations?
- Repeated observations
- Conduct repeated observations of same phenomenon to make sure it’s not rare
-Observations under different conditions
27
Bakalar’s article on Ugly Children
-Non-verbal behavior and prediction of divorce?
28
What are the difficulties one might encounter in interactions with members of the field?
- Parts of our communication escapes our control
- Impressions we give and impressions we give off
- When interviewing:
- Tacit oyster - work hard to make them talk
- Non-stop talker
- Intellectualizing academic
- Power player
- Not sure?
- Love-hate relations
- Self-control
- Strategies for emotional management
- Emotional intelligence
- Take time off
- Effects carry beyond the field
29
What are the basic social psychological principles that help ethnographers enhance their interactions with field members?
- Interviewing
- Interaction and participation
- Textual analysis
- Social psychological dispositions = type of orientation
30
Importance of Observing Members’ Interactions
- Whenever we are in the presence of another, we always communicate/interact. We cannot help but communicate/interact
- We establish our self through communicative acts/interactions
- We establish our relations with others through communicative acts/interactions
- Except for the physical realm, our most gratifying pleasures and agonizing pains result from communicative acts/interactions
- Every interaction/communicative act is motivated by an objective, whether conscious or not
31
10 Channels we communicate/interact through
- 1. Language
- 2. Paralanguage (not what we say, but how we say it; tone, pitch; sights)
- 3. Sounds
- 4. Facial Gestures
- 54 muscles, 250,000 expressions
- 18 smiles
- Gazes
- 5. Kinesics (body movements)
- 6. Proxemics (manipulation of space)
- 7. Chronemics (manipulation of time)
- 8. Haptics (touch)
- 9. Objects (that we wear, that we consider sacred, that we gift, etc.)
- 10. Situated acts (ex: slamming phone to hang up; not holding door if you see someone)
32
How to best manage emotions while conducting fieldwork?
- Emotional Intelligence
| - Take time off and re-assess and recenter
33
What are the advantages of gathering information by participating in the field practices
- Participate in practices
- Embedded/sensory learning vs. passive/cognitive learning
- Participation IS understanding
34
Goffman’s article: On Fieldwork
-You have to open yourself up to being snubbed. You have to stop making points to show how “smart assed” you are. And that’s extremely difficult for graduate students (especially on the East Coast, especially in the East!). Then you have to be willing to be a horse’s ass.
35
Interviews
- (1) Types:
- Structured, semi-structured, unstructured
- (2) Objectives:
- Finding information
- Verstehen
- Consciousness-raising
- (3) Uses:
- Single method, or in conjunction with other ones
- (4) Levels:
- From descriptive to in-depth (in-depth is our focus!)
36
What are the necessary qualities of a good interviewer?
- (1) Tolerant, open-minded, empathic, patient, non-judgemental
- (2) Non-corrective
- (3) Sensitive to non-verbal aspects of communication
- (4) Knows when to stop
- (5) Intervenes strategically
- (6) Provides supportive feedback
- (7) Is ready to reciprocate
- (8) Makes participant feel safe
- (9) Has an ear for good story and helps respondent develop them
- (10) Makes quick decisions
- (11) Defers (microphone is respondent’s)
- (12) Collaborates rather than dominates
- (13) Downplays expertise and adopts the student’s mind
- People like to talk about themselves
- We do not have to agree or disagree, but just listen empathically
- People like to show knowledge
- (14) Remains critical
- Psychological motivations
- Interpersonal motivations
- Explore the “never” and “always” statements
- (15) Self Reflects
- ”We do not necessarily hear what our informants tell us but what our emotional and intellectual development allows us to hear” (John Johnson)
- ”You ain’t gonna learn what you don’t wanna know.” (Grateful Dead)
- (16) Self-Corrects (Questions and Style)
- When you consider:
- What I think
- What I want to say
- What I think I am saying
- What I am really saying
- What you want to hear
- What you actually hear
- What you think you understand
- What you want to understand
- And what you really understand
- There are 9 risks of misunderstanding each other
37
Number 16 (of necessary qualities of good interviewer) Self-Corrects (Questions and Style)
- (A) The questions that we ask (content and style) determine the quality of:
- the relationship we establish with the informant
- the answers he/she gives us
- the entire interview experience
- (B) Asking the “wrong” questions will:
- fail to elicit the informants’ experience in his/her own language
- imposes our concepts, concerns upon the informants from the start
- will likely alienate the informant and hence, the relationship you establish with him/her
-(C) Constantly monitor and takes notes on which questions work, how, for whom
- (D) Pay attention to respondents’ answers for the information they provide about:
- the topic
- how they respond to/see it
- the kind of relationship we are developing (paralanguage and nonverbal cues)
- (E) Remember that the informant is also responding to our own nonverbal cues
- (F) Remember that how we transmit and interpret nonverbal cues is culturally-specific
- (G) Interviewing members of non-majority groups may require extensive ethnography before and during the interview process
38
What are the necessary qualities of a high-quality interview?
-(1) Is flexible yet steering
- (2) Is respondent-sensitive
- vs. standardization of measurement
- (3) Is informed by topic and interviewing skills
- (4) Generates long answers with short questions
- (5) Is interpreted as it progresses
- (6) Is a positive experience
- Reputation in the field (you could lose respondents; ex: of hugging)
39
Interview Process
-Chit-chat; Warm-up → Ice-breakers → Sensitive topics → Conclusions
- Ice-breakers:
- General purpose
- Confidentiality, voluntariness
- Reasons for selection
- Encourage:
- Criticism
- Choice of format
- Clarifications
- Additions
- Asking us questions
- Sensitive Topics:
- Introducing questions
- Follow-ups, probes
- Specific questions
- Direct questions
- Indirect questions
- Interpretive questions
- Silences
- Repeat last words
- Question Types: What? How? Why?
- Conclusions:
- Talk about the interview
- Inquire about emotional well-being
- Schedule next interview
- Make yourself available
- Provide contact info
40
What are the differences and similarities between in-depth interviews and therapy sessions?
- Similarities:
- Participants may tell stories during interviews for the first time
- Participants may realize this is happening
- Some may see it as cathartic. They develop new understandings, insights
- Telling stories change perspectives
- Cognitive psychology
- Just the act of telling one’s story to a sympathetic and non-judgemental ear, and be validated IS therapeutic
- Differences:
- An interview is not a therapy session
41
What are important differences between in-depth interviews and everyday conversations?
What are important differences between in-depth interviews and everyday conversations?
- Similarities:
- (1) Tone
- Informal, friendly
- (2) Structure
- Unstructured, semi-structures
- (3) Relationship
- Intimacy, closeness, reciprocity
- Differences:
- (1) Rules
- (2) Focus of Attention (in ethn./in-depth interview focus is the other)
- (3) Listening (in everyday, too busy in own mind, trying to come up with something)
- (4) Purpose
- Knowledge
- (5) Reflexivity (in ethn./in-depth, supposed to be reflexive)
- (6) Self-control (in everyday, you’re thinking you have a better joke, story, etc.; in ethn.in-depth, you have to have control)
42
What are important differences between in-depth interviews and survey interviews?
- In-depth:
- Qualitative
- Conversation
- Survey:
- Quantitative
- Interrogation
43
What is the relation between the transcribed interview and the real interview it represents?
- A transcribed interview is NOT the interview
- It is always an incomplete and distorted representation of what really happened
- Interview as an event/encounter
- Sense of betrayal
- Interview as a map
44
What are the differences between one-time (“hit-and run”) and repeated interviews?
- Differences:
- Repeated:
- Our relationships with our informants change with every subsequent interview -- hopefully in a positive direction
- Both interviewer and informant are continuously transformed by their developing relation with each other
- Our informant will always “stay in our head” and we in theirs (verstehen)
- Imbalance of effects
- Emotionally exhausting
- Multiple and sequential interviews with the same respondent
- (1) Increase trust, depth, details, and resonance over time
- (2) Allow us to:
- See how they change over time and as a result of interviews
- Hear about current events as they unfold
- Explore leads
- Reach heart of topic quicker over time
- One-time (hit-and-run)
- One-shot interviews allow us to peek at a phenomenon, not to engage in it or enter and live it
- With one-shot interviews, researchers miss the opportunities to follow leads, correct errors and omissions and to construct a denser, richer analysis
45
Interview Techniques
- (A) Take Notes
- (1) Informant’s social demographics
- (2) Place and time
- (3) Tone and emotions
- (4) Difficulties
- (5) Insights
- (6) What to ask next
- (B) Record the Interview
- (1) Recording device is essential
- KNPR (be sure you can trust your device)
- (2) Informant’s consent
- (3) Unobtrusive
- (4) To be used as a tool, not a substitute
- (5) Influences data and data collection
- (C) Transcribe
- As soon as possible
- The quality and richness of the interview-as-event will decay over time
- It will take more time to create the interview
- (D) Devise a notation system
- (1) Language (written, spoken, drawn)
- (2) Paralanguage
- (3) Sounds
- (4) Facial gestures
- (5) Kinesics and gestures
- (6) Haptics
- (7) Proxemics
- (8) Chronemics
- (9) Objects
- (10) Situated acts
- (E) Conduct multiple interviews
- One short interviews allow us to peek at a phenomenon, not to engage in it or enter it and live it
- With one-shot interviews, researchers miss the opportunities to follow leads, correct errors and omissions and to construct a denser, richer analysis
46
Johnson’s article on In-Depth Interviewing
- The number of interviews needed to answer a research question depends on the nature of that question and the kind of knowledge we seek
- They should be “enough” so that the interviewer feels he/she has learned all there is to be learned from the interviews and has checked out those understandings by re-interviewing the most trusted and knowledgeable informants
- Importance of maintaining positive relations throughout the entire research process
47
Trammel’s article We Have to Take Those Guys Out
- What? How? Why? Questions.
- Open-ended questions
- Short questions that led to long answers
48
Coding - What is it?
-The process whereby raw data are transformed into standardized form suitable for machine processing and analysis
- Not a part of this?
- Bringing information to the surface
-Asking a question to the data
- Informed by sensitizing concept, literature, observation, participants, theory, etc.
- What is going on in the data?
- What is the person doing/saying?
- What do these actions and statements take for granted?
- Ex:
- (Code 1) Talking excessively
- (Code 2) Suppressing pleasure
- (Code 3) Owing a debt
- (Code 4) Producing sadness
- (Code 5) Inflicting violence against the self
- (Code 6) Internalizing suffering
- (Code 7) Injecting pain
- When coding, use “ing” form
- InternalizING suffering
49
Coding - Why do it?
- To take interviews that have been transcribed and code them, so they’re more organized?
- Sensitizing concepts?
50
Coding - How to do it?
- (1) Extract codes from the data and assign them labels
- (2) Group these codes into logical themes/categories
- (3) Analyze how these codes relate to each other within each theme/category
51
Coding - What are the different types of coding?
- Open Coding
- Bringing information to the surface
- Asking a question to the data
- Informed by sensitizing concept, literature, observation, participants, theory, etc.
- What is going on in the data?
- What is the person doing/saying?
- What do these actions and statements take for granted?
- Focused Coding (find the core themes)
- Review our codes, describe them and assess which are being used more than others
- Filter out less productive codes and combine, split, develop, refine, enrich the most useful ones
- Ex: Combining codes that may be similar, taking something out because it’s not that prevalent, etc.Best analysts/ethnographers use it
52
Coding - What do ethnographers do with their codes?
-Memo them into themes/categories?
53
Memoing - What is it?
-Writing memos that become part of the data for analysis in qualitative research such as grounded theory. Memos can describe and define concepts, deal with methodological issues, or offer initial theoretical formulations
54
Memoing - Why do it?
-To organize codes into themes/categories?
55
Memoing - How to do it?
- (A) Define, explain it
- (B) Memo the codes that compose it
- (C) Explain how they relate to each other
- (D) Explain process
- What process is at issue here?
- Under which conditions does this process develop?
- How does the research participant(s) think, feel, and act while involved in this process?
- When, why, and how does the process change?
- What are the causes/consequences of the process?
- What are the patterns, properties, and manifestations of the code?
- Which conditions foster the code? Which inhibit it?
- What are its causes?
- What are its consequences?
- Deviant cases? Variations? Extremes?
- How does the code compare with others in the same conceptual family?
- How, if at all, does the code change?
- What strategies, if any, do people use with it? When do they use them?
56
Memoing - What are the different types of memoing?
- Theoretical memoing
- (A) Define, explain it
- (B) Memo the codes that compose it
- (C) Explain the relationships between those
- (D) Explain process
- Procedural and personal memos
- (A) (What to do/explore next)
- (B) What to verify
- (C) Fill gaps
- (D) Resolve inconsistencies
- (E) Insight, notes, difficulties, changes of direction, analytical decisions, etc.
57
Memoing - What are the memos’ functions and relations to codes?
-Group codes into themes → Analyze relations between codes within themes → Analyze relations between themes
58
Memoing - What do ethnographers do with their memos?
- Memos are the building blocks of the final text
- Integrate the scholarship
- Integrate personal memos
59
Explain the iterative process of data collection and data analysis
-Iterative = each step informs another/the next
- Multiple and sequential interviews with the same respondent
- (1) Increase trust, depth, details, and resonance over time
- (2) Allow us to:
- See how they change over time and as a result of interviews
- Hear about current events as they unfold
- Explore leads
- Reach heart of topic quicker over time
- Many waves
- Collect more data with same and new respondents
- Ask more focused questions that assess emerging patterns
- Perform more analysis
- The emerging patterns are tentative, not binding
60
Explain theoretical sampling
-We do not collect additional data (observations, interviews, interactions) in order to attain representativeness, but to attain depth and thorough understanding of the phenomenon that interests us
61
Explain category saturation
- We collect more data/interviews/observations until
- Our emerging patterns are confirmed
- We’re not learning anything new
- We have answered our research questions
- Our findings are verified by the field’s most trusted and knowledgeable members
- Tests
62
Explain triangulation
- Powerful technique that facilitates validation of data through cross verification from two or more sources
- In particular, it refers to the application and combination of several research methods in the study of the same phenomenon
63
Explain the different types of validity in ethnography
- (1) Descriptive Validity
- (2) Interpretive Validity
- (3) Theoretical Validity
- (4) Researcher’s Bias?
- (5) Internal Validity
- (6) External Validity
- (7) Competent Insider’s Performance
64
Descriptive Validity
- Accuracy in reporting descriptive information (like events, behaviors, settings, time, place)
- Investigator triangulation
- (a) Context, history, setting, environment
- (b) Participants #, key individuals
- (c) Activities, routines, practices
- (d) Schedules, temporal order
- (e) Hierarchies
- (f) Significant events, origins, consequences
- (g) Members’ perspectives
65
Interpretive Validity
- Degree of understanding research participants’ “inner worlds”; you really “get them”
- Degree to which the researcher accurately understands participants’ viewpoints, thoughts
- Tacit Knowledge and Context
- Good ethnographies reflect tacit knowledge, the largely unarticulated, contextual understanding that is often manifested in nods, silences, humor, and naughty nuances
- This is the most challenging dimension of ethnography, gets to the core of the members’ perspective or, for that matter, the subtleties of membership itself
- How well researcher portrays participants in the research report
- Participant feedback
66
Theoretical Validity
-Degree to which theoretical explanations that are developed from the study fits the data
- Collecting data in the field over an extended period of time helps:
- Gaining confidence that patterns of behavior/relationships are stable
- Gaining better understanding of the phenomenon
-Theory triangulation
- Pattern matching
- Predicting a pattern of the results and determining whether actual results fit the predicted pattern
- Negative case sampling
- Peer review - easy to get lost in one’s own text
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Researcher’s Bias
- Researcher allows one’s personal views and perspectives to affect how he/she conducts the research (selective observation/recording) and interprets the data
- Continuous reflection (awareness of own presuppositions)
- Actively seeking negative-cases
- Directly stating the subjectivity of the researcher
- Reporting carefully the whole research process (including interpretation!) so that other researcher/reader can understand and accept the conclusions that have been made based on the data
- (1) Resolution of Typical Challenges
- The more the reader can learn about how the ethnographer resolved a host of routinely encountered problems that compromise ethnographic work, the more our confidence increases
- (a) entry
- (b) approach and self-presentation
- (c) trust and rapport
- (d) researcher’s role and fitting in
- (e) mistakes, misconceptions, surprises
- (f) types and varieties of data
- (g) data collection and recording
- (h) data coding and organization
- (i) data demonstration and analytic use
- (2) Theoretical Candor
- Provide a truthful explanation of how, when, and why I came to employ the particular form of analysis that organizes the data
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Internal Validity
- Is the claim of causality warranted?
- Mental comparison with hypothetical control group and published research
- When the causal factors occur again, does the effect follow?
- Method and data triangulation
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External Validity
- Are the results generalizable?
- Rough generalization/naturalistic generalization: generalization on the basis of similarity
- Replication logic: has somebody else got the same/similar results?
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Competent Insider’s Performance
-Could the reader “pass” when using the information we provided in the ethnography?
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Reliability in Ethnography
-(1) Internal consistency
- (2) External consistency
- A weak form of reliability
- Ex: asking what neighbors view/notice about a neighborhood gang
- (3) Members’ credibility
- Detect misinformation, evasions, lies, fronts
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Sensitizing Concepts
-They are concepts that are informed by the lit review and informants
- When using sensitizing concepts, we ask
- What do they illuminate about the data?
- How do they apply in particular cases?
- Where do they take the analysis?
- Ex: Emotional Socialization
- (1) Types and Emphases
- Q 1: What kinds of emotions were prevalent or discouraged?
- (2) Timing
- Q 2: What do they say about early socialization and relationship with parents?
- (3) Emotional Directionality
- Q 3: What do they say about the direction of emotional responsibilities and relationships?
- (4) Intensity
- Q 4: What do they say about the intensity of the parents’ emotions growing up and today?
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Types of position influencing one's reading of a text?
- Subject positions
- Ascribed - born with it (race, gender, etc.)
- Achieved - not born with it; earn it (student, married, etc.)
- Accidental - (becoming sick, pregnant, widowed, etc.)
- Intertextuality
- We associate the text we interpret with other texts that are similar to it
- This association influences our interpretation of the text
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Strength and weaknesses of latent content analysis?
- Weaknesses:
- (1) Most influenced by researcher’s subjectivity
- (2) Not generalizable to large-scale phenomena
- (3) Reliability
- Strengths:
- (1) Inexpensive
- (2) Naturalism, strength of being there physically
- (3) In-depth understanding
- Depth rather than breadth
- Interpretation rather than prediction
- In-depth understanding rather than generalizations
- (4) Micro dimension of social phenomena
- (5) Communicability
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Grounded theory and latent content analysis?
- Latent Content Analysis
- Qualitative
- Approaches the text as a totality where all the parts matter and contribute to the meaning of the text
- There is no true interpretations of a text
- The meaning(s) of a text is/are not inherent in the text
- We interpret the text by engaging with it and asking questions
- Type of textual analysis (which is a type of unobtrusive research; research method where there is no interactive effect between research and observations; no reactivity; can be used in conjunction with other field work)
- Grounded Theory:
- An inductive approach to the study of social life that attempts to generate a theory from the constant comparing of unfolding observations. This is very different from hypothesis testing, in which theory is used to generate hypotheses to be tested through observations
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Pantelli’s article Richness, Power Cues, and Email
-Uses deconstruction and textual analysis
- Textual analysis:
- Used to examine the visible characteristics of text-based email messages, notably those of presentation, language patterns, signature, and forms of address, in an attempt to identify whether they differ among senders at different hierarchical layers
- Deconstruction:
- A text, however, may also communicate information that is not said in a written form. The textual analysis is thus complemented with the method of deconstruction, which is a suitable method for uncovering hidden messages within texts
- Deconstruction focuses closely on the wording of a text. As an advocate of the approach put it: “what the text does not say on standard interpretation -- is just as important as what it does say, and what is given only marginal importance or perceived as having peripheral impact is as important, perhaps more important than what had been deemed to be central”
-Something about social-historical context?
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Good Sociological Story
- Makes the phenomenon visible
- Provides good translation
- Transforms the reader’s understanding
- Self-reflexive
- Literary
- Interesting
- New
- (A) Relates to existing work (including going back to previously studied fields)
- (B) First report
- (C) Unusual setting
- (D) Theoretical discovery, extension or refinement
- Important, relevant, resonant
- Sociologically (benefits sociology)
- Socially (benefits society, not just sociology(
- Resonant
- Does the story strike a responsive chord?
- Does the story resonate with broader human experiences and fundamental human existential concerns? Etc.
- True
- Valid
- Securing a close approximation of the empirical world that is procedurally trustworthy
- Researchers have the double responsibility for
- (1) Rigorous and self-critical conduct, analysis, and interpretation of the research
- (2) To present the readers with sufficient information to allow the latter to decide whether their proposed findings are adequately supported
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Analytic Tools
- (1) Grounded theory
- (2) Semantic
- (3) Narrative analysis
- (4) Hermeneutic
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Which sociological paradigm is most associated with the use of fieldwork as a method of sociological research?
-Symbolic interactionism
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Why is the criterion “naturalism” important in ethnography?
-Because the natural settings in which individuals find themselves shape their interactions and the culture they create
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Which of the following is/are preparatory step(s) fieldwork?
-Development of clear hypotheses that you will test in the field
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A police officer decides to carry out an ethnography of the station where she works and warns her colleagues about this decision. Which position will this ethnographer likely occupy?
-Participant as observer
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Which of the following will maximize successful interaction with the gatekeeper?
-Play the competent ignorant
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Which stage of entry/access is most difficult?
-Stranger
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How long should a typical in-depth interview last?
-As long as needed
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What should the interviewer do at the conclusion of an in-depth interview?
- b and c
- Discuss the interview with the informant
- Make sure that the respondent is not emotionally upset
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When analyzing qualitative data, waves of data collection and waves of data analysis follow each other until we reach the stage of __________.
-Category saturation
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What does the process of theoretical sampling refer to?
-The sampling of additional observations informed by emerging patterns
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Following the logic of grounded theory, we have developed solid memos about the various themes we have found, and reached category saturation. What should we do next?
-Assess the relationships between the themes we found
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Under which of the following conditions is a respondent in an in-depth interview most likely to communicate with the researcher?
-When the researcher shows interest in what the respondent says
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Which of the following is NOT a strength of ethnography?
-Generalizability
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Which of the following is true of latent content analysis?
-The analysis of a text is always influenced by the analyst’s statuses
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What is NOT a main component of textual analysis?
-The true meaning of the text
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What is not true of sensitizing concepts?
-They help us convince the gatekeeper of the field
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????? one has acquired __________ is a good way to support the claim of interpretive validity.
-Tacit knowledge
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As a type of validity, “theoretical candor” is a strategy whereby the researcher provides:
-A truthful explanation of how, when, and why she came to use a particular form of analysis
