The document provides a comprehensive overview of qualitative research design with a focus on ethnographic research, detailing its key characteristics, types, and steps in conducting ethnographic studies. It emphasizes the importance of understanding cultural groups through shared behaviors, beliefs, and language, and outlines various data collection methods. Additionally, it discusses the role of reflexivity in research and the ethical considerations necessary for conducting ethnographies.

1. SCHOOL OF GOVERNANCE & DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Advanced Research Methods- Quantitative and qualitative
John W. Creswell (2012). Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and
Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research, 4th ed: Pearson Education Inc.
Chapter IV
Qualitative Research Design and Analysis

2. Chapter 4
Qualitative research design and analysis
Narrative design
Ethnographic design
Case Study
Grounded Theory Approach
Discourse analysis

3. Ethnographic Design
 Reference:
 John W. Creswell (2012). Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and
Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research, 4th ed: Pearson Education
Inc.

4. By the end of this session you should be able to:
• Define ethnographic research, and describe when to use it
• Identify three types of ethnographic designs
• List the key characteristics of ethnographic research
• Describe the steps in conducting an ethnography

5. What are Ethnographic Designs?
• Ethnographic design is qualitative research procedure
for describing, analyzing, and interpreting a culture-
sharing group’s shared patterns of behavior, beliefs,
and language that develops over time.
• A non-intervention descriptive research design that is
usually participatory and extends over a period of time in
a natural setting.

6. Types of Ethnographic…
Case study
• Definition: An in-depth exploration of a bounded system (time, place,
physical boundaries)
• Subject for case studies
• Individual or several individuals
• Series of steps that form a sequence of activities
• Researcher develops understanding of the case by collecting multiple
forms of data
• Researcher locates the “case” or “cases” within their larger context

7. Types of Ethnographies…
Critical Ethnography
• Used by politically minded researchers
• Advocate for the emancipation of marginalized groups
• Seek to change society
• Identify and celebrate research bias: All research is value laden
• Challenge status quo and ask, “Why is it so?”
• Create literal dialogue with participants
• Social issues include power, empowerment, inequity, dominance, repression,
hegemony, victimization
• Collaborate actively with participants and negotiate final report
• Self-conscious about their own interpretation
• Reflexive and self-aware of their role
• Non-neutral

8. When to Conduct Ethnographic
Research
• When the study of a group helps you understand a larger
issue
• When you have a culture-sharing group to study
• When you want a day-to-day picture of the events and
activities of a group
• When you have long-term access to a culture-sharing
group

9. Types of Ethnographic Design:
Realist Ethnography
• narrates study from the third-person voice reporting what is
observed.
• researcher reports objective data free from personal bias, political
goals, or judgment.
• researcher produces the participants’ views through closely edited
quotes and has the final word on how the culture is to be interpreted
and presented.

10. Key Characteristics of an Ethnographic Design
• Cultural themes (from cultural anthropology)
• A culture-sharing group
• Examination of shared patterns of behavior, belief, and language
• Data collection through fieldwork,
• Description, themes, interpretation
• Group context or setting
• Researcher reflexivity

11. Key Characteristics: Cultural Themes
 Cultural Theme: General position, declared or implied, that
is openly approved or promoted in a society or group
 Drawn from cultural anthropology or literature
 Seen in purpose statement or research questions as a
central phenomenon
 Examples:
 Persistence in distance education course (Garland,1993)
 Development of students’ social skills in Japan (Le Tendre, 1999)
 Enculturation in early childhood program among Maori in New Zealand process of learning traditional
contents of culture)

12. Key Characteristics: Culture-sharing
Group
• In ethnography it is two or more individuals who have shared
behaviors, beliefs, and language
• Groups vary in size
• Individuals interact on regular basis
• Individuals interact over a period of time

13. Key Characteristics: Discerning Shared Patterns
• .A shared pattern is a common social interaction that stabilizes as
tacit rules and expectations of the group
• Behavior: Action taken by an individual in a cultural setting
• Belief: How an individual thinks or perceives things in a cultural setting
• Language: How an individual talks to others in a cultural setting
• Ethnographic researcher look for shared patterns of behavior,
belief and language that the cultural sharing group adopt overtime
• Types of patterns:
• Ideal: What should have occurred
• Actual: What did occur
• Projective: What might have occurred

14. Key Characteristics: Doing Fieldwork
• Fieldwork: The researcher gathers data in the setting where the
participants are located and where their shared patterns can be studied
• Types of data
• Emic data (data supplied by the participants)
• Etic data (ethnographer’s interpretation of participant’s perspectives)
• Negotiation data (information participants and researcher agree to use
in a study)
• Forms of data: observations, interviews, documents

15. Popular Forms of Data Collected by Ethnographers
 Casual conversation
 Life history, life-cycle interview
 Key informant (participant) interview
 Semi-structured interview
 Structured interview
 Survey
 Household census, ethno genealogy
 Questionnaire (written and/or oral)
 Projective techniques
 Observations (nonparticipant to
participant)
•Tests
• Content analysis of secondary text or visual material
• Focus group interview
• Elicitation techniques (e.g., looking at a scrapbook and
talking about memories)
• Audiovisual material (e.g., audio or visual record)
• Spatial mapping (e.g., recording ways data vary across
units, such as group and institution)
• Network analysis (e.g., describing networks in time and
space)

16. Key Characteristics: Description, Themes, and
Interpretations
• Description: Detailed rendering of individuals and scenes in order to
depict what is going on in the culture-sharing group (detailed, thick,
rich)
• Themes: How things work and naming the essential features in themes
in the cultural setting (shared patterns of behavior, thinking, talking)
• Interpretation:
• Inferences and conclusions about what was learned
• Relates descriptions and themes back to what was learned

17. Key Characteristics: Context or Setting
• Ethnographers present the description, themes, and
interpretation within the context or setting of the culture-
sharing group
• Setting, situation, or environment that surrounds the
cultural group being studied
• History, religion, politics, economy, the environment,
physical location

18. Key Characteristics: Reflexivity
Reflexivity- action and knowledge of the researcher
• Researchers
• Openly discuss and respect for participants and sites
• Talk about themselves
• Share their experiences
• Identify how their interpretations shape their discussions about sites and
groups
ethnographic research involves a prolonged stay at a site, researchers are
concerned about their impact on the site and the people.
E.g. Finders (1996) documented her role as follows: I did not want to be
viewed as a teacher or someone in authority. (p. 73) I gained their trust slowly
and negotiated a relationship that did not fi t their established patterns with
signifi cant adults. (p. 73)

19. Steps in Conducting Ethnographic Research
1. Identify intent and type of design and relate
intent to your research problem
2. Seek approval and access considerations
3. Collect appropriate data
4. Analyze and interpret data within a design
5. Write report consistent with your design

20. Identify Intent and the Type of Design
 Relate Intent to Your Research Problem
 The first and most important steps in conducting research are to identify why
you are undertaking a study, which form of design you plan to use, and how
your intent relates to your research
 For a realist ethnography, the focus is on understanding a culture-sharing
group and using the group to develop a deeper understanding of a cultural
theme (e.g. socialization).
 In case study the focus is on developing an in-depth understanding of a case,
such as an event, activity, or process.
 A critical ethnographer seeks to address an inequity in society or schools,
plans to use the research to advocate and call for changes, and typically
identifies a specific issue (e.g., inequality, dominance, oppression, or
empowerment) to study.

21. Discuss Approval and Access Considerations
 receive approval from the institutional review board.
 identify the type of purposeful sampling that is available and that best
answers your research questions. In this process, locate a site for your
research and then identify a gatekeeper who can provide access to the site
and participants for study.
 need to guarantee provisions for respecting the site and actively design in
the study how to reciprocate to the individuals at the site.
 guarantee to disturb the site as little as possible
 follow good ethical practices such as guaranteeing privacy and anonymity,
not deceiving individuals, and informing all participants of the purposes of
your research.

22. Use Appropriate Data Collection
Procedures
 an emphasis on extensive data collection,
 using multiple procedures for gathering data, and
 the active involvement of participants in the process.
 building rapport with gatekeepers and key participants is essential for your
long-term contacts.
 an emphasis on taking field notes and observing the “cultural scene.”
 interviews and artifacts such as drawings, relics, and symbols are also important
forms of data.
 any data that can help you develop an in-depth understanding of the shared
patterns of the cultural group would be useful.
 collect as many types of data as possible to develop this understanding

23. Analyze and Interpret Data within a Design
 engage in the general process of developing a description, analyzing your data
for themes, and providing an interpretation of the meaning of your information
 balance among description, analysis, and interpretation so that each becomes an
important element of your analysis.
 discuss in your interpretation how you learned about the cultural theme, actively
reflect back on what information existed in the literature, and advance how your
study added to the understanding of the cultural theme.
 in a case study, the analysis procedures will vary depending on whether you are
studying a single case or multiple cases. A typical case study procedure for
multiple cases is to first analyze each case separately and then conduct a cross-
case analysis to identify common and different themes among all of the cases.
 in a critical ethnography, you shape the description, analysis, and interpretation
to focus on the “critical” issue in your study. Data for appeal..

24.  field notes often form the backbone in the analysis of
ethnographic data.
 field notes may take many forms, including detailed
observations and general interpretations, reflections, and
summaries of recorded interviews.
 employ the strategy of triangulation, a type of qualitative
cross validation (corroboration) or data cross-checking
procedure.
Field Notes