Concepts of Ethnography and Program Evaluation explained.

1. Aleena Farooq. Roll no. 07. B.S. English. (5th semester.) Page 1
Topic # 1: What is Ethnography?
Ethnography is the art and science of describing a group or culture. The description may be of a small tribal
group in an exotic land or a classroom in middle-class suburbia. It identifies its roots in sociology and
anthropology. Ethnography comes from the Greek words: Ethnos: folk/people and graphein: writing.
Ethnography is a social science research method. It relies heavily on up-close, personal experience and possible
participation, not just observation, by researchers trained in the art of ethnography. It involves a commitment to
get close to the subject being observed in its natural setting, to be factual and descriptive in reporting what is
observed, and to find out the points of view of participants in the domain observed.
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Ethnographic Research is Qualitative: Ethnographers do not apply the results of their studies of one
particular culture to other cultures. They do not apply statistical methods of quantification to the results of their
research. They are more interested in descriptions than in statistics.
Ethnographic Research is Subjective: When we step into a new culture, we bring with us our previous
experiences, preconceptions, and ideas. An objective observation devoid of the observer’s pre-existing attitude
is simply impossible. But that is not a problem for ethnographers. Instead, it is an opportunity because
ethnographers benefit from being involved with the cultures they are studying. They know those cultures well
and are therefore able to convey their meanings to others. Being an insider of a culture, a participant-observer
often allows ethnographers to uncover hidden meanings that are not immediately visible or accessible to
outsiders.
Characteristics of Ethnographic Research:
 Contextual: The research is carried out in the context in which the subjects normally live and work.
 Unobtrusive: The research avoids manipulating the phenomena under investigation.
 Longitudinal: The research is relatively long.
 Collaborative: The research involves the participation of stakeholders other than the researcher.
 Interpretative: The researcher carries out interpretative analyses of the data.
 Organic: There is interaction between questions/hypotheses and data collection/interpretation.
Ethnography as a Method:
 People's behavior is studied in everyday contexts, rather than under experimental conditions created by
the researcher.
 Data are gathered from a range of sources, but observation and relatively informal conversations are
usually the main ones.
 The approach to data collection is unstructured in the sense that it does not involve following through a
detailed plan set up at the beginning; nor are the categories used for interpreting what people say and do
pre-given or fixed. This does not mean that the research is unsystematic; simply that initially the data are
collected in as raw a form, and on as wide a front, as feasible.
 The focus is usually a single setting or group, of relatively small scale. In life history research the focus
may even be a single individual.
 The analysis of the data involves interpretation of the meanings and functions of human actions and
mainly takes the form of verbal descriptions and explanations, with quantification and statistical analysis
playing a subordinate role at most.

2. Aleena Farooq. Roll no. 07. B.S. English. (5th semester.) Page 2
Methodological Principles:
 Naturalism: This is the view that the aim of social research is to capture the character of naturally
occurring human behavior, and that this can only be achieved by first-hand contact with it, not by
inferences from what people do in artificial settings like experiments or from what they say in interviews
about what they do elsewhere.
 Understanding: From this point of view, if we are to be able to explain human actions effectively we
must gain an understanding of the cultural perspectives on which they are based. That this is necessary is
obvious when we are studying a society that is alien to us, since we shall find much of what we see and
hear puzzling.
 Discovery: Another feature of ethnographic thinking is a conception of the research process as inductive
or discovery-based; rather than as being limited to the testing of explicit hypotheses.
Research Procedure: The design of an ethnographic research is deceptively simple. It appears to require only
one “act naturally.” Then again, looking beyond, conducting an ethnographic research is a process of discovery.
It is something that cannot be programmed. It is not a matter of following methodological rules but a practical
activity requiring the exercise of one’s judgment.
Data Collection: Typical ethnographic research employs these kinds of data collection: interviews, observation,
and documents. This in turn produces three kinds of data: quotations, descriptions, and excerpts of documents
resulting in one product: narrative description.
A Researcher should:
 Listen to what is said.
 Collect documents and artifacts.
 Ask questions through informal and formal interviews.
 Watch what happens.
 The data collected include, in addition to the rich descriptive accounts, photographs, maps, figures,
tables, texts, audio and video records, and transcriptions. The most common types of method used in
data collection are interviews [both formal and informal], documents [also, both, formal and informal],
and through observation.
Ethical Concerns:
In conducting an ethnographic research, there are also certain ethical concerns that are being raised every now
and then. Over-all, they can be summarized as:
 Informed consent.
 Privacy.
 Harm.
 Exploitation.
Conclusion: Ethnographic research allows you to get “up close and personal” with cultures. It places
researchers at the heart of the investigations, often allowing them to participate in the very culture they study.
Such an active role gives writers valuable insights into their subject, which usually cannot be achieved simply
by studying books, journal articles, and websites. The range of subjects for ethnographic research is unlimited.
You can study the mundane or the exotic, the ordinary or the extraordinary. The possibilities are endless.
Ethnography allows us to gain new knowledge about the communities and places we live in, the people we
know, and to share that new knowledge with others. Because ethnography allows for the subjectivity of the
writer, it places the author in a unique position where expression of emotions, and descriptive writing are
encouraged, not discouraged. At its best, the writing that comes out of ethnographic projects is energetic,
moving, and intellectually and emotionally stimulating.

3. Aleena Farooq. Roll no. 07. B.S. English. (5th semester.) Page 3
Topic # 2: What is Program Evaluation?
Introduction to Evaluation:
Evaluation is a methodological area that is closely related to, but distinguishable from more traditional social
research. Evaluation utilizes many of the same methodologies used in traditional social research, but because
evaluation takes place within a political and organizational context, it requires group skills, management ability,
political dexterity, sensitivity to multiple stakeholders and other skills that social research in general does not
rely on as much. Here we introduce the idea of evaluation and some of the major terms and issues in the field.
Definitions of Evaluation: Following are the most common definitions of evaluation:
1. Evaluation is the systematic assessment of the worth or merit of some object.
2. Evaluation is the systematic acquisition and assessment of information to provide useful feedback
about some object.
Both definitions agree that evaluation is a systematic endeavor and both use the term 'object' which refers to a
program, policy, technology, person, need, activity, and so on. The latter definition emphasizes acquiring and
assessing information rather than assessing worth or merit because all evaluation work involves collecting and
sifting through data, making judgments about the validity of the information and of inferences we derive from
it, whether or not an assessment of worth or merit results.
The Goals of Evaluation:
The generic goal of most evaluations is to provide "useful feedback" to a variety of audiences including
sponsors, donors, client-groups, administrators, staff, and other relevant constituencies. Most often, feedback is
perceived as "useful" if it aids in decision-making and change in policies. There is broad consensus that the
major goal of evaluation should be to influence decision-making or policy formulation through the provision of
empirically-driven feedback.
Evaluation Strategies:
'Evaluation strategies' means broad, primary perspectives on evaluation. They encompass the most general
groups of evaluators. Four major groups of evaluation strategies are discussed below:
1. Scientific-experimental models are probably the most historically dominant evaluation strategies.
Taking their values and methods from the sciences -- especially the social sciences -- they prioritize on
the desirability of impartiality, accuracy, objectivity and the validity of the information generated.
2. The second strategy is management-oriented system models. Two of the most common of these
are PERT, the Program Evaluation and Review Technique, and CPM, the Critical Path Method. Both
have been widely used in business and government. These management-oriented systems models
emphasize comprehensiveness in evaluation, placing evaluation within a larger framework of
organizational activities.
3. The third strategy is the qualitative/anthropological models. They emphasize the importance of
observation, the need to retain the phenomenological quality of the evaluation context, and the value of
subjective human interpretation in the evaluation process.

4. Aleena Farooq. Roll no. 07. B.S. English. (5th semester.) Page 4
4. Finally, fourth strategy is termed participant-oriented models. As the term suggests, they emphasize
the central importance of the evaluation participants, especially clients and users of the program. Client-
centered approaches are examples of participant-oriented models, as are consumer-oriented evaluation
systems.
Types of Evaluation:
There are many different types of evaluations depending on the object being evaluated and the purpose of the
evaluation. Perhaps the most important basic distinction in evaluation types is that between formative and
summative evaluation. Formative evaluations strengthen or improve the object being evaluated -- they help
form it by examining the delivery of the program or technology, the quality of its implementation, and the
assessment of the organizational context, personnel, procedures, inputs, and so on. Summative evaluations, in
contrast, examine the effects or outcomes of some object -- they summarize it by describing what happens
subsequent to delivery of the program or technology; assessing whether the object can be said to have caused
the outcome; determining the overall impact of the causal factor beyond only the immediate target outcomes;
and, estimating the relative costs associated with the object.
Formative evaluation includes several evaluation types:
 Needs assessment determines who needs the program, how great the need is, and what might work to
meet the need.
 Evaluability assessment determines whether an evaluation is practicable and how participants can help
shape its usefulness.
 Structured conceptualization helps participants define the program or technology, the target
population, and the possible outcomes.
 Implementation evaluation monitors the reliability of the program or technology delivery.
 Process evaluation investigates the process of delivering the program or technology, including
alternative delivery procedures.
Summative evaluation can also be subdivided:
 Outcome evaluations investigate whether the program or technology caused demonstrable effects on
specifically defined target outcomes.
 Impact evaluation is broader and assesses the overall or net effects -- intended or unintended -- of the
program or technology as a whole.
 Cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis address questions of efficiency by standardizing outcomes
in terms of their costs and values.
 Secondary analysis reexamines existing data to address new questions or use methods not previously
employed.
 Meta-analysis integrates the outcome estimates from multiple studies to arrive at an overall or summary
judgment on an evaluation question.