Advanced! Research Methods

Qualitative Research Project

Goal: Give you some experience in one of the many kinds of qualitative research

Summary: In this project you will perform observational research, take field notes, and complete the note taking and analysis when you return from the field. You will choose the setting following certain guidelines, then perform some very simple analysis.

Group Project

This is a group project to be performed in pairs. You must attend the setting together, collaborate on preparing notes and analyzing the data. The project wil be graded as a pair.

Procedure:

Choose a social setting

You may choose a social setting that is either familiar or strange to you. A familiar setting might be a club you belong to, a club (in the sense of bar) that you often go to, your family. Unfamiliar settings include a city council meeting, a very different type of club (bar), a nude beach, etc. See the text (Figure 11.1) for some ideas. Each type of setting (familiar, strange) presents advantages and limitations. Some setting limitations include:

1. You must be able to take notes in the setting
2. You must be able to be relatively unobtrusive and non-disruptive

Spend some time in the setting

Give yourself a couple hours (if the event lasts that long). Read the textbook for hints and guidelines as to how to take notes, etc. Think about your ascriptive characteristics and how they will present in the setting.

Take field notes

Use jotted notes in the field. When you escape, write a set of direct observation notes. Your direct observation notes should include:

1. Setting description
2. Actors description (who's there, their roles)
3. Time: what is the pace, the way time is used, the relationship between actors and time?
4. Explicit or manifest goals (i.e., what people say publicly about why they are there)
5. Activities: what goes on?

In this stage, do not make judgments or inferences about what's important, what's going, what things mean. However, do not create a script of the verbal interaction.

Write researcher inference notes

These notes amount to a primitive analysis of the data, and correspond roughly to an axial coding. To make the project tractable and not wildly unstructured, follow these specific guidelines:

1. Try to determine the implicit goals of the setting: what is the real purpose of the social interaction in this setting? E.g., is this service organization really just a social drinking club?
2. Try to determine the role relationships (vs. describing/listing in the previous step) among the actors. For example, outside of their formal roles ("chairperson," "mother," "minister") what are their actual roles in this setting ("task leader," "disciplinarian," "fundraiser").
3. The actors may have different goals. What are they? How do they interact with each other? (E.g., actor A may want to play while actor B wants to work, so they clash.)
4. Describe your own feelings about being in the setting for this project
5. Describe whatever impact your presence may have had on the setting
6. Give examples to illustrate your observations

Turn in:

1. Cover sheet: Where, when, how you were able to take the observer role, etc.
2. Direct observation notes, researcher inference notes. Type the notes. How long? About 5 pages double spaced.

Schedule