Qualitative Field Research

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Chapter 10

• Qualitative Field Research

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Topics for Field Research

• Attitudes and behaviors best understood in a
  natural setting
• Not new, but more structured
• Newspaper reporters, anthropologists, case
  workers etc.
• Social researchers want to explain, not just
  report
• Social processes over time.

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Elements of Social Life Appropriate to Field
Research

• Practices talking, reading a book
• Episodes divorce, crime, illness
• Encounters people meeting and interacting
• Roles occupations, family roles
• Relationships friendships, mother-son

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Elements of Social Life Appropriate to Field
Research

• Groups cliques, teams, work groups
• Organizations hospitals, schools
• Settlements neighborhoods, ghettoes
• Social worlds "wall street", "the sports world
• Lifestyles (or subcultures) urban, homeless

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Role of Researcher

• Full participant to full observer
• Full participant may be genuine or not
• Validity issues if genuine (may go native),
  ethics (deception) and validity issues (if people
  know theyre being studied, they may not be
  real) if not
• If people dont know, you may be using them, or
  they may be hurt
• May actually change the individuals or groups
  behavior

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Role of Researcher

• Full participant to full observer
• Full observer
• Maintain objectivity
• Forest from the trees perspective
• May not get the insight
• May take on a tacit superior role
• May have ethical issues

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Field Research Paradigms

• Naturalism
• Based in positivism
• Street Corner Society example
• Ethnography detailed description rather than
  explanation
• Ethnomethodology
• Reality is socially constructed
• Break the rules to understand the assumptions of
  others (not reality)

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Field Research Paradigms

• Grounded theory
• Inductive theory building based in positivist
  attitudes
• Case studies and the extended case method
• Case study individual, a social unit or
  phenomenon (gang, political group etc.) Few
  expectations
• Extended case studies try to improve theories.
  Many expectations
• Institutional ethnography
• Understand power relations, and how things work
• Participatory action research
• Researcher acts as a advocate of those without
  power. Empowers them with information

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Preparing for Field Work

• Fill in your knowledge of the subject
• Discuss the group you plan to research with an
  informant
• Consider possible bias, narrowed perspective
• Develop an identity with the people to be studied
• Are you one of them or one of us or neither?
• Realize that your initial contact with the group
  can influence your observations
• Be aware of data saturation

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Qualitative Interviewing

• Interviewer has a general plan, but no specific
  set of questions
• Subsequent questions evolve from initial
  questions
• Respondent should do most of the talking
• Take great care in wording questions
• Use prompting behaviors
• Martial arts analogy
• Be careful of your ego

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Advantages of Focus Groups

• Socially oriented research method
• Flexible
• High face validity
• Can generate new ideas for research
• Synergistic dynamics
• Speedy results
• Low in cost

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Disadvantages of Focus Groups

• Not selected through probability sampling
• Data is less generalizable
• Purpose should be more exploratory
• Less control than individual interviews.
• Data can be difficult to analyze.
• Moderators must be skilled
• Avoid groupthink
• Opinion leaders should be carefully handled

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Disadvantages of Focus Groups

• Difference between groups can be troublesome.
• Groups are difficult to assemble.
• Discussion must be conducted in a conducive
  environment.

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Guidelines - Taking Research Notes

• Dont trust your memory.
• Take notes while you observe
• Be careful with technology
• Take notes in stages
• Take sketchy notes in the field and rewrite them
  later, filling in the details
• Record everything
• Things that don't seem important may turn out to
  be significant after all
• Realize that most of your field notes will not be
  reflected in your final project

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Strengths of Field Research

• Permits a great depth of understanding.
• Flexibility - research may be modified at any
  time.
• Inexpensive
• Has more validity than surveys or experiments.

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Weaknesses of Field Research

• Qualitative and not appropriate for statistical
  descriptions of populations.
• Has potential problems with reliability since
  field research methods are often personal.

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Is It Ethical?

• To talk to people when they don't know you will
  be recording their words?
• To get information for your own purposes from
  people you hate?
• To see a severe need for help and not respond to
  it directly?

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Is It Ethical?

• To be in a situation but not commit yourself
  wholeheartedly to it?
• To be strategic in your relations with others?
• To take sides or avoid taking sides in a
  factionalized situation?

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Is It Ethical?

• To "pay" people with tradeoffs for access to
  their lives and minds?
• To "use" people as allies or informants in order
  to gain entrée to other people or to elusive
  understandings?