This is a picture of the late Donald T. Campbell - co-author of several books on research design (Campbell & Stanley, 1963; Cook & Campbell, 1979, both Houghton-Mifflin;and Shadish, Cook & Campbell, 2002, Wadsworth). These books - especially the first - are considered seminal works on research design of a quantitative nature. The emphasis, of course, is in proving causality. Anyone who is reading this, then, may wonder why I inserted his photograph in my ethnography post - rather than researchers like Geertz, who is cited over and over again for his 'thick description' wording (read Geertz and notice that he credits Ryle for this), or Clifford, or Wollcott, or people more generally associated with anthropology like Margaret Mead. The reason for Campbell is that I read a very enjoyable article of his recently ("Degrees of freedom" and the case study, Comparative Political Studies, 1975) in which he contradicts or even retracts some of his earlier dismissal of case study and ethnographic approaches (due to bias and lack of generalizability, and, of course, inability to show causality). In this article, Campbell praised the value in ethnographic case studies and presented a detailed example that shoots down the notion of bias. Of course, Campbell being Campbell, he still advises a rather systematic approach to examination of cultures, including use of two researchers from different 'home' cultures to examine a third culture, etc., which you may or may not view as a good idea depending on your particular philosophy.
For my own ethnographic assignment in which I need to be a participant-observer, I thought I might have an opportunity to be part of a focus group. While I initially thought this was a bad idea - after all, who wants a very inquisitive and new qualitative researcher as a member of a focus group - I eventually decided that it would be very interesting for several reasons. Unfortunately, the planned focus group I was invited to participate in has been delayed (or cancelled). I assume although I do not know this, that lack of response was the reason - I think this is a problem more with focus groups probably than with any other type of qualitative inquiry. I attribute this to lack of understanding of what to expect, the time commitment involved, the fact that people have plenty of time to think about it (unlike a telephone survey that is a lot more spontaneous), and, in some way, people's sense of privacy (although I continue to be amazed at the personal information shared online). My back up plan was to try to record my experiences with a bicycling group. With this in mind, I bought myself a birthday present that is an upgrade to my old, very limited helmet cam - I have an early Oregon Scientific that was the state of the art several years ago and now I am anxious to try out the Drift Ghost HD and see if the picture and sound quality are as impressive as advertised. There is a group that rides 1-2 times weekly (and sometimes on weekends) that I rode with once last year. I did not return for various reasons. Because of my equipment issues with the interview, I am going to try out the Ghost this weekend if possible - it is waterproof so rain will not hurt it. One advantage of this camera over some others is that it has a wrist strap control, so you can (allegedly) see that it is working. However, I cannot come up with any easy way to have a back up on a bike (no way I want to ride with dual cams). My plan is to record the group and use audio to record my observations - hoping to do this unobtrusively. I do tend to talk to myself sometimes on the bike so maybe no one will notice - frankly I am thinking that it will be hard to hear me - it has been windy lately. Wind, however, will likely impact sound quality, so I may be setting myself up for another problem. Note to self: have a back up ethnographic event planned!
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AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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