Research Methodology Notes

Ontology : a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of reality

All social scientists have ideas about the nature and characteristics of whatever it is they are studying. These are the researchers' ontological assumptions; these assumptions refer to what researchers think exists and is real. These ideas are seldom consciously questioned by researchers because they appear so obvious (Dooley 1990:6; Wilson 1983:2,10).

Epistemology: a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of knowledge

As social scientists we do not only make assumptions about the nature of the subject matter studied. We also need to consider the nature of our knowledge. When we do this, we focus on the structure or format of our knowledge rather than on its content.

Epistemological questions deal with how we can know and explain something. This means we have to decide what types of statements about social reality are permissible.

In other words, we have to decide what qualifies as being social scientific knowledge (Mason 1996:13; Wilson 1983:2).

Methodology: the rules and procedures of research work

Once we have decided how we can get to know social reality, we can then think about the best way to do this. Goldenberg (1992:18) argues that methodological principles in the social sciences ensure that we can defend our findings. Methodological principles are those guidelines that researchers agree on and that they rely on to give us acceptable research practices. Methodological principles enable researchers to attain knowledge by providing researchers with the necessary techniques or tools (Babbie 1995:18; Denzin 1989:4; Mason 1996:35).

We cannot be rigid about the actual distinctions between ontology, epistemology and methodology, since all three are interlinked (Williams & May 1996:88).

Approaches

The enormous diversity in research is an inevitable consequence of the complexity of social reality. Nevertheless, this diversity can become overwhelming and disorienting.

By considering researchers' ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions, we can identify different approaches to social science research. What we are trying to do here is identify the assumptions that guide social scientists' research. By identifying researchers' basic assumptions, we can come to a better understanding of social research and get a better idea of the key issues in social research. Knowing and understanding different approaches allows us to compare these approaches systematically.

There are three dominant approaches to social science: (1) the positivist approach (2) interpretive approach and (3) critical approach (Ashley & Orenstein 1990:38; Neuman 1997:62; Sarantakos 1998:32; Stevens in Sapsford et al 1998:79±80).

The researchers who follow these different approaches share basic assumptions on how social reality should be viewed, what problems social scientists should address, how they can know social reality and what the purpose of research is.

The positivist approach

Positivism: a systematic way of doing research that emphasises the importance of observable facts relationships:

Positivists believe that social reality can be discovered. They argue that we can perceive social reality through our senses since it exists ``out there'', independent of the ``knower''. According to positivists, the behaviour of human beings is determined by external influences that produce particular effects under certain conditions. People react predictably to their environment because they are rational individuals. Once positivists have identified certain regularities, they use these regularities to explain social events and relationships. Such regularities are called social laws. According to positivists, social reality reflects certain patterns and the behaviour of human beings is, to an extent, a product of these patterns. However, because there are a number of factors at play in the environment, positivists emphasise that social laws should be treated as probabilities rather than certainties (May 1993:5; Sarantakos 1998:36).

Value-freedom: researchers' personal values do not influence the collection of data (research)

The emphasis positivists place on discovering social regularities suggests that they believe that social sciences should be studied in the same way as natural sciences.

Positivists argue that, since social phenomena exist in their own right, social phenomena are open to outside empirical observation.

For positivists, all knowledge is based on facts. Facts are empirically established by the senses. Positivists claim it is crucial that researchers approach social reality in a neutral, value-free, detached and systematic way.

Methodological tools are developed to collect evidence that is observable and hence measurable. Standardised procedures are followed to study particular events and learn about their interconnections. These procedures furthermore ensure a detached approach that will represent social reality accurately and free from bias. Once these regularities have been established by checking them against the facts, the knowledge gained can be used to predict occurrences and control events (Sarantakos 1998:37,38,61; Wilson 1983:11±12).

Positivists regard knowledge to be cumulative. This means that all current knowledge of a topic can be used when studying this topic. Once research is completed, new knowledge is added. Positivists want to give social science more powers of explanation.

They believe it is right for us to use our knowledge of causal social laws to help society progress. For instance, once we identify the causes of group conflict, we can prevent such conflict from occurring. For example, let us assume that one of the causes of group conflict is stereotyping of an out group. In this case, we can at least defuse the possibility of conflict by taking steps to prevent stereotyping (O'Brien in Gilbert 1993:7;

The interpretive approach

interpretivism: an approach to social science that emphasises the importance  of insiders' viewpoints to understanding social realities. Interpretivists argue that social reality is inherently meaningful. People have the ability to interpret a situation and decide how to act in response to this situation. By consciously participating in a situation, they attribute meaning to that situation.

Meaning is constructed through human beings interacting with each other and playing a central role in defining a situation to make sense of it. These meanings are generated in a social process and often shared intersubjectively. Patterns and regularities in behaviour emerge from the social conventions established by purposefully interacting human beings. These patterns emerge from an intersubjective understanding of the meaningfulness of a situation (Sarantakos 1998:36±37; Wilson 1983:9,114±116). In this respect these patterns are viewed as implicative rather than strictly causal.

Interpretivists argue that the purpose of research is to make social reality intelligible and reveal its inherent meaningfulness. Meaningful actions need to be understood from within. This requires studying how social reality is experienced, interpreted and understood. In this respect interpretivists claim that there is no external social reality.

Social reality is created through conscious actions of human beings. Interpretive social scientists therefore argue that there is no basis for using the same methods as the natural sciences. They insist that social reality differs fundamentally from natural reality and to explain social actions we need to first understand the meaningfulness of social reality (Denzin 1989:5; Mason 1996:47).

But how do interpretivists access the meaningfulness of social reality? They argue that researchers have to be sensitive to the social context in which meaning is produced.

Social reality is approached from the perspective of the human beings who actively construct this reality. One useful strategy is to pay attention to common sense because this provides insight into human beings' own understanding of their situation.

Paying attention to human beings' understanding of their own situation enables researchers to see how people construct and understand these situations intuitively.

Value-freedom, neutrality or detachment is of little use to the interpretive researcher since there is no external reality independent of the particular context in which meaning is attributed. Interpretivists see values as an integral part of social reality and emphasise that they should be acknowledged as such (Bailey 1996:28; Mason 1996:4,6; Ragin 1994:43±44; Sarantakos 1998:38).

They argue that research into social reality is justified by its ability to demonstrate the meaningfulness of social interaction in a particular context. Successful research must provide outsiders with adequate understanding of the situation so that they can communicate with insiders (Ashley & Orenstein 1990:41; Wilson 1983:120±121).

The critical approach: an approach to social science that emphasises the need to uncover hidden processes and structures within society.

Critical social scientists argue that social reality is multi-layered. Although social reality presents us with a facade there are more dimensions to social reality than initially appear to us.

In this respect it is crucial to move from the surface structures (the way social reality presents itself) to the underlying mechanisms by which social reality is maintained. We need to penetrate the layers of social reality and uncover underlying relationships that determine its real characteristics to truly understand its nature.

For instance, processes and practices designed to sustain the current state of affairs in a society often mask the mechanisms that actually result in inequality and exploitation within a society. Relationships of authority are reinforced through interaction. The dominant discourse presents a view of reality constructed by the powerful. This discourse serves the interests of the powerful by manipulating and conditioning others to accept it as correct. A false consciousness is created when people accept the situation as being natural and therefore unconsciously reproduce the relationships (social structure) that govern them. It is only when the illusion of the social reality as it presents itself is exposed and the underlying tensions and contradictions become apparent that the full potential of human creativity and agency can be unleashed. The awareness created by exposing the false consciousness enables people to reflect on how they are both products and creators of social reality.

Social reality therefore becomes a human construction with more than one possibility. Once this awareness is created, the transformation of social reality is possible. It should be noted that although human beings have the potential to change social reality through their actions, the structures of social reality enables or constrains these actions (Ashley & Orenstein 1990:41±42; Sarantakos 1998:36±37,60±61; Sayer 1992:40; Wilson 1983:9,168,175)

How then can we get to know this multi-layered social reality? Critical social scientists argue that positivist social scientists' emphasis on discovering objective facts that are observable and measurable is misguided because social reality cannot be taken only at its face value. Critical social scientists claim that observable surface structures seldom coincide with reality. This is why critical social scientists rely on theory. Their theory provides models or analogies that reveal the hidden structures that determine the key characteristics of social reality. By using the logic and reasoning of these abstract frameworks (theory) researchers can work out the implications of the underlying, hidden dynamics of social reality. They can then predict how the consequences of these hidden dynamics will reveal themselves in observable surface structures (ie the ``facade'' we referred to earlier on). According to critical social scientists, empirically observed patterns (ie the patterns we can see) are the evidence that points to the underlying mechanisms. When observations confirm the predictions made by theory, researchers' are more confident that these unobservable structures do, in fact, exist.

Note that critical social scientists do not reject facts, but argue that the truth of social reality goes beyond empirical facts.

Critical social scientists also argue that the interpretive approach perpetuates the myths of social reality by reducing it to common-sense interpretation and understanding. This stance is taken because critical social scientists claim that common-sense understandings are contaminated by a false consciousness. They do not reject attempts to understand common-sense ideas, but they warn that these are only partial and incomplete. For critical social scientists understanding the subjective experiences of human beings cannot be the end goal of social science. Instead, science should transcend barriers by examining the unexamined and critically reflecting on it (Richards 1989:3, 126; Sayer 1992:4,39±40; Wilson 1983:166,173±174).

Critical social sciences assume that a critical and reflective researcher will actively engage with the subject matter. Objectivity is not a goal because researchers are morally committed to challenging inequalities and domination. In order to emancipate human beings from the ideology that sustains their false consciousness they need to be made aware of the underlying mechanisms that structure their daily lives. This awareness of the real nature of social reality will empower human beings to work towards meaningful social change and transformation. Theory serves as a guide by suggesting possible progressive alternatives. By exposing the current underlying mechanisms that need to be challenged, theory provides a critical and activist agenda.

The quantitative approach

Mouton and Marais (1989:157) define ``quantitative approach'' as follows:

... the approach used by researchers in the social sciences that is more formalised in nature as well as explicitly controlled, with a more carefully defined scope, and that is relatively close to the approach used by researchers in the natural sciences (translation).

This approach aims at examining the generally accepted explanations of phenomena, and is therefore more structured and controlled in nature. The scope of this type of approach is larger and more universal in nature, and can also be defined accurately. An example here would be research into the nature and scope of gang activities in, say, South African prisons. For the research to be valid and reliable, use is made of specific scientific methods and techniques (the survey method [such as questionnaires], random sampling, etc). This is so because quantitative research is more structured and controlled in nature. Also, the scope of this type of research is more universal in nature, and can be defined acccurately. The points of departure here are the following (Neser et al 1995:43):

1. Natural and social realities are observed and studied in the same way.

2. Scientific knowledge should be factually based on things that can be observed and measured by means of the senses.

3. The research process should yield value-free knowledge.

In this type of research, preference is given to the following methods and techniques (Neser et al 1995:53):

1. conceptualisation of concepts that can be operationalised through measuring instruments

2. data-collection techniques, such as structured questionnaires and schedules

3. data-analysis techniques, varying from simple cross-tabulation of the data to complex analysis techniques

The qualitative approach

Mouton and Marais (1989:157) define ``qualitative approach'' as follows: ... that approach in which the procedures are formalised and explicated in a not so strict manner, but in which the scope is less defined in nature and in which the researcher does his or her investigation in a more philosophical manner (translation).

In qualitative research, the point of departure is to study the object, namely man, within unique and meaningful human situations or interactions. An important aspect of this type of approach is that often it is observation that generates the investigation.

Although qualitative research is not based on fixed and rigid procedures it nevertheless provides the researcher with a set of strategies with which to organise the research and to collect and to process or to interpret data. In this type of research, preference is given to the following methods and techniques (Neser et al 1995:53±54):

1. concepts that capture the meaning of the experience (situation), action or interaction of the research object (man)

2. unstructured (open) questionnaires and interviews

3. participant observation, ethnographic studies and case studies

4. recording of life histories, use of autobiographies and diaries

5. analysis of collected data by means of non-quantitative frameworks and category systems

According to Borg and Gall (1989:385±387) qualitative research has the following general characteristics:

1. This type of research involves a wholistic investigation executed in a natural set-up. The researcher tries to study all the elements that are present within that particular set-up/situation. The set-up is studied as a whole in order to understand the realities involved. For this reason, the researcher tries to understand a phenomenon within its social, cultural and historical context.

2. Man is the primary data-collecting instrument in this type of research. The qualitative researcher relies on man as observer, rather than relying on measuring instruments. The qualitative researcher can adapt to a complex situation as it develops. Differences in values and prejudices can be taken into account. Additional data are obtained by means of other more objective instruments, such as documents or questionnaires.

3. The emphasis is on the use of qualitative methods.

4. Subjects are selected in a purposeful, rather than a random, manner. There is a purposeful selection of a wide variety of subjects, which can then be observed by the researcher.

5. The researcher makes use of inductive data analysis, so that unexpected results will also come to the fore. First, the researcher collects the data, and then he or she tries to understand the situation and make deductions.

6. A grounded theory can be developed that is, a theory that was actually developed from the data and that is thought to be better than predeveloped theory (as is the case in quantitative research). Such a grounded theory reflects the data in a more accurate manner. There are also many quantitative researchers who acknowledge the value of a grounded theory and who then do pilot studies in order to develop theoretical constructs that they eventually test by means of quantitative methods.

7. The design of the research develops as the research develops. In qualitative studies, the researcher begins with a tentative design (sometimes even without a design), and develops the design as the research develops. In this way, the design can be adapted and variables can be included that had not been considered before that particular phenomenon was observed.

8. The subject plays a role in the interpretation of the results. Qualitative researchers try to reconstruct reality from the subject's frame of reference. In quantitative research, the object of study or person is called the respondent, and in qualitative research he or she is called the subject.

9. Intuitive insights are used. In qualitative research, the emphasis is more on intuition-based knowledge (ie, on the subject's experience of a situation).

10. The emphasis is on social processes. Qualitative studies focus on the social processes and the meanings attached to such social situations by the participants.

According to Marshall and Rossman (1989:46) the following types of research can be used within the qualitative set-up:

1. research that, because of practical and ethical considerations, cannot be done by means of an experiment

2. research that makes in-depth inquiries into complexities and processes

3. research the relevant variables of which still need to be identified

4. research that tries to find out and explore why the current policy and practice do not work

5. research about unknown phenomena

According to Mouton and Marais (1989:165), the methods for collecting data used by quantitative and qualitative researchers differ in the following ways:

1. One of the characteristics of quantitative researchers is that they use a system as a point of departure for their research. This system is then applied to the phenomenon that is investigated: for example, they will use a structured schedule for an interview, or response categories in a questionnaire or test. In other words, a specific structure is imposed on the phenomenon.

In qualitative research, on the other hand, the point of departure is that the phenomenon should be self-evident that is, the phenomenon needs to manifest itself as it is, and the researcher will register this (translation).

2. Quantitative researchers look at the phenomenon from a distance a disadvantage being that they then have problems accommodating behavioural manifestations that were not anticipated in the research.

Qualitative researchers, on the other hand, are more involved in and with the phenomenon. Sometimes they are even prepared to be part of the phenomenon that is studied: for example as members of a gang. This would give them the opportunity to describe their own experiences, from their own observations. Qualitative researchers are therefore more open to observation and to pinpoint behaviour or conduct accurately.

Multiple methods or triangulation

Researchers soon came to realise that although qualitative research and quantitative research do differ, they can also, in specific areas, complement each other.

Researchers then realised that the two methods could be used in conjunction, that is, on a complementary basis.

Because of the complicity in a ``confused reality'' it is difficult to study/investigate a phenomenon in its totality. In this complex reality, multiple methods (also called ``triangulation'') afford a partial solution (Borg & Gall 1989:393).

The concept of ``triangulation'' is used by surveyors. When surveying a piece of land, surveyors make use of various viewpoints or beacons from which to measure this same piece of land from different angles. In this way, they can identify a true fixed point.

The social scientist uses the concept of ``multiple methods'' or ``triangulation'' to denote the use of various measuring instruments for collecting data. The data-collection techniques used are, among others, tests, direct observation, interview(s), content analysis, and their purpose is to be able to investigate the same variable(s) in a specific phenomenon. According to Shipman (in Borg & Gall 1989:393) the use of a single method or technique for a specific phenomenon is like ``... a one-dimensional snapshot of a very wide and deep social scene''.

If various methods and techniques are used for measuring the same variables and these measuring instruments yield identical results, it will lead to a greater and deeper measure of belief in these instruments. The main advantage of this type of research is that if there were to be only one measuring instrument for measuring the same phenomenon the investigation would be even more reliable and valid (Neuman 1997:151).

This type of investigation actually involves repetition in investigating the same phenomenon. This is done by the sequential and simultaneous use of quantitative and qualitative methods, thus developing a hypothesis or hypotheses through the qualitative method, and testing it or them through the quantitative method.

It is important, however, not to use the two methods at random or for convenience' sake. An example here would be a quantitative investigation in which the respondents are given questionnaires. If there are a few ``open'' questions in the questionnaire it still does not mean that the researcher now also makes use of the qualitative method.

Nieswiadomy (1993:160±161) points out that the underlying meaning of the data should be investigated thoroughly and taken into account.

Multiple methods have the following distinctive characteristics (Neser et al 1995:59):

1. Research decisions are based on assumptions that include both the quantitative and the qualitative approaches to research.

2. A style of research is used that includes both quantitative and qualitative methods and techniques.

3. The data are used in a complementary manner.

Comparing Qualitative approach and Quantitative approach in research

Basically, quantitative research is objective; qualitative is subjective. Quantitative research seeks explanatory laws; qualitative research aims at in-depth description. Qualitative research measures what it assumes to be a static reality in hopes of developing universal laws. Qualitative research is an exploration of what is assumed to be a dynamic reality. It does not claim that what is discovered in the process is universal, and thus, replicable. Common differences usually cited between these types of research include.

In general, qualitative research generates rich, detailed and valid (process) data that contribute to in-depth understanding of the context. Quantitative research generates reliable population based and generalizable data and is well suited to establishing cause-and-effect relationships. The decision of whether to choose a quantitative or a qualitative design is a philosophical question.

Which methods to choose will depend on the nature of the project, the type of information needed, the context of the study and the availability of recourses (time, money, and human).

It is important to keep in mind that these are two different philosophers, not necessarily polar opposites. In fact, elements of both designs can be used together in mixed-methods studies.

Combining of qualitative and quantitative research is becoming more and more common.

Every method is different line of sight directed toward the same point, observing social and symbolic reality. The use of multiple lines of sight is called triangulation.

It is a combination of two types of research. It is also called pluralistic research.

Advantages of combining both types of research include: research development (one approach is used to inform the other, such as using qualitative research to develop an instrument to be used in quantitative research)

Increased validity (confirmation of results by means of different data sources)

Complementarities (adding information, i.e. words to numbers and vice versa)

Creating new lines of thinking by the emergence of fresh perspectives and contradictions.

Barriers to integration include philosophical differences, cost, inadequate training and publication bias.

Qualitative data analysis

Qualitative analysis involves a continual interplay between theory and analysis. In analysing qualitative data, we seek to discover patterns such as changes over time or possible causal links between variables.

Qualitative approach

Qualitative Research is collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data by observing what people do and say. Whereas, quantitative research refers to counts and measures of things, qualitative research refers to the meanings, concepts, definitions, characteristics, metaphors, symbols, and descriptions of things.

Qualitative research is much more subjective than quantitative research and uses very different methods of collecting information, mainly individual, in-depth interviews and focus groups. The nature of this type of research is exploratory and open-ended. Small numbers of people are interviewed in-depth and/or a relatively small number of focus groups are conducted.

Participants are asked to respond to general questions and the interviewer or group moderator probes and explores their responses to identify and define people’s perceptions, opinions and feelings about the topic or idea being discussed and to determine the degree of agreement that exists in the group. The quality of the finding from qualitative research is directly dependent upon the skills, experience and sensitive of the interviewer or group moderator.

This type of research is often less costly than surveys and is extremely effective in acquiring information about people’s communications needs and their responses to and views about specific communications.

Qualitative approach produce detailed and non-quantitative accounts of small groups, seeking to interpret the meanings people make of their lives in natural settings, on the assumption that social interactions from an integrated set of relationships best understood by inductive procedures.

Qualitative approach is especially interested in how ordinary people observe and describe their lives’. It is an umbrella term covering types of research. Almost all share certain features:

-The core concern is to seek out and interpret the meanings that people bring to their own actions, rather than describing any regularities or statistical associations between “variables”

-They treat actions as part of holistic social process and context, rather than as something that can be extracted and studied in isolation

-They set out to encounter social phenomena as they naturally occur (observing what happens, rather than making it happen)

-They operate at less abstract and generalized level of explanation

-They utilize non-representative, small samples of people, rather than working from large representative simples to identify the broad sweep of national patterns

-They focus on the detail of human life

-Rather than starting with a theoretical hypothesis, and trying to test it, they explore the data they encounter and allow ideas to emerge from them (i.e. using inductive , not deductive, logic)

In qualitative approach, there is no prior social order, or social structure external to the lived experiences of the actors, that predetermines outcomes. It makes little sense to seek general “laws” of how “society” works, because society is only the sum total of the many complex social situations that are going on at time.

Only qualitative approach, with their detailed, flexible, sensitive and naturalistic characteristics, are suited to producing adequate sociological accounts.

Quantitative approach

Quantitative methods (only using deductive logic) seek regularities inhuman lives, by separating the social world into empirical components called variables which can be represented numerically as frequencies or rate, whose associations with each other can be explored by statistical techniques, and accessed through research-introduced  stimuli and systematic measurement.

Quantitative Research options have been predetermined and a large number of respondents are involved. By definition, measurement must be objective, quantitative and statistically valid.

Simply put, it’s about numbers, objective hard data. The sample size for a survey is calculated by statisticians using formulas to determine how large a sample size will be needed from a given population in order to achieve findings with an acceptable degree of accuracy. Generally, researchers seek sample sizes which yield findings with at least a 95% confidence interval (which means that if you repeat the survey 100 times, 95 times out of a hundred, you would get the same response), plus/minus a margin error of 5 percentage points. Many surveys are designed to produce a smaller margin of error.

Quantitative methods’ is an umbrella term covering different types of research . In its simple form, it consists of counting of how frequently things happen (e.g. educational qualification levels among school leaves, attendance at doctors’ surgeries, rates of divorces, proportion of national population living below the poverty line and the presentation of these frequencies as summaries in tables and graphs. This can be extended by looking at how two or more factors seem to be connected,

Almost all forms of quantitative research share certain features:

-         The core concern is to describe and account regularities in social behaviour, rather than seeking out and interpreting the meanings that people bring to their own actions.

-         Patterns of behaviour can be separated out into variables, and represented by numbers

-         Explanations are expressed as associations (usually statistical) between variables, ideally in form that enables prediction of outcomes from know regularities

-         They explore social phenomena not just they naturally occur, but by introducing stimuli like survey questions, collecting data by systematic, repeated and controlled measurements.

-         They are based on assumption that social processes exist outside of individual actors’ comprehension, constraining individual actions, and accessible to researchers by virtue of prior theoretical and empirical knowledge.

Quantitative approach lays greater stress on prior social order or social structures external to the actors as contributing to the shaping of outcomes

They often test theoretical hypotheses (i.e.using deductive  not inductive logic)

Most quantitative research operates with less detail than qualitative research method, but with a wider scope and more generalized level of explanation

It utilizes representative simple to control for variations between people. Sometime this based on programmatic decisions.

Source:  GEOFF PAYNE and JUDY PAYNE (2004, p. 175) Key Concepts in Social Research, London

               

ETHNOGRAPHY, the basic field research method in anthropology.

Ethnographic Research

Definition and Background

Although a grounded theory researcher develops a theory from examining many individuals who share in the same process, action, or interaction, the study participants are not likely to be located in the same place or interacting on so frequent a basis that they develop shared patterns of behavior, beliefs, and language. An ethnographer is interested in examining these shared patterns, and the unit of analysis is larger than the 20 or so individuals involved in a grounded theory study. An ethnography focuses on an entire cultural group. Granted, sometimes this cultural group may be small (a few teachers, a few social workers), but typically it is large, involving many people who interact over time (teachers in an entire school, a community social work group). Ethnography is a qualitative design in which the researcher describes and interprets the shared and learned patterns of values, behaviors, beliefs, and language of a culture-sharing group (Harris, 1968).

As both a process and an outcome of research (Agar, 1980), ethnography is a way of studying a culture-sharing group as well as the final, written product of that research. As a process, ethnography involves extended observations of the group, most often through participant observation, in which the researcher is immersed in the day-to-day lives of the people and observes and interviews the group participants. Ethnographers study the meaning of the behavior, the language, and the interaction among members of the culture-sharing group.

Ethnography had its beginning in the comparative cultural anthropology conducted by early 20th-century anthropologists, such as Boas, Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, and Mead. Although these researchers initially took the natural sciences as a model for research, they differed from those using traditional scientific approaches through the firsthand collection of data concerning existing “primitive” cultures (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1994).

Types of Ethnographies

There are many forms of ethnography, such as a confessional ethnography, life history, autoethnography, feminist ethnography, ethnographic novels, and the visual ethnography found in photography and video, and electronic media (Denzin, 1989a; LeCompte, Millroy, & Preissle, 1992; Pink, 2001; Van Maanen, 1988). Two popular forms of ethnography will be emphasized here: the realist ethnography and the critical ethnography.

The realist ethnography is a traditional approach used by cultural anthropologists.

Characterized by Van Maanen (1988), it reflects a particular stance taken by the researcher toward the individuals being studied. Realist ethnography is an objective account of the situation, typically written in the third person point of view and reporting objectively on the information learned from participants at a site. In this ethnographic approach, the realist ethnographer narrates the study in a third-person dispassionate voice and reports on what is observed or heard from participants. The ethnographer remains in the background as an omniscient reporter of the “facts.” The realist also reports objective data in a measured style uncontaminated by personal bias, political goals, and judgment. The researcher may provide mundane details of everyday life among the people studied. The ethnographer also uses standard categories for cultural description (e.g., family life, communication networks, worklife, social networks, status systems). The ethnographer produces the participants’ views through closely edited quotations and has the final word on how the culture is to be interpreted and presented.

For many researchers, ethnography today employs a “critical” approach (Carspecken & Apple, 1992; Madison, 2005; Thomas, 1993) by including in the research an advocacy perspective. This approach is in response to current society, in which the systems of power, prestige, privilege, and authority serve to marginalize individuals who are from different classes, races, and genders.

The critical ethnography is a type of ethnographic research in which the authors advocate for the emancipation of groups marginalized in society (Thomas, 1993). Critical researchers typically are politically minded individuals who seek, through their research, to speak out against inequality and domination (Carspecken & Apple, 1992). For example, critical ethnographers might study schools that provide privileges to certain types of students, or counseling practices that serve to overlook the needs of underrepresented groups. The major components of a critical ethnography include a value-laden orientation, empowering people by giving them more authority, challenging the status quo, and addressing concerns about power and control. A critical ethnographer will study issues of power, empowerment, inequality, inequity, dominance, repression, hegemony, and victimization.

Procedures for Conducting an Ethnography

As with all qualitative inquiry, there is no single way to conduct the research in ethnography. Although current writings provide more guidance to this approach than ever the approach taken here includes elements of both realist ethnography and critical approaches. The steps I would use to conduct ethnography are as follows:

• Determine if ethnography is the most appropriate design to use to study the research problem. Ethnography is appropriate if the needs are to describe how a cultural group works and to explore the beliefs, language, behaviors, and issues such as power, resistance, and dominance. The literature may be deficient in actually knowing how the group works because the group is not in the mainstream, people may not be familiar with the group, or its ways are so different that readers may not identify with the group.

• Identify and locate a culture-sharing group to study. Typically, this group is one that has been together for an extended period of time, so that their shared language, patterns of behavior, and attitudes have merged into a discernable pattern. This may also be a group that has been marginalized by society. Because ethnographers spend time talking with and observing this group, access may require finding one or more individuals in the group who will allow the researcher in—a gatekeeper or key informants (or participants).

• Select cultural themes or issues to study about the group. This involves the analysis of the culture-sharing group. The themes may include such topics as enculturation, socialization, learning, cognition, domination, inequality, or child and adult development (LeCompte, Millroy, & Preissle, 1992).

As discussed by Hammersley and Atkinson (1995), Wolcott (1987, 1994b), and Fetterman (1998), the ethnographer begins the study by examining people in interaction in ordinary settings and by attempting to discern pervasive patterns such as life cycles, events, and cultural themes. Culture is an amorphous term, not something “lying about” (Wolcott, 1987, p. 41), but something researchers attribute to a group when looking for patterns of their social world. It is inferred from the words and actions of members of the group, and it is assigned to this group by the researcher. It consists of what people do (behaviors), what they say (language), the potential tension between what they do and ought to do, and what they make and use, such as artifacts (Spradley, 1980).

Fetterman (1998) discusses how ethnographers describe a holistic perspective of the group’s history, religion, politics, economy, and environment. Within this description, cultural concepts such as the social structure, kinship, the political structure, and the social relations or function among members of the group may be described.

• To study cultural concepts, determine which type of ethnography to use. Perhaps how the group works needs to be described, or the critical ethnography may need to expose issues such as power, hegemony, and to advocate for certain groups. A critical ethnographer, for example, might  address an inequity in society or some part of it, use the research to advocate and call for changes, and specify an issue to explore, such as inequality, dominance, oppression, or empowerment.

• Gather information where the group works and lives. This is called fieldwork (Wolcott, 1999). Gathering the types of information typically needed in ethnography involves going to the research site, respecting the daily lives of individuals at the site, and collecting a wide variety of materials. Field issues of respect, reciprocity, deciding who owns the data, and others are central to ethnography. Ethnographers bring a sensitivity to fieldwork issues (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995), such as attending to how they gain access, giving back or reciprocity with the participants, and being ethical in all aspects of the research, such as presenting themselves and the study. LeCompte and Schensul (1999) organize types of ethnographic data into observations, tests and measures, surveys, interviews, content analysis, interviews, elicitation methods, audiovisual methods, spatial mapping, and network research. From the many sources collected, the ethnographer analyzes the data for a description of the culture-sharing group, themes that emerge from the group, and an overall interpretation (Wolcott, 1994b). The researcher begins by compiling a detailed description of the culture-sharing group, focusing on a single event, on several activities, or on the group over a prolonged period of time. The ethnographer moves into a theme analysis of patterns or topics that signifies how the cultural group works and lives.

• Forge a working set of rules or patterns as the final product of this analysis. The final product is a holistic cultural portrait of the group that incorporates the views of the participants (emic) as well as the views of the researcher (etic). It might also advocate for the needs of the group or suggest changes in society to address needs of the group. As a result, the reader learns about the culture-sharing group from both the participants and the interpretation of the researcher. Other products may be more performance based, such as theater productions, plays, or poems.

Challenges

Ethnography is challenging to use for the following reasons. The researcher needs to have grounding in cultural anthropology and the meaning of a social-cultural system as well as the concepts typically explored by ethnographers.

The time to collect data is extensive, involving prolonged time in the field. In many ethnographies, the narratives are written in a literary, almost storytelling approach, an approach that may limit the audience for the work and may be challenging for authors accustomed to traditional approaches to writing social and human science research.

There is a possibility that the researcher will “go native” and be unable to complete the study or be compromised in the study. This is but one issue in the complex array of fieldwork issues facing ethnographers who venture into an unfamiliar cultural group or system. A sensitivity to the needs of individual studies is especially important, and the researcher needs to acknowledge his or her impact on the people and the places being studied.

INTRODUCTION

Ethnography has become an established component of the repertoire of research methods. It was developed in anthropology, but in recent decades its use has spread widely in the social sciences and the humanities. The critical evaluation of ethnographic data is not yet well developed. Appropriate use of this type of material therefore requires an understanding of its special strengths and weaknesses. These derive not only from the objectives that underlie ethnographic work, both conscious and unconscious, but also from the cultural background of the investigators, the various factors that condition each particular relationship between investigator and subject, and other factors that arise from the particular time and place of the observation. All of these factors have changed over time and continue to evolve.

The term “ethnography” first appeared in England in the 1830s. It was coined after a German model to characterize the burgeoning literature in English on the manners and customs of the “races” (ethna) of the world.

By the end of the 19th century ethnography had become the general term for qualitative data on other cultures and societies, and also for the field inquiries that produced them. It began as the study of tribal, non-literate societies.

Later, and especially since the 1950s, it has moved progressively into the arena of contemporary societies generally, including modern industrial societies, and now deals consciously with the entirety of the human record. It developed as an integral component of anthropology (within the branch sometimes called ethnology, later mainly social or cultural anthropology), which was first established in major universities in England and America in the 1880s with the mandate to document and make sense of the full range of human variation.

The first landmark in the history of ethnography was the compilation in 1839 (long before anthropology was professionalized), by a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Section H) and the Anthropological Institute in London, of the lines of inquiry to be pursued by ethnographers, entitled “Notes and Queries on Anthropology.” This handbook was updated in successive editions until 1971. However, ethnography was formally conceptualized as a systematic research method by Bronislaw Malinowski (see Argonauts of the Western Pacific, London, 1922, especially pp. 2-25).

The hallmark of the ethnographic method as developed in England after Malinowski is intensive participant observation over an extended period in a culturally alien community.

The ethnographer gathers data on the day-to-day community life by observing while actually participating in it. The work usually extends over at least one full year, and is conducted in the vernacular language.

Observation is supplemented by discussion with local informants. The core of anthropological training for ethnographic research consists primarily in the comparative study of ethnographic reports from various parts of the world. This study culminates typically in a first ethnographic experience, often lasting as much as two years, which is intensely personal in both emotional and more general psychological terms, and occasionally traumatic. Many of the ethnographic monographs in the bibliography below, and most of the dissertations, derive from such an experience. For some this was the only such experience, and if successful (from the professional point of view) the field notes might be mined for data to support various theoretical arguments throughout the ensuing professional career.

Ethnographers do not observe randomly or report comprehensively. Each ethnographic field project is designed within the framework of the evolving corpus of theoretical discussions on the explanation of variation and difference in human thought and behavior from community to community. Although the development of theoretical awareness among ethnographers was gradual, by the 1950s it had become at least equally as important in the choice of a research community as the objective of finding new material from areas of the world as yet unstudied. It required them, for example, to demonstrate how local, culturally specific ways of seeing the world made sense in their own terms, how community life “worked” in the sense that each unit of the ethnographer’s description served to reinforce the cohesive functioning of the life of the community. Other more complex ways of making sense of ethnographic data, and of formulating problems for ethnographic investigation have emerged since the middle of the century.

The primary objective of professional ethnography is therefore both descriptive and synthetic: the extrapolation of patterns from what can be recorded of the everyday life of a community for the purpose of comparison and contrast with similar data from elsewhere, and the further development of our theoretical understanding of social and cultural processes.

The ethnographer’s cross-cultural training enables him to record and make sense of the experience of a community of which he has no previous experience according to an agenda developed from a broad exposure, both personal and vicarious, to cultural variation in general, in order to make cross-cultural comparisons that will assist in the study not only of particular cultural processes, but also of the human condition in general—human nature, irrespective of cultural variation.

The strengths of this orientation inevitably bring with them a number of potential weaknesses. The need to see order in observed phenomena by extrapolating regularities encourages the ethnographer not only (a) to be more interested in pattern than process, but (b) to assume that modernization and various external influences have disrupted many regularities and (c) to reconstruct a recent past when such influences can be assumed not to have been operating. This assumption is often encouraged by local informants.

Awareness of the various ways in which these strengths and weaknesses affect the ethnographic product make it significantly more valuable. To begin with, it is important to understand how ethnographers formulate their research problems and organize the larger ethnographic library for which the data are gathered. They have always been confronted by the challenge of how to reduce the infinite variety of social and cultural data to some sort of order. They therefore classify it, and develop their research projects in the light of their classification, which then in turn conditions what they pay most attention to in their observations and documentation.

Conventional ethnographic research is most likely to produce significant results in open societies where ordinary people readily welcome foreigners not only as transient guests but as intimate participants in their daily lives.

However, although it is difficult to do ethnography in conditions inimical to foreigners, the determination required to do it in relatively closed conditions can sometimes produce rich data. In some parts of the world (for example, much of Africa) villagers typically welcome the opportunity to discuss community life and traditions with an ethnographer; in others, an ethnographer’s inquisitive participation tends to be unwelcome and is steered away from many of the obvious topics of anthropological interest.

It is not surprising that Islamic interest in ensuring the privacy of the household inhibits inquiries that by their nature intrude on the privacy of family life. It may be particularly difficult for the ethnographer to break into the public life of a community without the advantage, at least to begin with, of quasi-socialization in the private arena.

For these reasons although ethnographic activity peaked in Iran in the 1970s, the corpus that has resulted contains relatively little of the rich analytical description of social interaction that characterizes the best work from some other parts of the world.

More recently ethnography has been accused of the opposite fault. It has been indicted, along with “Orientalism” (in the meaning promoted by Edward Said, in Orientalism, New York, 1978), for political bias inspired by, and serving the purposes of, the imperialist governments under which it evolved. According to this criticism it evinces the writers’ sense of their own military and cultural, perhaps even natural, superiority.

Partly because of the anthropologist’s ahistorical interest in generalization, ethnography is often written in an artificially timeless “ethnographic present.” A Western tendency to see all life outside the modern West as somehow timeless makes it easy to overlook the temporal specificity of all data. Although this problem is less conspicuous in more recent work, because of the increased tempo of change all over the world it is still necessary to emphasize that all ethnographic data need to be carefully historicized before use.

The accelerating rate of social and cultural change and the growing fragmentation of modern societies is generally reflected in ethnographic writing, but no useful summary of how ethnography has recently been evolving has yet appeared. Since the 1950s ethnography has changed in significant ways, to the extent that data from different decades are not always directly comparable. Changes in theoretical interest have changed what ethnographers look for, and what they see and record.

Any treatment of ethnography must take account of change, both in the culture under study and in the home culture. The degree to which ethnography should be, or even can be, an objective method of science or a reflexive method of the humanities and the arts is an issue that has arisen since the 1970s and is unresolved.

Ethnography is not the only anthropological research method. Although it remains the most characteristic field research method, much anthropological work, especially in recent decades, is at least partly based on one or more complementary methods, such as ethnohistory (the correlation of documentary and various circumstantial materials with oral history), and other methods borrowed and adapted from linguistics, history, and the other social sciences.

It is typically constrained by deadlines, a condition which tends to vitiate the advantages of the method, but it should be noted that other market pressures have also conspired to reduce the average length of all ethnographic field seasons.

Phenomenology: Study of Lived Experience

In the literature, there continues to be much disagreement about the meaning of phenomenology possibly because the term has been used so widely. For instance, phenomenology has been conceptualised as a philosophy, a research method and an overarching perspective from which all qualitative research is sourced (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994).

If ethnography has its roots in the discipline of anthropology, phenomenology is grounded in early-20th-century continental philosophy, particularly of Heidegger (1962) and Husserl (1913).

The beginning and end point of phenomenological research is lived experience. Lived experience has a temporal structure: it can never be grasped in its immediate manifestation but only reflectively as past presence. The interpretive assumption of lived experience treats experience as a text; understanding the meaning of the whole, and vice versa. Thus, a meaningful interpretation consists of back-and-forth movement between parts and whole. Understanding cannot be pursued in the absence of context and interpretive framework.

In hermeneutic perspective, human experience is context-bound and there can be no context-free or neutral scientific language with which to express what happens in the social world. At best we could have laws applying only to a limited context for a limited time.

Phenomenology is a human science which studies persons. In research terminology one often uses "subjects" to refer to the persons involved in one's study. The concept of subject masks individual differences, blurring the uniqueness of real people. In contrast, the word "persons" emphasizes the uniqueness of each human being.

Unlike ethnography, phenomenology is a philosophical rather than a methodological orientation. It is relatively recently that the epistemological positions were translated into methods (cf., Thompson, 1985; van Manen, 1990). The major instruments are open ended interviews and reflective journals. Phenomenological methods differ from ethnographic methods in that they are not field oriented nor naturalistic: conducting interviews and eliciting journals are, by definition, not "natural" activities, but strategies intended to facilitate reflection.

Types of Phenomenology

Two approaches to phenomenology are highlighted in this discussion: hermeneutic phenomenology (van Manen, 1990) and empirical, transcendental, or psychological phenomenology (Moustakas, 1994). Van Manen (1990) is widely cited in the health literature (Morse & Field, 1995). An educator, van Manen, has written an instructive book on hermeneutical phenomenology in which he describes research as oriented toward lived experience (phenomenology) and interpreting the “texts” of life (hermeneutics) (van Manen, 1990, p. 4).

Although van Manen does not approach phenomenology with a set of rules or methods, he discusses phenomenology research as a dynamic interplay among six research activities. Researchers first turn to a phenomenon, an “abiding concern” (p. 31), which seriously interests them (e.g., reading, running, driving, mothering). In the process, they reflect on essential themes, what constitutes the nature of this lived experience. They write a description of the phenomenon, maintaining a strong relation to the topic of inquiry and balancing the parts of the writing to the whole. Phenomenology is not only a description, but it is also seen as an interpretive process in which the researcher makes an interpretation (i.e., the researcher “mediates” between different meanings; van Manen, 1990, p. 26) of the meaning of the lived experiences.

Moustakas’s (1994) transcendental or psychological phenomenology is focused less on the interpretations of the researcher and more on a description of the experiences of participants. In addition, Moustakas focuses on one of Husserl’s concepts, epoche (or bracketing), in which investigators set aside their experiences, as much as possible, to take a fresh perspective toward the phenomenon under examination. Hence, “transcendental” means “in which everything is perceived freshly, as if for the first time” (Moustakas, 1994, p. 34). Moustakas admits that this state is seldom perfectly achieved.

However, I see researchers who embrace this idea when they begin a project by describing their own experiences with the phenomenon and bracketing out their views before proceeding with the experiences of others.

The procedures, illustrated by Moustakas (1994), consist of identifying a phenomenon to study, bracketing out one’s experiences, and collecting data from several persons who have experienced the phenomenon. The researcher then analyzes the data by reducing the information to significant statements or quotes and combines the statements into themes. Following that, the researcher develops a textural description of the experiences of the persons (what participants experienced), a structural description of their experiences (how they experienced it in terms of the conditions, situations, or context), and a combination of the textural and structural descriptions to convey an overall essence of the experience.

Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Research

I use the psychologist Moustakas’s (1994) approach because it has systematic steps in the data analysis procedure and guidelines for assembling the textual and structural descriptions. The conduct of psychological phenomenology has been addressed in a number of writings, including Dukes (1984), Tesch (1990), Giorgi (1985, 1994), Polkinghorne (1989), and, most recently, Moustakas (1994). The major procedural steps in the process would be as follows:

• The researcher determines if the research problem is best examined using a phenomenological approach. The type of problem best suited for this form of research is one in which it is important to understand several individuals’ common or shared experiences of a phenomenon. It would be important to understand these common experiences in order to develop practices or policies, or to develop a deeper understanding about the features of the phenomenon.

• A phenomenon of interest to study, such as anger, professionalism, what it means to be underweight, or what it means to be a wrestler, is identified. Moustakas (1994) provides numerous examples of phenomena that have been studied.

• The researcher recognizes and specifies the broad philosophical assumptions of phenomenology. For example, one could write about the combination of objective reality and individual experiences. These lived experiences are furthermore “conscious” and directed toward an object. To fully describe how participants view the phenomenon, researchers must bracket out, as much as possible, their own experiences.

• Data are collected from the individuals who have experienced the phenomenon.

Often data collection in phenomenological studies consists of indepth interviews and multiple interviews with participants. Polkinghorne (1989) recommends that researchers interview from 5 to 25 individuals who have all experienced the phenomenon. Other forms of data may also be collected, such as observations, journals, art, poetry, music, and other forms of art. Van Manen (1990) mentions taped conversations, formally written responses, accounts of vicarious experiences of drama, films, poetry, and novels.

• The participants are asked two broad, general questions (Moustakas, 1994): What have you experienced in terms of the phenomenon? What contexts or situations have typically influenced or affected your experiences of the phenomenon? Other open-ended questions may also be asked, but these two, especially, focus attention on gathering data that will lead to a textural description and a structural description of the experiences, and ultimately provide an understanding of the common experiences of the participants.

• Phenomenological data analysis steps are generally similar for all psychological phenomenologists who discuss the methods (Moustakas, 1994; Polkinghorne, 1989). Building on the data from the first and second research questions, data analysts go through the data (e.g., interview transcriptions) and highlight “significant statements,” sentences, or quotes that provide an understanding of how the participants experienced the phenomenon.

Moustakas (1994) calls this step horizonalization. Next, the researcher develops clusters of meaning from these significant statements into themes.

• These significant statements and themes are then used to write a description of what the participants experienced (textural description). They are also used to write a description of the context or setting that influenced how the participants experienced the phenomenon, called imaginative variation or structural description. Moustakas (1994) adds a further step: Researchers also write about their own experiences and the context and situations that have influenced their experiences.

• From the structural and textural descriptions, the researcher then writes a composite description that presents the “essence” of the phenomenon, called the essential, invariant structure (or essence). Primarily this passage focuses on the common experiences of the participants. For example, it means that all experiences have an underlying structure (grief is the same whether the loved one is a puppy, a parakeet, or a child). It is a descriptive passage, a long paragraph or two, and the reader should come away from the phenomenology with the feeling, “I understand better what it is like for someone to experience that” (Polkinghorne, 1989, p. 46).

Challenges

A phenomenology provides a deep understanding of a phenomenon as experienced by several individuals. Knowing some common experiences can be valuable for groups such as therapists, teachers, health personnel, and policymakers. Phenomenology can involve a streamlined form of data collection by including only single or multiple interviews with participants.

Using the Moustakas (1994) approach for analyzing the data helps provide a structured approach for novice researchers. On the other hand, phenomenology requires at least some understanding of the broader philosophical assumptions, and these should be identified by the researcher.

The participants in the study need to be carefully chosen to be individuals who have all experienced the phenomenon in question, so that the researcher, in the end, can forge a common understanding.

Bracketing personal experiences may be difficult for the researcher to implement. An interpretive approach to phenomenology would signal this as an impossibility (van Manen, 1990)—for the researcher to become separated from the text. Perhaps we need a new definition of epoche or bracketing, such as suspending our understandings in a reflective move that cultivates curiosity (LeVasseur, 2003). Thus, the researcher needs to decide how and in what way his or her personal understandings will be introduced into the study.

HERMENEUTIC PHENOMENOLOGY

Understanding hermeneutic phenomenology as a research method requires the definition and discussion of terms that may initially appear daunting – beginning with the phrase “hermeneutic phenomenology” itself. Phenomenology is the study of experience, particularly as it is lived and as it is structured through consciousness. “Experience” in this context refers not so much to accumulated evidence or knowledge as something that we “undergo.” It is something that happens to us, and not something accumulated and mastered by us.

Phenomenology asks that we be open to experience in this sense. Hermeneutics, for its part, is the art and science of interpretation and thus also of meaning.

Meaning in this context is not a thing that is final and stable, but something that is continuously open to new insight and interpretation. Hermeneutic phenomenology is consequently the study of experience together with its meanings. Like hermeneutics, this type of phenomenology is open to revision and reinterpretation: it is about an openness to meaning and to possible experiences. Hermeneutic phenomenology, in short, is as much a disposition and attitude as it is a distinct method or program for inquiry. As Max van Manen, one of the principle proponents of hermeneutic phenomenology as a research method, puts it: This approach represents an “attitude or disposition of sensitivity and openness: it is a matter of openness to everyday, experienced meanings as opposed to theoretical ones” (2002a, n.p.).

As it is considered in this collection, namely as a qualitative research method in educational (and related) research, hermeneutic phenomenology is clearly distinct from other qualitative research methods, and also from other phenomenological approaches. It rejects the claim of some phenomenological methods that ideal “essences” of experience or consciousness can be isolated outside of the researcher’s cultural and historical location. In its emphasis on the interpretation and reinterpretation of meaning, it rejects any “transcendental” claim to meaning or any research conclusions that are fixed once and for all. It does not study objects or phenomena as (potentially) objective, but as necessarily meaningful. As Emmanuel Levinas says, it does not seek to “understand the object, but its meaning” (1987, p. 110, italics added). Also, unlike many other phenomenological and qualitative research approaches, hermeneutic phenomenology is particularly open to literary and poetic qualities of language, and encourages aesthetically sensitized writing as both a process and product of research.

Phenomenology has its origins in the work of Edmund Husserl, who framed it primarily in philosophical terms – specifically as study of “essences,” of transcendental, ideal structures of consciousness. Since Husserl’s time, phenomenology as both a philosophy and method of inquiry has developed in a number of different directions, often reflecting distinct philosophical orientations.

One of the key occurrences in this history is its movement from the idealist or “transcendental” realm of essences to the “immanent” world of everyday objects and concerns. This development, as well as others in the history of hermeneutic phenomenology, is marked through the contributions of key philosophical figures.

Some of the most celebrated are Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty,

Emmanual Levinas, and Jean-Paul Sartre, who have both widened and deepened its philosophical features. Heidegger, a student of Husserl, played a particularly important (and at times problematic) role in emphasizing the phenomenology’s concern with “immanence,” and in connecting it with hermeneutics. Heidegger articulated these emphases or shifts in the program of phenomenology by placing priority on the study of “being,” on how we find ourselves or simply “are” in the world. This is a type of study otherwise known as “ontology.”

Action Research: The Practice Orientation

If the central point of ethnography is culture and the central point of phenomenology is lived experience, action research is based on the close interaction between practice, theory and change. The objects of action research-the things that action researchers study and aim to improve, are their own educational practices, their understandings of these practices and the institutions in which they operate. Action research involves intervention not only as a main feature during the data collection, but as an explicit goal of the research. The relationship between theory and practice is neither technical nor instrumental; it is concerned with the improvement of educational practices, understandings, and situations (Carr & Kemmis, 1986). Thus, one major difference between action research and other qualitative approaches is its pragmatic, practiceoriented emphasis as a primary motivation for the research.

Hult and Lennung (1980) identified three distinct traditions for action research:

the field of community relations, the functioning of organizations, and schooling. All areas reflected the growing interest in the U.S. in the application of scientific methods to the study of social and educational programs and in the study of group dynamics (Wallace, 1987). Action research was further developed by the social psychologist, Kurt Lewin, in the form of "change experiments." In these experiments, community workers were trained to collaborate so that they would overcome their sense of isolation in the field and become more effective in promoting harmonious relationships between different ethnic groups (Adelman, 1993). Here, action research drew on the quantitative paradigm using a variety of methods including experimental and descriptive methods.

Action research came largely qualitative in the projects initiated and inspired by Stenhouse (1975) and Elliott (1991) conducted in the United Kingdom from the late 1970s to the present.

Within action research there are several distinct views about what should be critiqued and examined. Gore and Zeichner (1991) distinguish between four varieties of reflective teaching practice. The first is an academic version that stresses the representation and translation of subject matter knowledge to promote student understanding. The second is a social efficiency version that emphasizes the thoughtful application of particular teaching strategies that have been suggested by research on teaching. The third is a developmentalist version that prioritizes teaching that is sensitive to students' interest, thinking and patterns of developmental growth. The fourth is a social reconstructionist version that stresses reflection about the social and political context of schooling and the assessment of clssroom actions for their ability to contribute toward greater equity, social justice and humane conditions in schooling and society.

In ethnography, the unit of analysis is the "sub-culture," a group of people sharing behaviors, customs and beliefs. In phenomenology, the unit of analysis is the individual or particular phenomenon. In action research the unit is typically one classroom, occasionally a building. In all approaches, the examination of the case holds the potential of transferability to other instances, but never leads to generalizability in the positivist sense. It is up to the writer to provide sufficiently thick descriptions so the reader can decide whether the findings are applicable to other situations.

Earlier I referred to the use of qualitative methods (participant observations, open ended and semi-structured interviews) as well suited to dealing with multiple realities and collaborative projects. The uses and functions of these particular methods, however, vary from approach to approach. Ethnographies are naturalistic, but phenomenologies typically are not, and action research is highly interventional. Ethnographies, based on an "I-Them" relationship, draw on in-depth, prolonged observations; semi-structured interviews; and, often, analysis of archival materials and documents. Phenomenological studies draw on in-depth, open-ended interviews and sometimes reflective journals as the main instruments to capture co-researchers' experiences. Interpretation is based  exclusively on the co-researchers' descriptions and interpretations rather than the direct observations of the researcher. "Facts" are regarded as starting points for understanding personal experience rather than as central data. When observations are part of the design, they serve the role of creating a shared situation as a common basis between researcher and co-researcher. Action research is typically based on observations by different actors and sometimes incorporates experimental design.

Another dimension from which we can examine these approaches is in terms of description, interpretation and evaluation. Ethnography is aimed toward learning in an empathic way about a sub-culture; typically, ethnographies refrain from evaluation of the studied culture, an attitude which is viewed as ethnocentric. Instead, they attempt to portray and understand the studied culture on its own terms by providing thick description and incorporating insiders' interpretations into the manuscript.

Phenomenology, too, is oriented toward description and interpretation rather than evaluation. In action research, however, description and interpretation serve as means to the teachers' evaluation of their curriculum and teaching, since the primary goal of conducting the study is toward the immediate improvement of their instruction. It is important, however, to point out that even though ethnographic and phenomenological studies are initially concerned with "understanding for its own sake," when conducted in the field of music education they are often regarded as a tool to foster pedagogy. Indeed, one could argue that all educational research is ultimately concerned with the improvement of teaching and learning, and that educational theories should serve educational practice

Finally, the criteria of merit for each of these three research orientations vary.

Ethnographic significance is derived socially, not statistically, from discerning how ordinary people in particular settings make sense of the experience of their everyday lives (Wolcott, 1988). Ethnography stresses credibility, achieved by prolonged engagement in the setting, persistent observation and triangulation. Phenomenology emphasizes the depth of experience captured and the gaining of fresh insights, achieved by the establishment of trusting relationships between researcher and co-researcher. The criteria relate to the examined reality; some aspects of these realities may be open to triangulation and shared agreement, (e.g., teachers' behavior in a nontraditional fiddling instruction or in a junior high school); whereas, for others (e.g., the uniquely created reality of Suzuki students) no amount of inquiry can produce convergence on it.

The significance of action research is tied to its ability to produce an enhanced understanding leading to an improvement in classroom practice. This is facilitated by multiple perspectives and clarity of description.

These different purposes shape the nature and style of the written report. In action research the most important audience is the researcher and the collaborators involved in the study. In ethnography and phenomenology, it is the larger and further scholarly community. Ethnography and phenomenology strive for empathic understanding, or “verstehen" (von Wright, 1970), and are best served by a scholarly style. In practiceoriented action research, specificity and clarity is key since it is pragmatic and focused on immediate action. Here, understanding serves action rather than being an end in itself.

Each of these approaches can address central concerns and gaps in our knowledge of music education. Ethnography is best suited, perhaps, for capturing implicit and explicit values and shared beliefs within a community. Because so much of music instruction concerns implicit values and messages, ethnographies can be a powerful tool in articulating and communicating those values that often play an important role in the teaching and learning of music. Phenomenology focuses on the individual in an attempt to capture a meaningful experience and "translate" it into a linguistic construction

Experiences of music are central to music activities-listening, composing and performing.

Action research aims at the direct improvement of teaching and curriculum within a particular classroom, gaining a more critical perspective from which the teacher/researcher can reflect and change.

The exploration of these approaches of inquiry has not extended to most research in music education. The understanding of the capabilities of these approaches, their intellectual territory, the issues they address, and the contributions they can make to the theory and practice of music instruction can help researchers and scholars expand the boundaries of knowledge in music education research.

Notes

1. These are only three out of various qualitative genres. Other approaches include case-studies, protocol analysis, symbolic and interpretive interaction, critical theory, ethnomethodology, formative research, and feminist research.

2. Including structured, semi-structured and unstructured interviews, life-history interview, questionnaires and sometimes even standardized tests and related measurement techniques (Wolcott, 1988).