Ethnography

Ethnography is a descriptive research approach designed for in-depth investigation and description of cultures, cultural groups, large organizations and groupings, and their features. Ethnographers immerse themselves in the culture or organization they are studying, becoming a part of the culture in order to learn about it “from the inside out.” Consequently, this approach often requires longer timeframes for data collection, and ethnographers frequently return a number of times to the sites of their investigations to obtain more data. As a result, many doctoral learners avoid ethnographic studies because of the typical long time-commitments. However, ethnography can be a fruitful approach, even in shorter periods, for understanding the customs, culture, belief systems, and implicit “rules” of organizations and large groups.

Ethnography is based in the anthropological tradition of research. In this approach, the researcher would spend a long time becoming immersed in the culture of the population being studied. Keep in mind that the culture being studied could be a corporate “culture,” such as that of Microsoft or a small start-up company; or the culture of a particular group of people operating in a specific social environment, such as that of a third grade classroom among the students, teachers, teacher‟s aides, and so on. An important aspect of this research approach is that the participants (culture) are studied in their natural habitat and social contexts. Individuals are not the unit of analysis for ethnography, although they may be sources of valuable data. (Adapted from Bogdan & Taylor, 1975; Taylor & Bogdan, 1998; Aronson, 1994)

Case Study

Case study is the in-depth study – using multiple methods and data sources –  of a single case. Sometimes a number of cases are studied and reported together. The “case” in a case study is the object of study. A case study is an exploration of a “bounded system” over time. The phrase “bounded system” means that the target to be studied is easily distinguished for other instances of the same phenomenon: it has a clear boundary differentiating it from all others. Think of a “case of measles” (that is, one patient who has the measles), or a “case of homicide” (a single incident of murder, including the victim, the murderer, the police, the attorneys – anyone and anything relevant to the particular murder event). In those cases, the boundary is clear –it encircles all the information about the patient and his disease or the victim and the circumstances of the murder.

One could study a single case (in which a single instance is investigated in depth) or multiple cases (in which a number of instances of the target are studied and then compared with one another). For example, a single case study might investigate a single treatment program (the bounded system being that program and no other) or a new way of teaching reading in a school system (the bounded system being that particular school and those teachers and students using the new reading program). Or one could do amultiple case study of three different alcohol treatment programs, all “cases” of alcohol treatment, and compare them on many variables. In both instances, the boundary would encompass all the information, personnel, and contexts relevant to the subject. (Adapted from Creswell, 1998; Stake 1995)

Grounded Theory

Grounded Theory is a qualitative research approach that attempts to develop theories of understanding based on data from the real world. Grounded Theory (Strauss, Corbin, 1990, 1998) has its origins in symbolic interactionism, taking the perspective that reality is negotiated between people, always changing, and constantly evolving. The key word

is “theory,” which in science means an explanatory statement or model based on research evidence. Unlike some other forms of qualitative inquiry, grounded theory attempts to go beyond rich description (which it also strives for) to an explanation of the phenomena of interest.

Grounded theory focuses on more than descriptive and interpretive goals; it is aimed at building theories. The ultimate goal of this approach is to derive theories that are grounded in (based on) reality, which is, grounded in the data collected from people actually involved in the issues under investigation. There is a recommendation against knowing the literature too well before using this approach because knowing the categories, classifications, and conclusions of previous researchers may constrain your creativity in finding new formulas and theories. (Adapted from Strauss, Corbin, 1990, 1998)

Phenomenology

The key to understanding phenomenology lies in the phrase “lived experience.” Put most

simply, phenomenology is the study of the lived experience of persons who are going through the phenomenon to be understood. By using the terms “lived experience” and “going through,” we put the focus squarely on exactly how a phenomenon reveals itself to the experiencing person in all its specificity and concreteness. A phenomenon can be anything that a person experiences – but phenomena (the plural) are defined precisely in their quality of being-experienced by someone. A feeling (anger) can be a phenomenon, but a phenomenological study of anger would focus on what it is like to be and to feel anger as an actual, lived experience. The person experiencing a phenomenon is asked to attend to it and then to describe it exactly as it appears in his or her consciousness, without prejudgment, bias, or any predetermined set or orientation.

Likewise, the researcher takes great pains to reduce his or her own predetermined sets

or orientations so that the reports of the participants can “reach” the researcher‟s own consciousness with as little filtering as possible. This process of suspending one‟s preconceptions and pre-understanding about the phenomena under inquiry is a process often referred to in phenomenology as epoche (pronounced “eh-poh-kay”), from a Greek root meaning “to suspend” or (from another root) “to keep steady or hold steady.” It means a conscious attempt to “reduce” the bias of preconceptions by continually setting aside preconceptions and looking anew at the things themselves. The founder of philosophical phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, used to say that the phenomenologist had to be “a perpetual beginner, returning always “to the things themselves.” (Adapted from Giorgi, 1997; Giorgi & Giorgi, 2003; Moustakas, 1994)

Heuristics

According to Michael Patton (2002) heuristics (also called heuristic phenomenology) is a form of phenomenological inquiry that brings to the fore the personal experience and insights of the researcher along with those of participants. Heuristics is a research model that places special emphasis on knowing through the self, by becoming one with the topic and experiencing it, as it exists in the world. Eric Craig (1978) defines heuristics in

his work The Heart of the Teacher” as: “A private discovery oriented approach to understanding how individuals experience themselves and their world” (p. 22). What has been said about phenomenology in general is applied to the heuristic approach as well, and now the researcher him or herself becomes one of the participants. In most heuristics texts, the researcher and the participants are called “co-researchers.” There are two focusing or narrowing elements of heuristic inquiry within the larger

framework of phenomenology. First, the researcher must have personal experience with and an intense interest in the phenomenon under study and be willing to be a participant (co-researcher in his/her own study). Second, the other participants (co-researchers) must share an intensity of experience with the phenomenon. The goals of heuristics are the same as those of phenomenological inquiry, with the addition of the involvement in and illumination of the researcher‟s experience (Douglass & Moustakas, l985; Moustakas, 1990).

Generic Qualitative Inquiry

Many dissertations report people‟s subjective opinions, attitudes, beliefs, or experiences

of things in the outer world. Such psychological things cannot be measured in the statistical sense, and require qualitative methods. Sometimes, the other more focused approaches (ethnography, case study, grounded theory, phenomenology or heuristics) are not appropriate for one reason or another. In those cases, researchers should consider a more generic qualitative inquiry approach.

Generic qualitative inquiry is not guided by an explicit set of philosophical assumptions as is the case in ethnography, case study, grounded theory, phenomenology and heuristics. However, generic qualitative inquiry honors the postmodern philosophical and methodological roots of qualitative research. It is exploratory research that seeks understanding and discovery. It can be appropriate for understanding an experience or an event (Caelli, Ray & Mill, 2003). The primary tool for conducting the analysis of data when using the generic qualitative inquiry approach for developing a dissertation at Capella is that of applying a thematic analysis.

“The essence of the question is the opening up and keeping open, of possibility.”

(Hans Georg Gadamer, 1975, p. 226)