The National Teachers College

Quiapo, Manila

SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDIES

Master of Arts in Education Major in English
_____________________________________________________________________________________

A written Report in the subject

ENG 305- Research in Philippine Literature

Discussant: Concepcion B. Anido

Topic/s: ETHNOGRAPHY & QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Professor: Dr. Arnold Gatus

What is a QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?

 It seeks to understand a given research problem or topic from the perspective of the local
population that involves.
 It is especially effective in obtaining culturally specific information about the values, opinions,
behaviors, and social contexts of particular population a scientific method of observation to
gather non-numerical data.
 It refers to the meanings, concepts, definition, characteristics, metaphors, symbols, and
description of things and not their counts or measures.
 A process of naturalistic inquiry that seeks in-depth understanding of social phenomena
within the natural settings.

The scope of qualitative research is to explore and understand through:

1. Participant’s “Lived experience”
2. “Insider’s” perspectives
3. In the context of the given situation

 Difference between Qualitative or Quantitative Research

QUALITATIVE QUANTITATIVE
*Concern with how people think and feel about *Use a structured survey instrument that ask
the topics of concern to the research. all respondents the same questions in the same
order to allow from statistical analysis.

*Gather broader, more in-depth information from *Gather narrow amount of information from a large
fewer respondents (Micro—analysis) number of respondents (Macro-analysis)

*Open questions for greater depth and personal *Closed questions for qualification, can be coded
detail. and processed quickly.

ETHNOGRAPHY
 A systematic studies of culture, values, beliefs, behavior, language of a distinct group of
a society.
 Discovers and describes the cultural characteristics of a group of people
 It is design to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes the society
from the point of view of the subject of the study.

ORIGIN: Came from the Greek word: Ethnos- “folk, people, nation” grapho- “I write”
 Designed in Europe particularly in England in the late 19th century
  Gerhard Friedrich Muller, developed the concept as a separate academic discipline.

Ethnography Explained:

 Ethnography is the art and science of describing a group or culture. The description maybe
of small tribal group in an exotic land or classroom in middle-class suburbia.” –David M.
Fetterman. 1998

 Ethnography is a social science research method. It relies heavily on up-close. Personal

experience and possible participation, not just observation, by researches trained in the art
of ethnography. It involves a commitment to get close to the subject being observed in its
natural setting, to be factual and descriptive in reporting what is observed, and to find out
the points of view of participants in the domain observed.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

 CONTEXTUAL
The research is carried out in the context in which the subjects normally live and work.
 UNOBTRUSIVE
The research avoids manipulating the phenomena under investigation.
 LONGITUDINAL
The research is relatively long.
 COLLABORATIVE
The research involves participation od stakeholders other than the researcher.
 INTERPRETATIVE
The researcher carries out interpretative analysis of the data.
 ORGANIC
There is interaction between questions/ hypotheses and data collection/ interpretation.

FORMS OF ETHNOGRAPHY

 Confessional
 Life history
 Feminist
 Realist
 Critical

Two most commonly used ethnography:

 Realist Ethnography- is a traditional approach used by cultural anthropologist.

 Reflect the particular instance by the researcher.
 An objective study the situation.
 Information report is measured style ostensive uncontaminated by the individual
predisposition, political objective and judgement.

 Critical Ethnography- is a kind of ethnographic research in which the creators advocate for
the liberation of groups which are marginalized in society.
o Typically, are politically minded people who look to take stand of opposition to
inequality and domination.

ETHNOGRAPHY AS A METHOD

A. People’s behavior is studied in everyday context, rather than under experimental conditions
created by the researcher.
 B. Data are gathered from range of sources, but observation and/ or relatively informal
conversation are usually the main ones.

C. The approach to data collection is “unstructured in the sense that it does not involve the
following through a detailed plan set up at the beginning; nor the categories used for
interpreting what people say or do pre-given or fixed. This does not mean that the research
is unsystematic; simply that initially the data are collected in as raw as a form, and as wide a
front, as feasible.

D. The focus is usually single setting or group, of relatively small scale. In life history research
may even be single individual.

E. The analysis of the data involves interpretation of the meanings and functions of human
actions and mainly takes the form of verbal descriptions and explanations, with
quantification and statistical analysis playing a subordinate role at most.

METHODOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES

 NATURALISM
This is a view which social research aim is to capture the character of naturally occurring
human behavior, and that this can only be achieved by first-hand contact with it, not by
inferences from what people do in artificial settings like experiments or from what they say in
interviews about what they do elsewhere.
 UNDERSTANDING
From this point of view, we are able to explain human actions effectively. We must gain an
understanding of the cultural perspective on which they are based. This is obviously
happened when we are studying a group of society whom unfamiliar to us. We shall find
much of what we see and hear from them.
 DISCOVERY
Another feature of ethnographic thinking is a conception of the research process as
inductive or discovery-based; rather than as being limited to the testing explicit hypotheses.

RESEARCH PROCEDURE
 The design of an ethnographic research is deceptively simple. It appears to require
only one “act naturally.”

Then again, looking beyond, conducting an ethnographic research is a process of

discovery. It is something that cannot be programmed. It is not a matter of following
methodological rules but practical activity requiring the exercise of one’s judgement.

DATA COLLECTION

 The typical ethnographic research employs three kinds of data collection: interviews,
observations, and documentation. This in turn produces three kinds of data: quotations,
descriptions, and excerpts of documents, resulting in one product: the narrative description

 Watching what happens

 Listening to what is said
 Asking questions through informal and formal interviews
 Collecting documents and artifacts

 Data collected includes the rich descriptive accounts, photographs, maps, figures, tables,
text, audio/ video records and transcriptions. The most common types of method used in
data collection are interviews (both formal and informal).

ETHICAL CONCERNS
 In conducting an ethnographic research, there are also certain concerns that are being
raised every now and then. Over-all. They can be summarized as:
 Informed consent
 Privacy
 Harm
 exploitation

BASIC QUALITATIVE STUDIES

Also called basic interpretative studies that provide rich descriptive accounts targeted to
understand a phenomenon, a process or a particular point of view from the perspective of those
involved.

 They describe the attempt to interpret experience the researcher interested in

understanding the meaning of phenomenon to those involved.
 The central purpose of this study is to understand the world or the experience of another.
 The goal of basic qualitative research is to uncover and interpret the meanings.

CASE STUDY
Emerging from approaches in business, law, and medicine. The case study provides an in-depth
description of a single unit. The “unit” can be an individual, a group, a site, a class, a policy, a
program, a process, an institution or a community. It is a single occurrence of something that
the researcher is interested in examining.

The question is “what are the characteristics of this particular entity phenomenon, person, or
setting”

o Has multi-disciplinary roots (business, law, medicine)

o Focuses on a single unit
o Produces an in-depth description
o anchored in real life
o Uses multiple data collection techniques
o Provides a rich, holistic description of context, issue
o Time spent examining the “unit” is important

THREE TYPES OF CASE STUDY

1. Intrinsic case study- is conducted to understand a particular case that may be unusual,
unique, or different in some way. It does not necessarily represent other cases or a broader
traitor problem for investigation.
2. Instrumental case study- the researcher selects the case because it represents some other
issue under investigation and the researcher believes this particular case can help provide
insights or help to understand that issue.
3. Multiple or collective case study- uses several cases selected to further understand and
investigate a phenomenon, population, or general condition. The researcher believes that
the phenomenon is not idiosyncratic to a single unit and studying multiple units can provide
better illumination.

DATA COLLECTION
Case study may employ multiple methods of data collection and don’t rely on a single
technique.
Testing
Interviewing
Observation
Review of documents
Artifacts
Other methods may be used
 TYPES OF DESIGNS
 Single case- holistic (extreme or unique case)
 Single case embedded
 Multiple- holistic (literal or theoretical replication)
 Multiple- embedded

PHENOMENOLOGY
 Is a qualitative research method that is used to describe how human beings experience a
certain phenomenon.
 Attempts to set aside biases and preconceived assumptions about human experiences,
feelings, response to a particular situation.
 Based on the academic discipline of philosophy and psychology and has become a widely
accepted method for describing human experiences.
 Defined as the direct investigation and description of phenomena as consciously
experience by people living those experiences.

Characteristics of Phenomenological research:

 It seeks to understand how people experience a particular situation or phenomenon.

 It is conducted primarily through in-depth conversation and interviews; however, some
studies may collect data from diaries, drawings or observation.
 Small samples sizes, often 10 or less participants are common in phenomenological studies.
 Interview questions are open-ended to allow the participants to fully describe the
experience from their own point of view.
 Is centered on the participant’s experiences with no regard to social or cultural norms,
tradition, or preconceived ideas about the experience.
 It focuses on the four lived experience: lived spaced, lived body, lived time and lived human
relation.
 Data collected is qualitative and analysis includes an attempts to identify themes or make
generalizations regarding how a particular phenomenon perceived or experienced.

Researchers conducting phenomenological studies are interested in the life experiences of humans. This type
of research can be applied to wide variety of situations and phenomena. Below are just a few examples of
topics that would lend themselves to phenomenological study:

 How do parents of an autistic child cope with the news that their child has autism?
 What is it like to experience being trapped in a natural disaster, such as a flood or hurricane?
 How does it feel to live with a life-threatening aneurism?
 What is it like to be a minority in a predominantly white community?
 What is like to survive an airplane crash?
 How do cancer patients cope with a terminal diagnosis?
 What is it like to be a victim of sexual assault?