Hey Deborah,

Thanks so much for these responses!

Reviewing them briefly, it looks like there's a
lot of great insight here for us. We will
definitely be going through them in detail to
see how we can better improve CUSA.
Thanks again for thinking of us!
Cheers,
Zameer Masjedee, President, CUSA

*
*

SOCI 2001: Introduction to Research Methods

Dr. Deborah Conners
Fall 2017
*Week 5: In-depth interviewing
*Week 6: Focus group research
*Week 7: Ethnography
*Week 8: The case study
*Week 9: Researching mass media:
image and texts
*Week 10: Mixed methods reserach

*
*Presenting on his PhD research on
masculinities

*
*Ethnographic research aims to get a
holistic understanding of how
individuals in different cultures and
subcultures make sense of their lived
reality Hesse-Biber, p. 183

Similarities and differences to

interviews and focus groups?

*
*Methodological approach:
*Research setting:
*Sample:
*Researcher role:
*Ethical issues:
*Data sources:

*
* Interpretive
* Understanding how the research participants
create meaning is a primary objective
* Critical
* When research goal includes generating social
change on behalf of the research participants
* Positivistic
* Some aspects of positivistic research will be
present e.g. demographics

*
* The researcher enters the social world of the
research participants
* Gaining access to the setting needs to be
negotiated
* Formal and informal gate keepers can
facilitate access
* Research sample emerges during the field work
phase

*
* Participant observation is a core strategy
* Researcher is both an observer but also a
participant in the group being studied.
* There is a continuum:
* Complete observer
* Observer as participant
* Participant as observer
* Complete participant

*
*What are some ethical issues you might
anticipate in ethnographic research?
*Think back to interviewing what were
the conditions we had to meet in our
project?
*Can we meet this conditions in
participant observation?

*
 * You are an ethnographic researcher
* Research sample: students in SOCI 2001
* Location of participant observation: Class party

* Research question:
Why are half the students in this sociology
course in Child Studies?

*
*
* Was 5 minutes the right length for this interview?
* Did you know what you needed to know to be
successful?
* How difficult was it for you to ask for an interview?
* Did you feel comfortable doing the interview?
* Were you able to put your interviewee at ease?
* Was the practice we did in class helpful?
* What could the T.A.s and I do next term that would
further support students doing an interview?
* Was it fun?

*
Think about the interview:
* Did many people say no before you found an interviewee?
* Did your interviewee have answers for your questions?
(were they the right questions?)
* Did you get the sense your interviewee knew a lot about
healthy relationships or not?
* What was the question that interviewees had the hardest
time answering?
* What did you hear in the interview that stood out for you?
* Do you think people are actually living what they said one
should do in a healthy relationship? How could we have
captured that?

*
Steps:
1. Data preparation
2. Data exploration
3. Specification and reduction of data
4. Interpretation
- Hesse-Biber, chapter 11

*
*Descriptive codes
*Organizing by topic
*Categarical codes
*Grouping by more general meaning
*Analytical codes
*Codings that capture larger themes

Coding
I have created a Google doc for each question in the
interview.

GOAL: By the end of class we want to have:

A. Put all of our interview data in Google docs
B. Identified sub-themes in the answers to the
questions
C. Decided which sub-themes are the most significant

*
1. Examine your own interview on your computer and highlight
interesting or significant words and phrases. (Goal B)
2. Copy the interview response for each question into the relevant
Google doc. (Goal A)
3. Make a file copy of that document with all of the material in it.
(Goal A)
4. Identify sub-themes with a header in bold above the interview
section. (Goal B)
5. Group the responses to each question under sub-themes. (Goal
B)
6. Sort the sub-themes in descending order so that the ones that
got the most responses are at the top. (Goal C)

*
*Get into partners (Google Docs only accepts 50 editors)
*Partner A, sign into Google Docs.
*Partner B, email your interview to partner A.
*Work together to copy and paste the response to each
question from your interviews into the appropriate
Google doc.
*Make sure each section is identified with your
identifier.
*At end of process: T.A. to make a copy of the
document to save.

*
1. Divide into 8 groups, one for each interview
question.
2. In Google Docs, examine your interview
question to identify sub-themes.
3. Highlight significant words in the interview.
4. Identify sub-themes with a header in bold
above the interview section. (Goal B)
5. At end of process: T.A. to make a file copy
of the document.

*
Sort the sub-themes in descending order so that
the ones that got the most responses are at the
top.
1. Group the sub-themes that are similar
2. Collapse the sub-themes that are the same
3. Move the sub-themes that were identified by
the most people to the top of the document

*
*Put people into groups who were
not there last week
*Check in on your dissemination
project in groups
*Create a work plan. If you are
going to miss a class arrange this
with your group. Share contact
information.

*
Preparation for class:
*Read chapter 8 of the
textbook.
*Continue prep work for
disseminating your findings.
*Make notes from the
articles your found in your
literature review.