Ethnography Process Page
Natalia Navaroli
Executive Summary
Approach
Duration
Tools
The Project
This ethnographic research project was conducted as a class project in the course Ethnography for Designers. The research team investigates university student engagement within the Kennesaw State University's Joe Mac Student Center. Our research question focuses on the spaces' meaning to students, as we research student views of the facility and defined purpose. Our research question for the project is, "What does hanging out at the Joe Mack student center mean to KSU Students?" Our results reflected that the meaning or purpose of the multipurpose facility was subjective to the student, as students only view the space only as an individual utility, rather than a university community center, or social space.
Our research method was using applied ethnography.
This research project was conducted over the course of 9 weeks
Figjam Collaboration Platform
Research Report
Introduction
Based on our contextual research for the project, university campuses often implement facilities such as student centers as these buildings often positively impact student life through community building. These facilities serve much like the campus "community center" having positive impacts on the interaction among other university students. While our research question changed over the course of our project, a starting point for the team was interested in investigating the positive effects and significant of communal dining. Communal dining, a characteristic built into the structure of these facilities, specifically is related to better well-being in students as it builds relationships with peers. However, what is interesting about these facilities is their multifunctional design. These amenities moved away from the structure of a traditional cafeteria-like space, offering a public space prompting other usages such as a study room or a place to meet with peers. Perhaps it was these characteristics that prompted the shift in our focus of the study, as the purpose of the building started varying greatly among participants in our research.
Our approach was using applied ethnography. Ethnography, defined in the words of Sam Ladner, "Ethnography is the study of culture. It is from the Greek “ethno,” meaning folk or culture, and “grapho,” meaning writing. Historically, it has meant simply “writing about culture,” (Ladner 2014, 15)
Applied ethnography is taking the study of ethnography into a methodological research process.
Method
The work process our team used to conduct our study is applied ethnography. The study of ethnography itself is the study of cultures. Applied ethnography is the process of this topic of study, utilizing long on-site observation periods and conducting individual interviews. This process is guided by each person recording a series of notes in their journals. The first stage is jottings, the long, extensive, detailed notes taken while a researcher is in the field. Jottings serve to collect all information at a given time. Jottings often look like long-winded trains of thought. Once a researcher walks away from the field, they are able to review and synthesize these jottings into assembled field notes, sorting out relevant information to still create a detailed account of the experience on the field. This process is also utilized in our interview process, as a way to collect our data. This project was organized into 4 phases; recruitment, fieldwork, analysis, and reporting.
Our time in the field was 10 hours of observation per team member, thus our project was a collective 40 hours of research. After the research period, the team collaborated on their data in an analysis period. Here, we created ordered matrices to sort information and find relevant trends, working to answer our research question and find a cohering metaphor.
Recruitment
Our team's first phase was recruitment. During our recruitment phase, we start to create the groundwork for the direction of our research and establish a research question. We first had a research design template. Here, we establish our field, area of inquiry, logistics, and a concise summary of the project. Next, we write our interview script with a list of questions. The purpose of this is to structure our interviews to find variables in the responses during analysis. This was also important to structure the interviews and prevent going into interviews blindly. Our team revisited this stage mid-research as we pivoted our direction for research.
Feildwork
Observation
Interviews
One way that the team conducted our research was through observation. The team spent approximately 40 hours of observation research on the field, with each individual spending 10 hours on-site. Each member of the team gathered their data in 2 stages. While on the field, team members would document their findings in a journal. In our journals, our on-site note-taking was referred to as jottings. Jottings are long and extensive notes attempting to document all observable data in a given time. These jottings often looked like running trains of thought. Later on, we would take our jottings and transcribe them into more concise and organized field notes. Here we were able to sort out relevant data collected during the time on the field.
During our project, we also conducted several interviews with participants. Data from these interviews were also documented in our journals through the same 2-step notetaking process. Interviews were conducted virtually. One team member is assigned to be the moderator of the interview, while the other team members are assigned to be facilitators in the meeting. Facilitators are there to record jottings and observe the responses of the interview. While the moderator takes jottings as well, their jottings may not be as extensive as the facilitators. Post-interview, team members would reflect on their jottings and again transcribe them into established field notes
The team spent approximately 40 hours total on the field in research, as each team member spent 10 hours on the field. The members approached the field at separate times individually during observation. We documented all data using individual journals. Our journals consisted of 4 categories, Jottings during observation, fieldnotes of observation, jottings of interviews, and fieldnotes of interviews. For our team specifically, while our data collected from observation remained consistent, data from individual participants during interviews started us to reform our research question, as more in-depth interviews saw more variables in responses rather than observable data in observation.
Analysis
Entering analysis, the team had completed their journals of their fieldwork. As a team, we arranged in-person meetings to start discussing our findings and the relation to our research question. Here the team returned to Figjam Collaboration platform to start comparing and corroborating field notes. We accomplished this by creating ordered matrices to sort information. We created two tables as information varied between observation and interviews. For the observation period, we organized categories by a team member on the y-axis, while on the x-axis, we discussed blanket takeaways we all agreed on from observation. This allowed us to determine relevant information based on the frequency of categories observed as well as observed by most or all team members. Categories in the interview matrix were a little bit different, as we decided to sort by team member and interview. We did this to interpret trends based on team members detecting characteristics of individual interviews. Here, our research question officially developed to, "what does the student center mean to students?"
Report
From analysis, we were able to synthsize our data into a research report in which discusses our study and research in more thourough detail. The team breaks down our methodology and extensive analysis from our time in the feild.
See report above
Conclusion
This project overall was whole new territory for me and it taught me a lot. This way of study required a new level of critical thinking and analyzing qualitative data. We struggled in the beggining of this project, as we struggled to be granted permission by gatekeepers to launch our study. The term "gatekeepers" reffer to the individuals who own or have juristicion over a certian feild. This taught me a lot as far as meeting and contacting higher ups in interviews and strengthened certian 'soft' skill sets. The way applied ethnography taught me how to create effective jottings, forcing me to be more detail oriented and thourough in my observation. Finally, this class project told me how to interview participants better than before with new perspectives. It taught me to better understand people, and better understand new perspectives. While this project was a learning curve, I feel that this project was an amazing learning experience that will benefit myself and my work in the future.
Ladner, Sam. Practical Ethnography. Available from: VitalSource Bookshelf, Taylor & Francis, 2016.
Works Cited
The Team
Tyler Eckert
Team Lead
Ethnographic researcher
Natalia Navaroli
Ethnographic researcher
(myself)
Nichole Kadom
Ethnographic researcher
Amara Bush
Ethnographic researcher
Challenges
This class project was our team's first attempt at conducting ethnographic research utilizing the research framework of applied ethnography, thus this project overall was a new learning experience for myself and my team. The project wasn't always smooth as we as a team experienced a learning curve over the course of the project. The greatest hurdle we face was changing our way of thinking and approaching observation research. Applied ethnography required us to change our thinking and look for aspects of social interaction that we often overlook every day. This frame of thinking was a guide to help us decipher true meaning while looking past the superficial. The assembly of our project was rocky, as we took several weeks to be granted permission to conduct research on a field. We also had to learn how to quickly adapt as our qualitative data would guide us into a new direction for research, as we were prompted to change our research question with new findings and evidence.
