Topic today: models
break out into groups and think about some models
Writing Ethno Fieldnotes Bob Emerson
Analyzing Social Settings

philosophies of knowledge
What is knowledge and where does it come from?
Different methodologies come out of this fundamental, baseline theoretical niewpoint
Fieldwork comes from phenomenological perspective→richness and depth
Survey research is broad and deep,
ethnography is narrow and deep
Once you have your quant dara, your analysis is straightforward, but ethno requires more engagement, effort, time; handwritten fieldnotes are the gold standard for ethnographic techniques all the way back to anthro
depends on your setting, you choices about how to record, and then your fieldnotes
given the sheer detail required, you’ll never remember everything
having good data capture in whatever form, there are a couple of rules abt it
detail, detail, detail
of course, constrained by physical location, situation, norms of behavior in the situation because you don’t want to interfere in the situation in the course of your observation. Obviously, if you’re there, it’s a diff sitch than were you not there. Try to record as faithfully and as much as possible
trying to get a sense of what’s happening through the perspective of the people there—not your perspective
figure out when to suspend your own theorizing and just record; then once you have what you observations are, when to apply your interpretive analysis.
field studies takes months to years
depends on the researcher’s subjectivity and the other people’s experiences as recorded

reflexivity has a lot to do with both the observation process and the analysis
1. staying aware of your own understanding and being as explicit about that to yourself as possible
a. what you’re getting and what you think you’re getting
i. hermeneutic circle
ii. why did I pick this, what’s my stake, why am I interested, what’s appropriate, what role might the ppl in this setting think I’m playing
iii. that attitude is the first objective in fieldwork
iv. being aware of your own observing
v. questioning why you’re interpreting that way
vi. why are you noticing some things versus others
vii. you have to decide your method and be consistent
viii. writ up how you do this, so you can use it in your article
b. must have a rationale for what you’re doing and how you’re doing it
i. start with a plan and then adapt as necessary
ii. debrief yourself as soon as possible after your observations
1. start the reflection process right then
2. spend time with your fieldnotes and recordings after the
c. entrée
d. technique
e. reflexivity starts right at the beginning
i. am I seeing this because of some tendency or bias I have?
ii. focusing on what I need to gather?

http://www.misq.org/skin/frontend/default/misq/MISQD_isworld/index.html

van Maanen qualitative data as attractive nuisance
(actually by Miles in volume edited by vanMaanen)

qualitative data analysis programs
envivo
Leah doesn’t trust these
but that software isn’t going to do your analysis for you

beginning from the minute you start to take the first note, your next note is dependent upon your reflection upon your first note

observations, interpretation, obs, int, obs…..iterative feedback→not linear
looking for patterns of action, language, space, patterns of any kind you begin to see
once you begin to interpret those patterns, you’re beginning to think thematically
and the pattern/theme also interact with one another
not doubt, but be aware of your process
why am I seeing it this way
MT: when asking that of myself, I tended to look for indications of others’ reactions or noticing what I noticed
start with framing strategies
from Lofland: come up with propositions for what’s going on in the situation
those are like tentative hypotheses
very few say anything about space, because too cognitively oriented
how would we develop a spatial model of ISB?
once you have a handle on the setting, you develop some ideas of what’s going on
can be little vignettes of patterns
next, write up “topic memos” “memoing”
a condensation of what I’m seeing the data; pull in examples from the data
to begin to organize and thematically organize your observations
MT: do any researchers compare their fieldnotes to, say, video?
once you develop a sense of what seems to be important, you can go back into your data and code it
MT: would be interesting to compare the output of the software to doing it oneself
an episode/event may belong to more than one category
what specific places do I see this in the data; who said what, when, did what, when
coding is a way to move between your thematic pattern identification and back to the data

how do you know when you’re done?
you kinda get the feeling when you’ve thematically exhausted the study
any of your propositions are grounded in the data
this is why grounded theory Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss (Leigh Starr’s mentor)
the concepts that you’re pulling out of the data have to be directly tied down to the data and the method
here’s a phenomenon that typifies this setting, call it sthg, then example, ex, ex, ex, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote
the strength validity is having all those yummy details served up to us
1. describe
2. name
3. examples with quotes—many of them
4. “be in there with the particulars”
5. MT: do you have to explain why it is not evidence of something other than my interpretation?
6. what do the ppl in the situation call this? do they know it, or is it tacit?
start organizing/interpreting/looking for patterns and that’s where your analysis starts and you keep going back to test out the idea you have about the patterns you’re seeing

moving back and forth between theorizing and observing, which is why people keep going back again and again

MT: What are the implications of open access data sharing for fieldwork?

MT: Google Glass and fieldwork

you’re not expected to be objective, you’re expected to be aware of, understand, and use your subjectivity as your main instrument of understanding what’s going on there

then you have to convince in your article that that is “really” how it happened

ethnography is adaptive, whereas quant is not
adaptation must be justified and explicit

Derr – if we don’t have a def of information, then we need to understand how it is used in context
detailed language-based conceptual analysis
strength of it is the concept of “ordinary discourse”

Mine on Borgman and mental models
much easier to get ppl to articulate what they do, rather than what they think
conclusion is interesting
we find tht there are differences among disciplinary majors

all of the article abstracts have to do with modeling

what’s the difference between a model and a theory
model framework theory often used interchangeably
when ppl claim to be writing theory (except literary theory), theories that are meant to guide, has explanation, whereas modeling is more descriptive of a scenario

model as representation of relationships, may suggest temporal contingencies, but doesn’t define cause explicitly most of the time
theory = casuality
paradigm = how important it was that Kuhn theorized for himself what paradigms are
we can think of it more as a worldview, a taken-for-granted set of premises about the way the world works

classic paradigm: natural selection; was once a theory; has been modified over time, but the whole framework of natural selection is so essential for the way we think about the natural world

paradigm is beyond theory. it’s a lens that is widely shared
Kuhn said scientists have these beyond theories, these conditions that can characterize the whole age.

example: structure of DNA discovered, the whole way we think about biology
may have another with protein structures→becoming another one of those worldview candidates
informs the way most ppl conduct science

there will always be outliers. cases that don’t quite fit
if we begin to get enough of these anomalies, it begins to call the paradigm into question—maybe this worldview doesn’t operate in all the ways we need it to operate
Kuhn says ppl will start doing revolutionary science
MT: isn’t this disruptive technology? isn’t this tipping point?
what was controversial was that he said scientists were just as prone to this as anyone else
so they’re out there looking for anomalies
MT: isn’t that the way science is set up? academia? pressure to be novel

Case says: what do we have? a ton of lit abt ISB, theory, models, paradigms
he has nine models (one more in the Rice book)

we’ll start next class session w reports from groups
extend Case’s exercise of comparing across the models
answer two questions:
1. what do these models tend to have/focus on/overstress/takeforgranted/what’s the implicit paradigm across the models?
2. what are they leaving out?

the paradigm is needy information-seeker
linearity
neopositivist social science

curiosity browsing→outliers
all the ADD kids will be so happy with this paradigm
distraction is steeped in the need-based information task
whereas, in a contextual, multi-dimensional paradigm, it could be described as exploring