Karen O'Reilly

I am sharing exercises to accompany each chapter of Qualitative Research Methods for Everyone: An Essential Toolkit (Policy Press). https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/qualitative-research-methods-for-everyone

Here are the exercises for Chapter 6.

Try doing some ethnographic observations: to emulate the experience of participant observation, make some notes on your feelings, experiences and observations of a recent event. If possible, talk to others who were there about how they felt about it or what they noticed (this could be a tutorial or lecture, a journey, an event). This will emulate your first experience of writing participant notes and your first experience of hearing from others. Finally, share your notes with each other and discuss what sorts of things you wrote about and your shared experiences. 

Next, at a future event, (this could be dinner with friends, a visit to the gym, or any of the above), be observant about how people behave, talk, and how you feel. Make some more notes, this time with something in mind that is interesting you sociologically, politically, socially, psychologically, in terms of policy, or whatever. 

Discuss: What have you learned through observation that you might not have through an interview or questionnaire? Where might an interview or questionnaire be more appropriate? What other methods might you use?

Write and share fieldnotes: talk about what you observed. Have you written enough?

What have you not included? Is it descriptive or analytical? Have you used diagrams? What techniques would you recommend? What have you learned to do better? Let’s conclude together 

Discuss: how can you ensure these exercises are conducted ethically? 

Discuss: what are the ten enduring key principles of ethnography? Can you do a bit of ethnography? What would it add to a project? 

Comment below. Please share any tips or insights in the comments. 

You might also enjoy the book’s accompanying Podcast series: Qualitative Research Methods for Everyone, wherever you get your podcasts.