Obtaining Requirements
Qualitative methods
Written by: Robin Beaumont e-mail: robin@organplayers.co.uk
Date last updated: Friday, 13 January 2012 Version: 3
How this chapter should be used:
This chapter has been designed to be suitable for web based and face-to-face teaching. The text has been made to
be as interactive as possible with web based group exercises.
If you are using this chapter as part of a web-based course you are urged to use the online discussion board to
discuss the issues raised in this chapter and share your solutions with other students.
Who this chapter is ai med at:
This chapter is aimed for two types of people:
 Those who wish to become involved in planning a role in Information Systems
development/maintenance/evaluation but are not interested in the nuts
and bolts of systems analysis, such people are commonly called domain experts and act a bridges between a
professional group (e.g. medics, Solicitors etc) to which they belong and IT experts.
 As an introduction for those just beginning professional computer science courses
I hope you enjoy working through this chapter.
Robin Beaumont
Health Informatics
Obtaining requirements – Qualitative methods
Contents
1.
Before you start ............................................................................................................................................ 3
1.1
Prerequisites ....................................................................................................................................................... 3
1.2
Required Resources ............................................................................................................................................ 3
2.
Learning Outcomes ....................................................................................................................................... 4
3.
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 5
4.
Ethnography ................................................................................................................................................. 5
4.1
The Stages of an Ethnographic Study ................................................................................................................. 8
4.2
The layout of an ethnographic report .............................................................................................................. 11
4.3
The Mini-Ethnographic Study ........................................................................................................................... 15
4.4
Shadowing ........................................................................................................................................................ 15
4.4.1
The importance of having a theoretical framework for the reflection ..............................................................................................16
4.4.2
What is the difference between shadowing a person and visiting an organisation? ........................................................................20
4.4.3
What should I tell the person I am shadowing is the purpose of the exercise? ................................................................................20
4.5
Ethnography and Information Systems ............................................................................................................ 21
4.6
Ethnography and User Interface Requirements ............................................................................................... 22
5.
Dry and Wet Data........................................................................................................................................ 23
6.
Ethnomethodology...................................................................................................................................... 23
6.1
So What is Ethnomethodology? ....................................................................................................................... 23
6.1.1
Explanation One ................................................................................................................................................................................25
6.1.2
Explanation Two ................................................................................................................................................................................26
6.2
Ethnomethodology in Health and Information Systems .................................................................................. 29
7.
Software support - Bridging the void............................................................................................................ 31
8.
Exercises ..................................................................................................................................................... 32
9.
Summary .................................................................................................................................................... 34
10.
Links ........................................................................................................................................................ 34
11.
References............................................................................................................................................... 35
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1. Before you start
1.1 Prerequisites
This chapter assumes that you have worked through a number of chapters to gain the following knowledge and
skills:
1. Basic knowledge of information systems see the following to check out specifically what you should know:
http://www.robin-beaumont.co.uk/virtualclassroom/chap12/s2/systems1.pdf
2. Basic knowledge of systems development methods see the following to check out specifically what you should
know: http://www.robin-beaumont.co.uk/virtualclassroom/chap12/s3/des1.pdf
3. Basic knowledge of issues around user involvement in systems development - see the following to check out
specifically what you should know in the chapter " Getting Users Involved in Developing Information Systems" at
http://www.robin-beaumont.co.uk/virtualclassroom/chap12/s4/des2.pdf
4. Quantitative /Qualitative research fundamental propositions see the following to check out specifically what you
should know in the chapter at
http://www.robin-beaumont.co.uk/virtualclassroom/chap5/s5/comm_theories/qual_quan1.pdf
5. Obtaining Requirements using a Requirements Engineering Perspective - - see the following to check out
specifically what you should know in the chapter at
http://www.robin-beaumont.co.uk/virtualclassroom//chap5/s5/requirements_quant/obtaining_reqs_quantitative.pdf
You can find all the above chapters at:
http://www.robin-beaumont.co.uk/virtualclassroom/contents.htm
1.2 Required Resources
You need the ability to be able to view this chapter while online so that you can check out the various web sites
mentioned.
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2. Learning Outcomes
This chapter aims to provide you with the following skills and information. After you have completed it you should
come back to these points, ticking off those with which you feel happy.
Learning outcome
Tick box
Be able to describe the difference between the systems engineering approach and more
qualitative methods

Be able to provide a summary description of Ethnography

Be able to describe the main stages of an Ethnographic study

Be able to describe an example of Ethnography in ‘Workplace Studies’

Be able to undertake a mini-ethnographic study (i.e. shadowing)

Be able to write up a mini-ethnographic study (i.e. shadowing)

Be able to re-interpret a mini-ethnographic study (i.e. shadowing) using various theoretical
frameworks such as Feminism, Marxist and Symbolic Interactionism (i.e. roles and acting
metaphor)

Be able to evaluate the various reflective interpretations that you applied to a shadowing
exercise

Be able to compare / evaluate the various qualitative methods described in this chapter against
those presented in the ‘Requirements Engineering’ perspective chapter

Be able to describe Goguen’s concepts of Wet and Dry Data

Be able to provide a brief summary of Ethnomethodology

Be able to provide an example of where Ethnomethodology as been used in Healthcare research

Be able to provide a brief description of the various web sites that provide information about
Qualitative methods and Information Systems

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3. Introduction
In a previous chapter we have considered the fundamental differences between the Quantitative and Qualitative
approach and have investigated various methods that purport to apply the empirical/quantitative paradigm to
elucidating Information System requirements. In this chapter we will concentrate on qualitative approaches. It is
interesting to note that if one takes a iterative approach to systems development much of what is discussed in this
chapter can also be applied to qualitative evaluation.
I will not discuss the assumptions that are made when choosing to use either a quantitative or qualitative approach
here – I assume you know these. If you do not I strongly advise you to read the chapter “Quantitative /Qualitative
research fundamental propositions” now. The following will make little sense if you do not appreciate the
fundamentally different beliefs espoused by the two views. It is important also to realise that one can not apply
standards developed to assess quantitative approaches to qualitative work. This is fundamental. See Potts &
Newstetter 1997 for details
In this chapter we will look specifically at two qualitative techniques that have gained some popularity in the last few
years. The first is ethnography and the second, a much more exoteric approach called, ethnomethodology.
4. Ethnography
Much of the information below is taken from McNeill 1990, one of the few sources of information that clarify, rather
than cloud, research methods, particularly concerning qualitative methods.
Basically, ethnography means "Writing about a way of life" (McMeill 1990 p64). The important aspect is that it
involves a process of getting to know the culture by immersing oneself in it. Possibly, a description is best:
"Go and sit in the lounges of the luxury hotels and on the doorsteps of the flophouses; sit on the
Gold Coast settees and on the slum shakedowns; sit in the Orchestra Hall and in the Star and Garter
Burlesk. In short gentlemen, go get the seats of your pants dirty in real research" (Park quoted in
Gomm and McNeill 1982).
Most people tend to think that this, originally anthropological, technique is mainly being used to investigate cultures
from distant lands. However, this is not the case as the researcher's gaze is more frequently turned to an unusual
subculture of some type. (Sociologists would frequently call such cultures "deviant".)
Such an approach has a long history:
"Charles Booth (1840-1916) was conducting one of the first major social surveys, which he published
between 1891 and 1903 in seventeen volumes entitled Life and Labour of the People in London.
Booth, prompted by a number of newspaper and magazine articles, was concerned to find out the
true extent of poverty among the working classes of London at that time, and he collected vast
quantities of data about them, using a combination of early survey techniques and other less
statistical methods. He went from house to house in certain areas of the East End of London,
painstakingly recording the number of residents, the number of rooms they occupied, their living
conditions, their income, diet, clothing, and so on. He also collected their feelings about it. He spent
some time actually living as a boarder in houses in the areas that he was studying, and making
detailed studies of particular families" (McNeill 1990 p3).
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While one may well ask why Booth went to such extremes as living among the poor, it is he who provides the
following explanation:
"It is not easy for any outsider to gain sufficient insight into the lives of these people. The
descriptions of them in the books we read are for the most part as unlike the truth as are the
descriptions of aristocratic life in the books they read. Those who know, think it is a matter without
interest, so that again and again in my enquires, when some touch of colour has been given
illuminating the ways of life among the people who are above the need for help, it has been cut
short by a semi-apology: "But that is not what you want to know about"...Of personal knowledge I
have not much...Yet such as it is, what I have witnessed has been enough to throw a strong light on
the materials I have used, and, for me, has made the dry bones live. For three separate periods, I
have taken up quarters, each time for several weeks, where I was not known, and as a lodger have
shared the lives of people...I became intimately acquainted with some of those I met, and the lives
and habits of many others naturally came under observation. My object, which I trust was a fair
one, was never suspected, my position never questioned. The people with whom I lived became, and
are still, my friends" (Booth quoted in McNeill 1990 p65)
The ethnographic approach has been used much more recently in the healthcare situation to great effect in two
classic studies, both published in 1961, these being:
1. Erving Goffman's study of an asylum, his aim being:
"...to try to learn about the social work of the hospital inmate, as this world is subjectively
experienced by him. I started out in the role of an assistant to the athletic director, when pressed
avowing to be a student of recreation and community life, and I passed the day with patients,
avoiding sociable contact with the staff and the carrying of a key. I did not sleep in the wards, and
the top hospital management knew what my aims were." (Goffman 1961 p.Preface)
2. Howard Becker's study to understand the process of becoming a doctor. In this study he made use of interviews,
but possibly more interestingly, he later made use of his skill as a jazz pianist to study the music of dance musicians
(Becker 1963).
The first of the descriptions above are frequently referred to as using the technique of participant observation (in
contrast to non-participant). Although participant observation frequently means taking on an assumed role it need
not mean fully participating:
"The essence of participant observation is the prolonged participation of the researcher in the daily
life of a group (although not necessarily as a member of the group) and his or her attempt to
empathize with the norms, values and behaviour of that group" (Becker 1970 quoted in Hammersley
1993 p185)
Possibly the most famous example of voyeuristic participant is the 1970 study by Humphreys (Humphreys 1970):
"...who investigated casual homosexual encounters in public lavatories in the USA. By passing
himself off as a voyeur, interested in watching the sexual behaviour of others, he was able to obtain
a considerable amount of information about the patterns of such encounters. Amongst the details
given in his final report are accounts of the characteristics of the kinds of public toilets in which such
behaviour takes place." (Quoted in Brodie, Williams and Owens 1994 p104).
As described in the above example, a personal characteristic of the researcher is often used to maximum advantage
in this type of research (i.e. the ability of the researcher to be able to play Jazz piano). Here is another example:
"Patrick's (1973) study of a Glasgow gang is one of the best known, A social worker who looked
considerably younger than he was, Patrick, managed to become accepted as a gang member by a
Glasgow gang. His position as an accepted member of the gang provided him with a unique
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opportunity to investigate the activities, motivations and attitudes of gang members." (Quoted in
Brodie, Williams and Owens 1994 p96).
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Occasionally researchers act to gain admission to a particular world:
"Rosenhaln (1973) who with several colleagues [in the United States] succeeded in having himself
admitted to a psychiatric hospital with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia (the single researcher [who]
was admitted to a private, rather than a state hospital, was given a diagnosis of mainic-depressive
psychosis, a diagnosis with much better prognosis - despite the fact that all researchers had claimed
identical symptoms when presenting!) In Rosenhahn's study the 'participant' status of the observers
was in some way unusual, in that having been admitted to hospital all researchers thereafter
behaved quite normally; notably the staff of the hospital typically failed to notice that they were
'normal' (one researcher's taking of notes was recorded in the hospital as 'obsessional note-taking
behaviour) whilst a number of real patients recognised the researcher for what they were. Thus
from the patients' point of view, Rosenhahn and his colleagues were outsiders, but from the
viewpoint of the staff, who failed to recognise them, they were participants." (Quoted in Brodie,
Williams and Owens 1994 p97)
The above situation of 'acting' to trigger certain behaviour is more common in the 'Ethnomethodological' approach,
which will be mentioned later.
While the majority of ethnographic data is reported by the researcher, the life-history technique allows those being
investigated to talk for themselves. A 'life history' is an autobiography of a person which has been obtained through
interview and guided conversation (McNeill p85). The 'oral-history' project in the UK is an example of this technique.
Ethnographic techniques aim for 'naturalism' and are always carried out in the natural setting. This is pivotal to
success as it provides part of the explanation of the meaning for the ethnographer.
To sum up, the purpose of an ethnographic study is to gain insight and understanding about a particular 'way of life'
which is usually some type of subculture. It is a qualitative method; therefore, 'uniqueness' and interpretation,
rather than generalisability and replicability, are valued more highly.
Now let's consider how one goes about undertaking an ethnographic study.
Exercise 1.
Spend a few moments listing a few areas where you think the ethnographic approach might be useful.
4.1 The Stages of an Ethnographic Study
In the past, ethical issues regarding deception or confidentiality were not considered important, and I wonder just
what the local ethics committee in the UK would think of Goffman's proposal nowadays concerning his technique for
observing asylum patients and staff?
Below are the main stages of an ethnographic study:
Choose the Topic Area: This is to do with a particular social group (nurses socialising, home for the elderly, etc)
rather than an abstract topic.
Review Literature: This focuses on discovering the group normalities, the degree of exposure and possible resistance
to new members.
Plan/Join Group: At this stage you decide if you will be overt or covert, the planned length of time and your 'cover
story'. You also ensure that you understand and can mimic any rules that may be impinged upon you to gain
admission and stay in the group.
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Familiarisation 'Passive' Stage: At this stage you keep your ears and eyes open but mouth firmly shut! You will take
copious notes often covertly. One example of this is of an ethnographic researcher writing in the loo on loo paper
while working on a car production line.
Interactive Stage: At this stage you build up relationships with people, identify key individuals and penetrate 'fronts'
that people put on when you first get to know them. Often in the ethnographic account a particular event is
recounted which to the researcher reflects the incident. For example, in one particular project where an
ethnographer was working with policemen (Cain 1973 quoted in Hammersley p186), she felt she was initiated into
'easing' behaviour when, amongst over things, she was included in drinking beer in a cupboard. Another example of
literally 'easing' is given by Maurice Punch (Punch 1979 quoted in Hammersley 1993 p190) who worked with the
Amsterdam police force: "...my acceptance seemed to be complete when 'Jan' ostentatiously lifted his buttocks from
the seat of the patrol car and broke wind with aplomb. It was the turning point of the research and I felt like Whyte
(1955 p318) stumbling on the informal social structure of Cornerville".
Active Stage: This is only applicable when the research is covert and is the state when unstructured interviews
('guided conversations') commence.
Conclusion Stage: The researcher now reflects on the experience and identifies patterns and issues. While a 'report'
is produced, the importance of it is to enable people who have not experienced the alien culture be able to
understand it (within their own cultural context). The 'report' frequently bears little resemblance to that of an
empirical document of the same name. In fact, occasionally the reports are more like novels enabling readers to
understand the alien culture within their own frames of reference. Just think of Goffmans Asylums (discussed again
below).
However, there are other approaches, for example Glaser & Strauss's Grounded theory (wikipedia has a excellent
article about this) requires the researcher to explicitly not to carry out a preparatory literature review, no tapping or
transcribing and no discussion with colleagues. In contrast there are some techniques that permit a more structured
approach and one such technique is 'Componential analysis' (Wallace 1972) where a conceptual map of an
individual and/or community is developed with the people involved. (For more details, see Brodie, Williams and
Owens 1994 p98.)
Myers, Michael D. 1999. “Investigating Information Systems with Ethnographic Research,” Communication of the AIS,
Vol. 2, Article 23, pp. 1-20 describes various types of ethnographic research on page 8 it is available to download
from http://www.qual.auckland.ac.nz/ (Active 08/01/08)
Note: I disagree with Myers concerning the possibility that qualitative research can be positivist as I feel that this is a
form of double counting.
Some researchers maintain that there is a difference between the ethnographic study and a 'case study' while others
(i.e. Robson 1993 p148) define the concept to be sufficiently broad to include both. The main area of derision relates
to the writer's stance when producing the report and how much time they spend collecting information.
The above process requires the researcher to dedicate a large amount of time, often years, in the field; therefore, to
make ethnography more palatable, it has become watered down and more user friendly by the development of the
'mini-ethnographic' study.
Exercise 2.
1. Now that you have seen what is actually involved in a full ethnographic study indicate on the list you created
in the previous exercise those topics which would need to receive the full-blown treatment and those where
the ‘mini-ethnographic’ approach might be sufficient.
2. Do you think there might be something wrong with trying to guess the amount of effort required at this
stage. If so why?
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4.2 The layout of an ethnographic report
I am sure than most of the journals you are used to dealing with demand a particular layout for articles such as key
findings, introduction, data, discussion etc. However ethnographic reports follow a very different format.
Unfortunately many of the more traditional journals which have often focused on quantitative reports require the
same format for qualitative reports and I'm sure from your knowledge of the fundamental propositions document of
qualitative /quantitative research you can see the
Paul Willis called Learning to Labour The ethnographic section contains the
ridiculousness of this approach.
following main sections:
1.
2.
3.
Elements of a culture
a.
Opposition to authority and rejection of the conformist
b. The informal group
c.
Dossing, blagging and wagging
d. Having a laff
e. Boredom and excitment
f.
Sexism
g.
Racism
Class and institutional for of a culture
a.
Class form
b. Institutional form
Labour power, culture, class and institution
a.
Official provision
b. Continuities
c.
Jobs
d. Arriving
We will now consider in detail two examples of layouts
of ethnographic studies. Let's look first at a ground
breaking study carried out in 1972 -7 on a group of
working class boys in Northern England following their
transition from school to work. The resulting study was
a book by Paul Willis called Learning to Labour: how
working class kids get working class jobs first published
in 1977 but still available in 2012. He believed that a
Marxist lens provided the most helpful mirror to frame
his interpretations, looking specifically at the culture of
the boys.
Although the book is divided into two main parts Ethnography and Analysis once you read the book you realise
immediately that the terms are used only in a very loose way, new material is presented in the analysis section and
the ethnographic section contains much analysis (refection). The table above provides details of the main
ethnographic sections.
Taking the typical layout of a small part of the 'Boredom and excitement' subsection illustrated below, you can
clearly see the mixture of providing data (quotes or detailed descriptions) and analysis - reflections. The actual
content of the two pages is provided below.
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************** Start of abstract (pages 34-5 Paul Willis Learning to Labour. 1981 Morningside edition. Columbia
University Press. New York) *********
Spanksy
Joey
Coin' down the streets.
Vandalising (.. .)that's the opposite of boredom -excitement, defying the Iaw and when you're down The Plough, and you talk
to the gaffer, standing by the gaffer, buying drinks and that, knowing that you're 14 and 15 and you're supposed to be 18.
The 'laff', talking and marauding misbehaviour are fairly effective but not wholly so in defeating boredom -a boredom increased by their very
success at 'playing the system'.
The particular excitement and kudos of belonging to 'the lads', comes from more antisocial practices than these. It is these more extreme
activities which mark them off most completely both from the 'ear'oles', and from the school. There is a positive joy in fighting, in causing fights
through intimidation. in talking about fighting and about the tactics of the whole fight situation. Many important cultural values are expressed
through fighting. Masculine hubris, dramatic display. the solidarity of the group, the importance of quick, clear and not over-moral thought,
comes out time and again. Attitudes to 'ear'oles' are also expressed clearly and with a surprising degree of precision through physical aggression.
Violence and the judgement of violence is the most basic axis of 'the lads' ascendence over the conformists, almost in the way that knowledge is
for teachers.
In violence there is the fullest if unspecified commitment to a blind or distorted form of revolt. It breaks the conventional tyranny of 'the rule'.
It opposes it with machismo. It is the ultimate way of breaking a flow of meanings which are unsatisfactory, imposed from above, or limited by
circumstances. It is one way to make the mundane suddenly matter. The usual assumption of the flow of the self from the past to the future is
stopped: the dialectic of time is broken. Fights, as acci-dents and other crises, strand you painfully in 'the now'. Boredom and petty detail
disappear. It really does matter how the next seconds pass. And once experienced, the fear of the fight and the ensuing high as the self safely
resumes its journey are addictive. They become permanent possibilities for the alleviation of boredom, and pervasive elements of a masculine
style and presence.
Joey
There's no chivalry or nothing, none of this cobblers you know, it's just . . . if you'm gonna fight, it's
savage fighting
anyway, so you might as well go all the way and win it completely by having someone else help ya or by winning by the dirtiest methods you
can think of, like poking his eyes out or biting
his ear and things like this.
(. .. .)
PW
What do you think, are there kids in the school here that just wouldn't fight?
Spike
It gets you mad, like. if you hit somebody and they won't hit you hack.
PW
Why?
Eddie
I hate kids like that.
Spanksy
Yeah, 'I'm not going to hit you, you'm me friend'.
PW
Well, what do you think of that attitude?
Joey
Id's all accordin'what you got against him, if it's just a trivial thing, like he give you a kick and he wouldn't fight you when
it come to a head, but if he's . . . really something mean towards you, like,
whether he fights back or not, you still pail him.
PW
What do you feel when you're fighting7
Joey
(. . .) it's exhilarating, it's like being scared . . . it's the feeling you get afterwards . . . I know what I feel
when I'm
fighting . . . it's that I've got to kill him, do your utmost best to kill him.
PW
Do you actually feel frightened when you're fighting though?
Joey
Yeah, I shake before I start fighting, I'm really scared, but once you're actually in there, then you start
to co-ordinate
your thoughts like, it gets better and better and then, if you'm good enough, you beat the geezer. You get him down on the floor and just jump
all over his head.
It should be noted that despite its destructiveness, anti-social nature and apparent irrationality violence is not completely random, or In any
sense the absolute overthrow of social order. Even when directed at outside groups (and thereby, of course. helping to define an 'in-group*) one
of the most important aspects of violence is precisely its social meaning within 'the lads" own culture. It marks the last move in, and final
validation of, the informal status system. It regulates a kind of 'honour' -displaced, distorted or whatever. The fight is the moment when you are
fully tested in the alternative culture. It is disastrous for your informal standing and masculine reputation if you refuse to fight, or perform very
amateurishly. Though one of 'the lads' is not necessarily expected to pick fights -it is the 'hard knock' who does this, a respected though often not
much liked figure unlikely to be much of a 'laff -he is certainly expected to fight when insulted or intimidated: to be able to 'look after himself, to
be 'no slouch', to stop people 'pushing him about'.
Amongst the leaders and the most influential -not usually the 'hard knocks' -it is the capacity to fight which settles the final pecking order. It
is the not often tested ability to fight which valorises status based usually and interestingly on other grounds: masculine presence, being from a
"famous' family, being funny, being good at 'blagging', extensiveness of informal contacts.
Violence is recognised, however, as a dangerous and unpredictable final adjudication which must not be allowed to get out of hand between
peers. Verbal or symbolic violence is to be preferred, and if a real fight becomes unavoidable the normal social controls and settled system of
status and reputation is to be restored as soon as possible:
PW
Joey
(. . .) When was the last fight you had Joey?
Two weeks ago . . . about a week ago, on Monday night, this silly
************** End of abstract (pages 34-5 Paul Willis Learning to Labour. 1981 Morningside edition. Columbia
University Press. New York) *********
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The second example is from Goffman Asylums, which has been mentioned in the fundamental propositions of
qualitative / quantitative research document. His 'essay' appears even less structured than that of Willis, not
providing a detailed table of contents or index, although this is probably as much to do with the fact that it was
produced before word processing! The detailed structure however is very similar to Willis's book, sections of very
detailed descriptions / quotes sandwiched between reflections and discussions of similar examples. The extract
below is from the introduction.
************** Start of abstract *********
Erving Goffman Asylums: Essays on the Social Situations of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. 1961 Page 18 -19
Introduction - On the characteristics of total institutions.
The handling of many human needs by the bureaucratic Organization - of whole blocks of people -whether or not this is a
necessary or effective means of social organization in the circumstances - is the key fact of total institutions. From this follow
certain important implications.
When persons are moved in blocks, they can be supervised by personnel whose chief activity is not guidance or periodic
inspection (as in many employer-employee relations) but rather surveillance -a seeing to it that everyone does what he has been
clearly told is required of him, under conditions where one person's infraction is likely to stand out in relief against the visible,
constantly examined compliance of the others. Which comes first, the large blocks of managed people, or the small supervisory
staff, is not here at issue; the point is that each is made for the other.
In total institutions there is a basic split between a large managed group, conveniently called inmates, and a small supervisory
staff. Inmates typically live in the institution and have restricted contact with the world outside the walls; staff often operate on an
eight-hour day and are socially integrated into the outside world. 2 Each grouping tends to conceive of the other in terms of narrow
hostile stereotypes, staff often seeing inmates as bitter, secretive, and untrustworthy, while inmates often see staff as
condescending, highhanded, and mean. Staff tends to feel superior and righteous; inmates tend, in some ways at least, to feel
inferior, weak, blameworthy, and guilty. 3
Social mobility between the two strata is grossly restricted; (social distance is typically great and often formally prescribed. Even
talk across the boundaries may be conducted in a special tone of voice, as illustrated in a fictionalized record of an actual sojourn
in a mental hospital:
'I tell you what,' said Miss Hart when they were crossing the day- room. 'You do everything Miss Davis says. Don't think about it, just do it.
You'll get along all right.'
As soon as she heard the name Virginia knew what was terrible about Ward One. Miss Davis. 'Is she the head nurse?'
'And how,' muttered Miss Hart. And then she raised her voice. The nurses had a way of acting as if the patients were unable to hear anything that was not shouted. Frequently they said things in normal voices that the ladies were not supposed to hear; if thcy had not been
nurses you would have said they frequently talked to themselves. 'A most competent and efficient person, Miss Davis,' announced Miss
Hart.4'
Although some communication between inmates and the staff guarding them is necessary, one of the guard's functions is the
control of communication from inmates to higher staff levels. A student of mental hospitals provides an illustration :
Since many of the patients are anxious to see the doctor on his rounds, the attendants must act as mediators between the patients and the
physician if the latter is not to be swamped. On Ward 30, it seemed to be generally true that patients without physical symptoms who fell
into the two lower privilege groups were almost never permitted to talk to the physician unless Dr Baker himself asked for them. The persevering, nagging delusional group -who were termed 'worry warts', 'nuisances', 'bird dogs', in the attendants' slang -often tried to break
through the attendant-mediator but were always quite summarily dealt with when they tried.5
Just as talk across the boundary is restricted, so, too, is the passage of information, especially information about the staff's plans
for inmates. Characteristically, the inmate is excluded from knowledge of the decisions taken regarding his fate. . . .
Footnotes
2. The binary character of total institutions was pointed out to me by Gregory Bateson, and has been noted in the literature. See, for example, Lloyd E. Ohlin, Sociology and the Field of
Corrections (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1956), pp. 14, 20. In those situations where staff are also required to live in, we may expect staff to feel they are suffering special hard
ships and to have brought home to them a status dependency on life on the inside which they did not expect. See Jane Cassels Record, 'The Marine Radioman's Struggle for Status'.
American Journal of Sociology, LXII (1957), p.359.
3. For the prison version, see S. Kirson Weinberg. 'Aspects of the Prison's Social Structure', American Journal of Sociology, XLVII (1942), PP. 717-26.
4. Mary Jane Ward, The Snake Pit (New York: New American Library 1955), p. 72.
5. Ivan Belknap, Human Problems of a State Mental Hospital (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956), p. 177.
************** End of abstract *********
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4.3 The Mini-Ethnographic Study
The problems associated with the classical ethnographic study can be reduced in a number of ways. The person can
undertake an ethnographic study within their own situation rather than move into one, or the process can be
condensed into a set of small more focused stages. Examples have already been given of people using their own
situation for the ethnographic study, and you will discover more examples in the following sections.
Because of the reduced range and time span of the study, the process is frequently so reduced that it becomes
merely a series of interviews. For example:
Redican and Hedley 1988 carried out two short interviews on a group of twelve women at a local sports centre that
they had previously joined to identify the most suitable individuals. The purpose of the study was to discover the
reasons why women attended sports centres. Similarly, Roberts and Brodies 1992 carried out unstructured and
semi-structured interviews on a range of users of sports centres.
For healthcare examples, including interviews with doctors, see "Qualitative Research in Healthcare", Chapter two
by Pope & Mays 2000 (available online at BMJ.com).
The principle problem with the mini-ethnographic approach that is the reduction in the amount of information
collected means that you may end up with just a "few banalities" (Miles & Huberman 1984 p27 quoted in Robson
1993 p149).
However, Miles and Huberman suggest that by focusing more than would have been done traditionally, this danger
may be reduced. Taking a purely musical analogy, Beethoven's very short piano pieces ('Bagatelles') could easy have
become trite unless he had not deliberately decided to explore very specific focused themes within each of them.
Obviously by adopting this more focused technique you are also adopting a more structured (quantitative) stance,
the extreme result being that you might carry out a few highly structured interviews. In the end you must think
which philosophical view you adhere to rather than what amount of time you have to do the study!
One particular form of mini-ethnography is shadowing which we will consider below.
Exercise 3.
If possible please read: Fine G A 1994 Ten lies of ethnography: Moral dilemmas of field research. Journal of
contemporary Ethnography. 22 (3) 267-94 . Edinburgh University subscribes to this journal.
4.4 Shadowing
Shadowing has become a popular method in teaching because it can be adapted a number of ways to fulfil a number
of purposes. A shadowing exercise can also be thought of as a Case study in some respects.
The exercise is often used to try and get students to move into a more qualitative way of thinking. Students coming
from a science background find it difficult to use a relatively unstructured approach where they are often passive. It
is often very uncomfortable to leave the research laboratory or the controlled structured interview etc. Similarly the
style of writing is very different from that required in the quantitative paradigm. Gone has the strict rule to be
writing as the third person such as ‘it was demonstrated’ instead ‘I felt’ is the order of the day with the ‘I’ word being
positively encouraged.
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4.4.1 The importance of having a theoretical framework for the reflection
The shadowing exercise also provides excellent opportunities to engage in ‘reflective writing’. What I mean here is
while traditionally the mini-ethnographic study would end with writing up the study based upon the interpreted
experience of the ethnographer with ‘reflective writing’ in this instance the student reinterprets the experience from
a number of different theoretical perspectives such as Marxist, Symbolic Interactionist or Feminist to name but a few
and then evaluates them.
Why do I think it is not enough for the person to just reflect upon the experience? Well basically this is because of
the innate weakness of human memory. The exercise below introduces you so some of the issues.
Exercise 4.
Go to Chis Chathams web site and read about the Seven Sins of Memory
http://develintel.blogspot.com/2006/05/seven-sins-of-memory.html
Rather than just believing me I would like you to try the exercise below taken from the excellent book Mind Hacks by
Tom Stafford and Matt Webb http://www.mindhacks.com/ . The exercise demonstrates one aspect of memory -see
if you can recognise which memory sin it is?
Memory Experiment
Taken from Mind Hacks by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb page 288 (edited)
First wrap your eyes around the words in the table below, read them out loud once, then cover the page and try
to list all the words you saw.
Table 1 Read these words aloud straight off, and then cover this up and write down all you can remember
THREAD
PIN
EYE
SEWING
SHARP
POINT
PRICK
THIMBLE
HAYSTACK
THORN
HURT
INJECTION
SYRINGE
CLOTH
KNITTING
Write the list down now
Do the same with the next set listed below: read the words aloud, then cover the page and try to list all the words
you saw
Table 2. As before, read these words aloud, and then write down all you can remember
BED
REST
AWAKE
TIRED
DREAM
WAKE
SNOOZE
BLANKET
DOZE
SLUMBER
Write the list down now
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SNORE
NAP
PEACE
YAWN
DROWSY
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Don’t worry about the words you didn’t get. But did your lists include either “needle” or “sleep”? If so, you should
know that those two words were phantoms in your mind: They’re not in either list!
This is the Deese/ Roediger/McDermott paradigm, or DRM, and highlights how the fallibility of memory is not
limited to the absence of information but includes outright fabrications. Experts believe that this doesn’t
represent glitches in the system but an outcome of the healthy memory system—built as well as needs be.
One point ought to be noted: when this technique is used, subjects are asked not to guess and typically will
afterward state that they reported the “critical lure” (the lure is one of the words we asked whether you’d seen
just now, but which wasn’t in either list, e.g., “needle”) not because they had a hunch that it could be there, but
because they actually remember seeing it.
In other words, there is a reported subjective experience of the word that wasn't there. This experience seems
strong enough to produce better memory for the critical lures (which were never seen) than for the real items
when retested two days later!
Clearly the above exercise is to do with the creation of false memories. One could argue that the type of exercise
above, of which there are several (see the above book for details), would invalidate any type of research involving
'reflective' qualitative practice and many experimental psychologists take that viewpoint. Psychoanalysts offer a
paradigm in direct opposition to that of psychologists.
I would take a more lenient view concerning ethnography and shadowing suggesting that by being aware of the
foibles of memory and using a particular 'lens' to interpret the experience we are at least being aware of the
particular errors we may be making. And the errors will be within a particular 'lens'
A good example of this would be applying Emid Munford's Socio technical approach to interpret a shadowing
exercise, You would focus on the users attitudes toward the IT systems to see is they demonstrated a positive
attitude (i.e. enhanced job satisfaction/ enrichment). You would also focus on possible technical and social
problems that may reduce job satisfaction and work efficiency etc.
Another 'lens' might be that of feminism where you would interpret your experience through the assumptions
within that 'lens' such as females tend to be repressed by men and have a unique voice etc.
To find out more about these different 'lens' read the chapter “Quantitative /Qualitative research fundamental
propositions” referred to in the section ‘before you begin’ at the beginning of this chapter or for more in depth
knowledge I recommend Griffin 2006
Minior Littlejogn & Foss 2006.
ethnographic
study
Shadowing
exercise
Consider various
theoretical
perspectives and
re-interpret
experience
Recall
Apply lens
Interpret
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Evaluate
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Exercise 5.
Imagine that you have carried out a shadowing exercise in the following situations. For each situation consider what
aspect of the experience you might concentrate on based on each of the theoretical perspectives listed below. Do
not worry too much if you have problems with the Role/actor metaphor this is within the Symbolic Interaction 'lens'.
Shadowing
situation
Marxist perspective
Male elderly
Doctor
consultation with
a young female
A young
inexperienced
waitress
A male teacher
Police officer
over a 24 hour
period
Other comments:
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Feminist perspective
Role / actor metaphor
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4.4.2
What is the difference between shadowing a person and visiting an organisation?
Shadowing exercises have been less successful than they might have been because people have frequently not
interacted in the appropriate manner, for example it is important to realise that




If you are being shown around like a visitor, this is not shadowing.
If you are being excluded from observing what the person normally does, this is not shadowing.
If you take breaks with the person you’re with, then you are shadowing.
If you concentrate on how they say the organisation does things rather than you observing the person
perform, then you are not shadowing. You are interested in their view, regardless of how wacky they might
be, not the organisations.
Often this problem is exacerbated when a student chooses to shadow a high level manager rather than possibly
someone lower down the hierarchy.
Another common problem is that students often feel that are carrying out the exercise to find out as much as
possible about the particular culture/group/organisation in a quantitative way, such as the number of employees
there are or the average turnover etc. rather than to get to understand the particular individuals experiences they
are shadowing.
4.4.3 What should I tell the person I am shadowing is the purpose of the exercise?
The most important aspect is to debrief the person who you shadow, this can be simply a thank you or a detailed
explanation of what you focused on and a chance not only to see the report/essay but also to contribute to it.
Before the actual shadowing it is important to gain the persons trust, because ideally you want to tell then as little as
possible before.
The best type of pre shadowing exercise is something like "As part of a course I’m doing at College, we are
encouraged to broaden our horizons by seeing what other people do in their jobs for a day. Any information I come
across will be treated in complete confidence. And we can stop at any time. "
Always avoid such things as:




"I’m doing a computing course."
"I’m doing an IT course."
“I’m interested to see how effectively you communicate with your colleagues”
etc.
The reason for this is obvious, the subject will change their behaviour based upon the information you give them. For
example you may well be interested in focusing in on how they interact with various Information Systems which if
you mention at the start probably will result in them spending the day telling you what they think should be done
with IT in the organisation rather than how they manage information, and also stop them from working normally.
From a theoretical perspective one might argue that such presumptions on your part concerning what are the
important aspects of their work might be invalid anyway!
Obviously when you write up the shadowing experience you should describe in detail what you did tell them along
with their response.
Moving now to more familiar ground let's look at how the ethnographic approach has been used in relation to
Information Systems (IS).
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4.5 Ethnography and Information Systems
The ethnographic approach to either aid the elucidation of systems requirements or evaluate such systems was first
used in the mid 1980s. See Sommerville, Rodden and Sawyer et al 1993 for details, they provide a clear reason for
adopting this approach:
"The rationale for these studies is that actual work practices often differ quite markedly from the
'prescribed practices' set out in company manuals and handbooks. It is usually the case that a
'working division of labour' (Anderson, Hughes & Sharrock 1989) evolves where a team organises
itself to carry out a task irrespective of the job descriptions and job titles defined by the
organisation. This working division of labour is not static. It is continually re-negotiated depending
on circumstances, resource availability and priorities.
The notion that there is a fixed process or procedure for most tasks which can be automated is an over-simplication;.
We believe that the existence of this 'working division of labour' rather than the prescribed organisation is one
important reason why the requirements for a software system are often such that the system does not meet the real
needs of end-users. The system requirements are defined according to documented procedures and standards but
don't take into account actual working practices.
"Involving prospective end-users of a computer system in the requirements analysis does not solve
this problem. We know from work in knowledge acquisition that experts find it very difficult to
articulate their expertise. It is equally if not more difficult for end-users to describe the working
division of labour which is, in fact, informal and dynamic. In other cases, the actual work practices
may be quite contrary to organisational standards and the end-users of the technology will simply
not admit that these practices go on." (p165)
Heath and Luff 2000 provide more academic reasons for the uptake of 'workplace studies' which they consider to be
ethnographies (p8):
(Extract below has been slightly re-formatted):
1. "A wide-ranging critique of the more conventional models which inform our understanding of
human-computer interaction, models which have permeated HCI, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and
cognitive science.
2. Growing interest in developing technologies to support collaborative activities amongst personnel
who may be co-present or located in distinct physical domains.
3. Well publicised technology failures has led to a growing interest amongst computer scientists and
engineers in finding new and more reliable methods for the identification of requirements for
complex systems.
4. Growing recognition that technological deployment is more complex than hitherto assumed;
work practices do not necessarily change to make systems work." (p8)
It should be mentioned that some commentators, such as R J Anderson 1994, have argued that using ethnography to
collect data rather than as a method of reportage is basically degrading the technique. Those who use the
techniques in this way argue that the point is that the spirit, if not the letter, of ethnography has been used to help
analyse aspects of Information Systems. One could just as easy argue that you are invalidating any results by merely
using the tool without taking into account the underlying philosophical aspects.
Specifically this technique has been used to help provide information about user interface requirements (ie
Sommerville, Rodden and Sawyer et al 1993) and the nature of information (Goguen 1994). We will consider both
these aspects now.
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4.6 Ethnography and User Interface Requirements
One of the more recent trends in user interface development is the 'Adaptive interface' concept (see Hill and Hollan
1992, Grudin 1989), of which an example is Microsoft's Office 2003 to the present 2007 version. This is where less
frequently used facilities disappear from the screen dynamically. Additionally, individual users have the opportunity
to change the interface to suit their needs. This is the accepted viewpoint. However, in the Sommerville et al 1993
ethnographic study concerning flight controllers, they discovered:
"From our observations we have become convinced that some 'conventional' assumptions made by
systems designers may be invalid when co-operative systems are being developed. Examples of
these assumptions are:
1. Computer systems should always automate tedious manual tasks which involve comparisons of
similar information and ordering of records in a data store. Therefore, the computer system not the
human operator should be responsible for sorting information and maintaining the sort order when
new information is added to the system.
2. User interface designers should always provide facilities for end-users to tailor interfaces to suit
their own personal ways of working and personal preferences." (p.167)
The first assumption was found to be invalid because the apparently simple task of manually ordering the paper
'flight strips' to prioritise landings etc was found to have a great deal of significance, not least as a safety check.
The second assumption was invalidated because:
"Much of the work of controllers requires 'at a glance' observations of strips and flight progress
boards. A supervisor or chief controller, for example, will simply walk around the suite and will assist
more junior controllers if any potential problems or difficulties are observed. This can only be
effective if all controllers can rapidly assimilate flight strip information and this rapid assimilation is
hindered if even slight differences in strip representations are supported. The requirements
identified through ethnography are therefore 'negative' requirements. The system must not provide
tailorability which will affect immediate understanding of the representation." (p168).
Several aspects of the above studies should be noted but probably the most important is the lack of adoption of
‘assumptions’ and the use of any technique to verify or repute them – a characteristic of the qualitative paradigm
rather than the traditional quantitative approach where one enters with a clearly defined hypothesis etc.
We will now take a brief look at what ethnography has contributed to the debate concerning the nature of
information.
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5. Dry and Wet Data
Goguen 1994 proposed that information can be graded on a continuum from wet to dry. Wet information is that
which requires knowledge of the context to help define it whereas dry information is context independent. Goguen
uses the word 'situated' to describe a concept similar in meaning to context. Here is the relevant paragraph:
"...information...can be understood in a wide variety of contexts from information that is so
thoroughly situated that it cannot be understood except in relation to very particular contexts. We
call these types of information dry and wet, respectively...Of course, there is really a continuum of
intermediate cases, e.g. 'damp' information, such as cookery recipes. In general, information cannot
be fully context sensitive (for then it could only be understood when and where it is produced) nor
fully context insensitive (for then it could be understood by anyone at any time). A fairly extreme
case is the 'raw data' collected in a scientific experiment; although it may be just a collection of
numbers, it is very highly situated, because those numbers only make sense to a very small group
who share a very particular context. On the other hand, an equation that summarises the numbers
is relatively more dry, and a physical law is even drier. It is important to notice that information,
however dry, must still be interpreted in some local context. Therefore, the qualities of
situatedness...apply to information; that is, information is always emergent, contingent, local,
embodied, open and vague. This has important implications for requirements engineering, in
suggesting what we can responsibly expect from requirements documents, as opposed to the
unattainable ideals of positivist philosophers." (Goguen 1994 p173-174)
Note: Do not worry about not understanding the last few sentences about 'situatedness' in the above abstract.
In a more practical light, ethnographic approaches have been used to help specify high level system requirements for
various Information Systems, including those for learning disabilities in the UK by 'shadowing' individuals (Rhode and
Beaumont 1997).
The above Goguen abstract demonstrates the ethnographic stance regarding the perceived importance of cultural
aspects in whatever one is investigating. Bound up with the concept of culture is the shared understanding we each
have of 'the other' which is necessary for communication. While this is generally considered as given in the
ethnographic approach, in contrast in the ethnomethodological approach it becomes the focus of the investigation.
6. Ethnomethodology
Before discussing this topic, it is sensible to provide a health warning, namely the following:
1. The first person to use the term 'ethnomethodology' was Harold Garfinkel in 1967 in his book Studies in
Ethnomethodology. You are advised not to try to read this because "Many sociologists regard this book as
one of the most difficult books in sociology ever written" (Cuff and Payne p157).
2. Garfinkel himself was rather dismissive of the term and felt that too much importance was placed upon it
(Turner 1974 p15).
3. Sociologists tend to spend an inordinate amount of time discussing the theoretical foundations of their
present focus of concern. While this is necessary for a sociologist, it is not necessary for the understanding of
the actual technique under discussion.
6.1
So What is Ethnomethodology?
Personally I have found this small section the most difficult I have ever written, many of the references to the subject
seem to delight in obfuscation and contradiction. I have provided two explanations below, what I consider to be the
best of the bunch!
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Do not try to understand all the content of each of them. The important aspect for you to realise is that
ethnomethodology is not the same as ethnography because: it is looking in more detail, it has a different theoretical
basis and often makes use of manipulated social situations (“experimental conditions”) to gain data.
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6.1.1 Explanation One
Ethnomethodology from McNeill 1990 (p94 - 96)
"...Ethnomethodology...has found a niche as a specialized way of analysing how people make sense of, construct,
and confirm their world-view and their way of life...its central focus is on the meanings and understandings that
people use to make sense of their everyday lives.
The central idea of ethnomethodology is that the orderliness of social life is not the result of people obeying social
norms or giving way to social pressures, but rather that orderliness is attained by all those involved working to
achieve it. The orderliness is produced by the participants, on every occasion that they interact. For Garfinkel, the
founder of ethnomethodology, social events are entirely the product of the actions of those 'members' involved at
the particular moment. People perceive the world as though it were guiding and constraining them. Garfinkel's
interest is not in whether they are right or wrong in perceiving it this way, but rather in how they come to perceive it
in this way [the 'method' they use], and what effect this perception has on their actions. People need to make
enough sense of any social event to be able to act appropriately. Garfinkel's recommendation to sociologists is:
'Look around you and everywhere you will find ordinary persons going about their everyday
business performing familiar, unremarkable activities. This mundane fact is the very crux of the
social world. The ability of members successfully to perform practical activities in collaboration with
others is what makes the social world possible.
Therefore, take these practical actions and examine them for how they are accomplished. You will
find that the methods involved are complex and sophisticated, yet they are possessed (and require
to be possessed) by pretty nearly everyone.' (Quoted in Cuff and Payne 1984)
Ethnomethodology has developed various ways of demonstrating these unwritten rules of social life, and of showing
how they are continuously achieved by social actors. There is the disruptive experiment, invented by Garfinkel
himself. In this, the ethnomethodologist deliberately disrupts the taken-for-granted routine of social life and
watches what happens. One famous example of this was when he asked students to pretend that they were
boarders in their own homes and to behave accordingly. That is to say, they were more formal, more polite and
rather more distant than usual, asking permission to do things that usually they would have done without question.
The effect on others in the home highlighted, for Garfinkel, the taken-for-granted rules of family life, which became
apparent when they were broken rather than when they were being achieved and observed. The taken-for-granted
world was shown as the fragile construction that it really is.
But it is in the area of conversational analysis that ethnomethodology had made the greatest contribution. Given
that social order is continuously worked at and achieved by members, the question arises, 'How is this done?' 'What
is the main method that people use to achieve social order?' The answer is 'conversation and talk,' and this led
ethnomethodologists like Harvey Sacks into detailed analysis of conversation as a practical accomplishment of
ordinary people. His aim is to show what are the taken-for-granted rules of conversation and how we describe the
world to one another so that we all make sense of it in similar ways. As a result, we are able to interact with each
other. He is particularly interested in the way that words and sentences change their meaning according to the
context in which they are said and heard, and in the ways in which we all fill in unspoken background of what is said
to us. To understand the meaning of what is said to us is a cultural accomplishment that we take for granted. The
ethnomethodologist does not take it for granted. S/he tries to spell out how we do it.
Schegloff has made studies of the rules of conversation in so far as they govern who speaks when, and how we know
when it is our turn to speak. For example, what are the rules that govern the opening of a telephone conversation?
And how do we end the conversation in such a way that both persons involved recognise that the end has been
reached, and neither feels snubbed? Of course, sometimes we do feel that the other person has been rather abrupt
in ending the conversation, and that is the moment when we should do our ethnomethodological analysis to identify
what it was they, or we, failed to do as part of bringing the conversation to a proper and recognisable end. If we can
identify it, then we have identified a taken-for-granted rule of everyday life.
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Lastly, ethnomethodologists have made studies of what they call 'practical reasoning'. How do people arrive at
conclusions about what is going on in a particular instance? This process is not only one that occurs in everyday life,
but has also to be carried out by scientists in the laboratory, or by coroners' courts (Atkinson 1978).
The development of techniques for both sound and video recording have opened up another world of data to
enthomethodologists...Making a recording of, for example, people walking along the street enables the researcher
to study the unwritten rules which apply when people are trying to pass each other on a narrow pavement. Atkinson
(1984) made detailed analyses of politicians' speeches recorded on video. He identified the methods they used, both
of language and of body language, to elicit applause from their audiences.
Newcomers to sociology may find it difficult to make much sense of ethnomethodology. Many old hands find it
extraordinarily obscure, though fascinating, activity. For the purposes of this book, the important point to grasp is
that it is a way of studying social life that concentrates on the unwritten rules that make ordinary everyday social
activity orderly, and tries to spell out these rules."
6.1.2 Explanation Two
Ethnomethodology - An Introduction By Simon Poore http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/soc/ethno/intro.htm
Ethnomethodology is a fairly recent sociological perspective, founded by the American sociologist Harold Garfinkel in
the early 1960s. The main ideas behind it are set out in his book "Studies in Ethnomethodology" (1967).
Ethnomethodology simply means the study of the ways in which people make sense of their social world.
It differs from other sociological perspectives in one very important respect. Although Functionalists, Marxists and
Symbolic Interactionists are all markedly different, they all assume that the social world is essentially orderly, that is
that patterns of behaviour and interaction in society are regular and systematic rather than haphazard and chaotic.
Of course they all explain this social order in different ways. Functionalists regard it as the outcome of value
consensus in society, which ensures that behaviour conforms to generally accepted norms. Marxists see it as a result
of the subordination of one class to another, it is precarious and prone to disruption by revolution but nevertheless
it exists. Interactionists differ from these macro-perspectives in that they see order less as a feature of the social
system but more as something that is created and recreated everyday in the multiplicity of interaction situations. It
is 'negotiated order' Which results from the processes of definition, interpretation and negotiation which constitute
social interaction. However as with Functionalism and Marxism, social order is presumed to be an objective feature
of social life.
By contrast, Ethnomethodologists start out with the assumption that social order is illusory. They believe that social
life merely appears to be orderly; in reality it is potentially chaotic. For them social order is constructed in the minds
of social actors as society confronts the individual as a series of sense impressions and experiences which she or he
must somehow organise into a coherent pattern.
Garfinkel suggests that the way individuals bring order to, or make sense of their social world is through a
psychological process, which he calls "the documentary method". This method firstly consists of selecting certain
facts from a social situation, which seem to conform to a pattern and then making sense of these facts in terms of
the pattern. Once the pattern has been established, it is used as a framework for interpreting new facts, which arise
within the situation.
To demonstrate the documentary method in action, Garfinkel set up an experiment in the Psychiatry department of
a university. He asked a number of students to take part in the experiment, telling them that it involved a new form
of Psychotherapy. The students were invited to talk about their personal problems with an 'advisor' who was
separated from them by a screen. They could not see the advisor and could only communicate with him via an
intercom. They were to ask him a series of questions about their problems to which he would respond by answering
either 'yes' or 'no'. What the students didn't know was that these responses were not authentic answers to the
questions posed but a predetermined sequence of yes and no answers drawn from a table of random numbers.
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Garfinkel found that although there was no real consistency in the answers given to the questions asked the
students nevertheless managed to make sense of them, discerning some underlying pattern in the advice they were
being given. Most found the advice reasonable and helpful. This was so even when, as must inevitably happen when
answers are given randomly, some of the advice was contradictory. Thus in one case a student asked: "so you think I
should drop out of school then?" and received a 'yes' response. Surprised by this he asked, "You really think I should
drop out of school?" only to be given a 'no' answer. Rather than dismissing the advice as nonsense, the student
struggled to find its meaning, looking back for a pattern in the advisors' responses, referring back to previous
answers, trying to make sense of the contradiction terms of the advisors' knowledge of this problem. Never did it
occur to the student to doubt the sincerity of the advisor.
What the students were doing throughout these counselling sessions, Garfinkel argues, was constructing a social
reality to make sense of an often-senseless interaction. By using the documentary method they were able to bring
order to what was in fact a chaotic situation.
One important aspect of the documentary method to which Garfinkel draws attention is "indexicality". This means
simply that people make sense of a remark, sign or particular action by reference to the context in which it occurs;
that is they index it to particular circumstances. Thus for example, the answers given by the advisors in the
counselling experiment made sense to the students only in the context of the experiment. The setting of the
experiment, the information they were given about it and so on led them to accept the situation as authentic. Had
the interaction taken place in the students' own rooms with fellow students acting as advisors, for example, the
interpretation put upon the answers would have been completely different.
Garfinkel suggests that we are all constantly making use of the documentary method in our daily lives to create a
"taken-for-granted" world which we feel we "know" and can be "at home" in. We perceive our social world through
a series of patterns we have built up for making sense of and coping with the variety of situations that we encounter
everyday. Sometimes we know (or think we know) something so well that we do not notice when it changes. For
example a wife may become angry when her husband does not notice her new hairstyle or new dress. The pattern of
her appearance and behaviour has which the husband carries in his mind has become so fixed that it is incapable of
accommodating new facts. The taken-for-granted world we all inhabit is to some extent necessary in order to avoid
confusion which would be experienced if we saw everything as if it were the first time.
A favoured technique among ethnomethodologists is to disrupt temporarily the world which people take for granted
and see how they react. The point of this is to expose background assumptions that have been accepted as reality
for a long time. In one of his experiments Garfinkel asked students to behave as visitors in their own homes, and
record the bemused reactions of their parents as they struggled to comprehend the sudden disruption of their
informal relationship built up over many years with their children.
As we have seen ethnomethodology tends to ignore the information actually transmitted during interaction,
concentrating purely on how interaction was performed. This is because the stance of ethnomethodology suggests
that all meanings are and can only ever be subjective and that the only objective social reality, and therefore the
only thing worth studying, is the reality of commonly understood methods of communication.
It is this kind of near-relativism that is often used to criticise ethnomethodology. Although it can be said to be a
reaction to the structuralist views of sociology in the 1960s, and the dangers of totalitarianism, in taking a relativist
stance ethnomethodology cannot make moral judgments about meanings. Therefore it cannot address problems
such as inequality and power. It can be argued that ethnomethodology is not purely relativistic in that it must
provide rules for itself to work. That is the ethnomethodologist must assume that others will understand the
meaning of his or her work, in the same way that I am assuming that the reader will understand this text.
It could be said that the human capacity to produce order out of chaos is the only worthwhile capacity in the eyes of
the ethnomethodologist. For them other human capacities, such as moral judgment, would be seen as subjective
only and therefore perhaps containing no real truth. However ethnomethodology is a very good method for seeing
how individuals make sense of the social world for themselves, in effect creating their own reality from precious
little real information provided.”
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We will now take a quick look at examples of ethnomethodology in healthcare and also in Information Systems.
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6.2 Ethnomethodology in Health and Information Systems
From the above descriptions of ethnomethodology, it is reasonable to guess that such studies in a healthcare setting
will take taken-for-granted occurrences and examine them in a great deal of detail. I will just present two studies
here, both concerned with medical records. The first looks at how they are used while the second one takes this
further to develop a set of possible requirements for an (improved) IS.
'Good' Organisational Reasons for 'Bad' clinical Records (in Harold Garfinkel Studies in
Ethnomethodology 1967)
Garfinkel spent time investigating the content and uses of clinical records in an Out-Patient Psychiatric Clinic at the
UCLA Medical Centre (California). He proposed that the various 'bad' characteristics of medical records often have a
rational reason and frequently enhanced the functioning of the records. He considered the records from a number of
perspectives. Possibly one of his most interesting aspects is his discussion concerning the reading of the documents:
"Above all, it is desired that folder contents be permitted to acquire whatsoever meaning readership
can invest them with when various documents are 'combinatorially' played against and in search of
alternative interpretations in accordance with the reader's developing interests on the actual
occasion of reading them. Thus the actual event, when it is encountered under the auspices of the
possible use to be made of it, furnishes, on that occasion, the definition of the document's
significance. Thereby, the list of folder documents is open ended and can be indefinitely long.
Questions of overlap and duplication are irrelevant. Not only do they not arise but questions of
overlap cannot be assessed until the user knows, with whatever clarity or vagueness, what he wants
to be looking for and, perhaps, why. In any case questions of overlap and omission cannot be
decided until he has actually examined whatever he actually encounters."
Further contrasting features of 'duplication' and 'omission' in the two reporting systems require comment. In an
actuarial record, information may be repeated for the sake of expediency. But the statement of a present state of a
bank account does not add any information to what can be readily gathered from the account's earlier state and the
subsequent deposits and withdrawals. If the two do not match, this points irrefutably to some omission. The record
is governed by a principle of relevance with the use of which the reader can assess its completeness and adequacy at
a glance:
"A clinical record does not have this character. A subsequent entry may be played off against a
former one in such a way that what was known then, now changes complexion. The contents of a
folder may jostle each other in bidding to play a part in a pending argument. It is an open question
whether things said twice are repetitions, or whether the latter has a significance, say, of confirming
the former. The same is true of omissions. Indeed, both come to view only in the context of some
selected scheme of interpretation.
Most important, the competent reader is aware that it is not only that which the folder contains
that stands in a relationship of mutually qualifying and determining reference, but parts that are
not in it belong to this too. These ineffable parts come to view in the light of known episodes, but
then, in turn, the known episodes themselves are also, reciprocally, interpreted in the light of what
one must reasonably assume to have gone on while the case progressed without having been made
a matter of record."
'Bad' Organisational Reasons for 'Good' clinical Records (by Christian Heath and Paul Luff)
The exercise below asks you to read through this article and answer several questions. You may be interested to
know that since publication of the original article in 1996, the authors have updated it and included further details of
Information System requirements in Health and Luff 2000.
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From the above articles, you can appreciate the difficult nature of the literature; Garfinkel seems to produce
sentences worthy of Proust with each sentence being a paragraph in itself!
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Exercise 6.
Please read the following article.
C Heath P Huff 1996 'bad' organisational reasons for 'good' clinical records Proceedings of the Conference on
Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Boston: ACM Press pp. 354-363. You will need to find it in your e-journals
link at your university it was originally available from Kings College London, Work, Interaction and Technology
Research Group Home page: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/sspp/mgmt/research/wit/ .
Note that the authors use the term 'class' to indicate an entry of one or more items for a consultation. When you
have finished reading the article, make certain that you can answer the following questions:
1. What is defeasibility?
2. What are the three classes that they suggest the traditional medical record consists of?
3. What are the four 'basic' requirements they suggest to improve the VAMP system?
7. Software support - Bridging the void
I was in two minds where to place this section as traditionally the process of identifying significant nouns from a
narrative that may indicate if they are possible Entity Types or Classes etc is a vital preliminary stage of most
quantitative systems development methods. However when one thinks about it this particular process this is very
similar a procedure in qualitative data analysis where transcripts of conversations are analysed for themes etc. (using
such software as Nudist etc) to help develop an interpretive framework is very similar.
Therefore one could argue that one of the vital preliminary stages of most quantitative systems development
methods is firmly rooted within the qualitative tradition. This has become a source of frustration and stress for
those with firm quantitative beliefs with the result that there is a advice area of research within RE to automate the
Entity type/ Class identification process from narratives etc. However, this is still very much a research activity within
the RE community.
Several Systems modelling tools (Case tools ) provide the functionality to select text from a narrative and specify that
it is a candidate class / use case / actor, for example the
screen shot below is taken from the resource pages for
the Visual Paradigm software http://resource.visualparadigm.com/. Those of you who have use a qualitative
textual analysis toll will see the similarity immediately.
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8. Exercises
In contrast to many of my teaching chapters this one does not include any multiple choice questions (MCQs). This is
because I feel that the subject matter is not suitable for such treatment, however if someone would like to present
me with a set of MCQs I would be most grateful. Instead I have included a number of practical exercises based
around a shadowing exercise.
1. Arrange to spend a day with someone outside of your typical environment, If you work choose someone in a different organisation, a
different profession and in a different position regarding power. Follow the guidelines mentioned in the section on shadowing.
2. How useful to you think the technique was in allowing you to evaluate how a person communicates and manages information (i.e. verbal,
non-verbal, IT mediated etc).
3. How useful was it in allowing you to learn about another profession?
4. What personally did you like or dislike about the experience?
5. How successful was the shadowing – did the person allow you to shadow them, or were they determined to keep you at a distance or only
provide a façade, etc? What made you come to these conclusions?
6. What would you change if you were to do the exercise again?
7. Did you think of a number of areas you might focus attention on before the day or did you go in completely cold - upon reflection, which do
you think would have been the most useful?
8. In communication theory it is often said that self-disclosure is a good technique to gain trust, what do you think you did to gain trust? Are
you sure you did?
9. How easy was it to relate your experience to the material presented in this chapter?
10. Provide sensible suggestions for possible improvement in terms of how the person manages information.
11. How could the exercise be improved?
12. If you were to mark a set of shadowing day reports you might produce a marking scheme similar to the one below. What do you think of it?
Any suggestions for improvements?
Component
Description
1
Situation Identification
From situation not identified to situation clearly identified, within the particular lens of interpretation
selected
2
Situation Description
From situation not described (or described inappropriately) to clearly described to enable a reflective
stance to be taken within the particular lens of interpretation selected
3
Logical Structure in the
Development of Reflection
From no reasoning to clear reasons and imaginative/logical (within the lens selected) structure
4
Reflection
From none to insightful reflection and appropriate recommendations with demonstration that the
candidate was probed during the day
5
Balance Between I and Other
From "I" not considered to a highly individualistic and personal account
6
Genre issues
From inappropriate lens selected for context and inappropriate method of study chosen to highly
appropriate lens and methods
7
Analysis and synthesis
Linkage between day, theoretical material and reflection: nonexistent to high degree of linkage
8
Discretionary
Examples of additional reading and insights beyond that expected from the course material.
13. If you are working through this chapter as part of a web based course:
Set up a discussion thread to:
a.
Consider the various stages of the shadowing exercise
b.
Possible answers to the various exercises in this chapter
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c.
Suggesting other ways of obtaining the same experience but without spending the day shadowing someone
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9. Summary
This chapter has introduced you to a number of qualitative techniques used to gain insight, into Information
systems, I have tried to highlight the fact that these techniques can be used as a end in themselves rather than just
the start of a 'quantitative process'. Two specific qualitative approaches were discussed in detail ethnography and
ethnomethodology and you were also introduced to the technique of shadowing.
Finally the process of extracting entity types/classes from a narrative was discussed demonstrating that even so
called quantitative modelling techniques have as their first step a qualitative process.
10. Links
Since writing the last version of this handout many of the free educational resources concerning qualitative methods
for obtaining requirements have disappeared, probably being subsumed into Electronic learning Environments
within institutions. I have mentioned several of them below in case those who originally provided them read this
chapter and have a moral conscience.
Mark Rouncefield at Lancaster University, computing department is interested in Ethnomethodology and systems
development (http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/~rouncefi/) and has a set of excellent links
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/~rouncefi/Theory.html including
Technomethodology: Paradoxes and Possibilities by Graham Button and Paul Dourish (1996)
Hazards of Design: Ethnomethodology and the Ritual Order of Computing - by Philip E. Agre Department of
Information Studies University of California, Los Angeles
Ethnomethodology and the Study of Online Communities: Exploring the Cyber Streets - by Steven R. Thomsen,
Joseph D. Straubhaar and Drew M. Bolyard from the IRISS '98: Conference
Also at Lancaster University there was information about Ethnographic studies of people using technology in
cooperative settings are well established in the CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work):
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/research/cseg/projects/pointer/ethno.html
Association for Information Systems (university of Aukland) http://www.qual.auckland.ac.nz/ This site holds a large
amount of information concerning Qualitative research methods. However it is rather biased and I feel fails to
present a balanced case. Much of the material on the site lacks understanding of what are the consequences of the
propositions of the positivist paradigm.
Myers, Michael D. 1999. “Investigating Information Systems with Ethnographic Research,” Communication of the AIS,
Vol. 2, Article 23, pp. 1-20. This is available online at the above site. Page 8 describes various types of ethnographic
research.
Klein, H. K. and Michael D. Myers. 1999 "A Set of Principles for Conducting and Evaluating Interpretive Field Studies
in Information Systems," MIS Quarterly, Special Issue on Intensive Research (23:1), 1999, pp. 67-93. This is available
online at the above site. It provides a historical perspective of ethnographic. However I feel that it does a poor job
criticising the method.
Link no longer available: The theory and practice of fieldwork for Systems Development (UK). This was an excellent
site developed by Dave Randall at Manchester Metropolitan University and Mark Rouncefield at Lancaster
University. http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/Fieldwork/Tutout.html
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First version 2001 (part of another chapter) 2003 abstracted:
End of chapter
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