Education and Ethnographic Research (Approaches and Principles)

Ethnographic Research and Education

Ethnography is defined as a social science research method which is reliant on personal experience beyond mere observation (Genzuk). Ethnographic researchers commonly work in teams possessing skills in a variety of professional fields, as the objective of ethnographic studies may include language development, education in culture, and a combination of research methods. Usually, ethnographic research employs interviewing, qualitative descriptions, and documentation as a secondary data source for the purpose of collecting information. Such an approach resultantly generates multiple types of data. Generally such research will be constructed and read similar to a narrative, using various visual aids or artifacts to convey the experience (Hammersley). Models for ethnographic research can provide a foundation for new development, new variables to analyze, and the facilitating for empirical assessments. The following will consider the principles of ethnographic studies in a variety of contexts, while maintaining a primary focus on education. A case study concerning education will also be discussed and related to ethnographic approaches and principles.

Education and the Principles of Ethnographic Research

The principles of ethnographic research involve the use of loosely structured qualitative analysis while approaching a specific element of human behavior which has seen little exploration, for the purpose of obtaining new information. Often the aim is to further suggest improvements to some procedural element in addition to expanding the current knowledge base, while this is highly applicable to the language classroom.

The principles of ethnographic research are rooted in anthropology and sociology. Modern practitioners will organize this type of research in full spectrum of locations, as the practitioners seek to observe education, health, the development of infrastructure, consumerism, and many other fields which can be related to anthropology and sociology. Such approaches to this area have developed into excellent ways for exploring topics within research, while ethnography itself considers a spectrum of qualitative and quantitative approaches alike. Methods in this type of research also serve as a great way of obtaining the opinions of the locals people, while simultaneously providing a way to locate specific data related to human behavior and culture through personal face-to-face communication (Moll and Greenburg; Genzuk).

Ethnography serves to improve and expand top-down perspective, which improves the process of answering research questions and testing hypotheses. It further serves to obtain information from the bottom-up perspective and the opinions of high ranking authorities, and it also creates new viewpoints through motivating group exploration of the more subtle aspects of anthropology and sociology. Researchers gain the ability to present the results of their work while suggesting improvements in the area of policy or program development (Genzuk). Thus, the research programs are designed to facilitate innovation as the topics themselves consider areas which are more subtle in terms of documented scientific research.

Hammersley explained that the ethnography refers to specific social research based on specific elements and principles. The first is that the behavior of individuals is to be observed in terms of their normal daily life, rather than through unusual experimental conditions developed by the researcher which may alter the behavior of those observed. Secondly, information may obtained from a large variety of sources, however, direct personal observance with the possibility of informal interviews should serve as the primary sources in the typical case. Furthermore, the approach to obtaining data should not be overly structured, while a looser designed approach allows for certain useful freedoms; the lack of a thoroughly premeditated plan and specifically outlined categories designed for the purpose of interpreting the response of participants allows the researcher to implement specific measures as felt to be required for the potentially changing circumstances. Meanwhile, the emphasis is typically on a specific audience or a specific location within the environment. This is typically conducted on a smaller (or even statistically minute) scale. Lastly, the analysis of the obtained information includes the interpretation of the meaning and operations of human behavior, while this is normally found to be best considered in oral accounts and depictions. Here the emphasis is on qualitative findings, while quantitative assessments typically play little to no role.

The language classroom is particularly benefited by ethnographic research as it takes a practical approach to learning about the immediate community, which is naturally the environment that classrooms are most concerned with. The improvement of classroom activities and academic programs are the objective of some studies, and naturally there is thus potential that the effectiveness of language education can rise substantially in this. Overall, ethnographic research is less specific and technically sophisticated than other approaches to improving education, however the inherent freedom in the unstructured pursuit of specific data allows it to address key issues in the field of education; this can directly aim to improve the elements of educational structure and design through any fashion which can be detected in this research.

In terms of research methodology specifically, there are three principles further relevant to education, as supplied by Hammersley. These principles are naturalism, understanding, and discovery. According to Genzuk, these principles are commonly the foundation of criticism towards the majority of quantitative methods, while the conditions surrounding this approach commonly include the alteration of circumstances which are prevalent in the genuine functioning environment (and thus are argued to facilitate inaccuracy.) Naturalism relates the perspective that the objective of social research is to outline the natural character of individuals, while studies of this as applicable to students or faculty commonly benefits the field of education. This considers the true and natural state of the target audience, and further aims to obtain new information from the specific selected setting in this manner. Meanwhile, principle of understanding makes distinctions between the actions of people and those of objects and animals. Occasionally this principle will facilitate the rejection of causality in terms of social context, while this allows for a more through consideration of the social environment of academic audiences. Lastly, the principle of discovery is most relevant to language education, as it actively seeks to provide innovation to the educational program or structure being assessed (Genzuk). Naturally, such elements are considered the justification for results, and thus discovery is a highly respected principle in the academic world.

Case Study and Concluding Remarks

We can consider an independent case study and its implications in an informal manner with the approaches to ethnographic research. An English as a second language (ESL) course was being taught to Spanish students within a Scottish college across two separate courses taught by two different instructors. The differences between the elements of this niche group were analyzed, as well as the teaching approaches and results of performance across the courses. According to the students, one course employed the "learning by teaching method" in which students would be required to teach each other by discussing their assignments in the class lectures. Furthermore, this class was required to do a great deal more research than the other course for their assignments. Following these facts coming to light, students were interviewed in attempt to determine the grading schematics and average level of performance within the class. It was discovered that the grading difficulty was the same for each class, while this provided an excellent way to compare the results. Indeed, the students in the class employing the unique teaching performance were outperforming the students in the other class. From this observation, we can easily see that the specialized teaching methods are more effective for ESL. Meanwhile, the observance of the ethnographic principles allowed for the freedom in interviewing and investigated required to make some deduction, and the results could easily be used as the basis of future innovation.

References

Genzuk, M. A synthesis for ethnographic research. Center for Multilingual, Multicultural Research, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California: Los Angeles.

Hammersley, M. Reading Ethnographic Research: A Critical Guide. London: Longman.

Moll, L., and Greenberg, J. Creating Zones of Possibilities: Combining Social Constructs for Instruction. In: L.C. Moll (ed.) Vygotsky and Education: Instructional Implications and Applications of Sociohistorical Psychology, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.