Ethnographic vs Phenomenological Research Designs

 

Phenomenological Research Design	Ethnographic Research Design
The goal of phenomenological research is to fully understand the essence of some phenomenon.  This is usually accomplished with long, intensive individual interviews.  The purpose is to describe and interpret the experiences of participants in order to understand the essence of the experience as perceived by the participants.  The basis is that there are multiple ways of interpreting the same experience, and that the meaning of the experience to each participant is what constitutes reality.  Focuses on the consciousness of human experiences.	The goal of ethnographic research is to describe and interpret a cultural or social group. Ethnographers spend extensive time in the setting being studied and use observations, interviews, and other analyses to understand the nature of the culture.  Ethnography is an in-depth description and interpretation of cultural patterns and meanings within a culture or social group.  The main emphasis is on groups.  Ethnographers study specific cultural themes.
A phenomenological research problem focuses on what is essential for the meaning of the event, episode, or interaction.  It also focuses on understanding the participants’ voice.  The problem can be stated directly or less directly.  Usually there is a single, central question in the research.  Several sub questions are used to orient the researcher in collecting data and framing the results.	An ethnographic research problem consists of foreshadowed questions, which are initially general and are subject to change as the study is conducted.  Once the statement or question is established, the researcher designs data collection by determining the nature of the research site, how to enter the research site, how to select participants, how to obtain data, and how to analyze the data.
Participants are selected because they have lived the experiences being investigated, are willing to share their thoughts about the experiences, and can articulate their conscious experiences.  Often the participants are from a single site but multi-sites are not uncommon.  Typically, between 5 and 25 individuals are interviewed	Once the research site has been determined and the researcher has spent some time at the site, some of the individuals are selected for more intensive observation and/or interviews.  These participants (usually 5-10) are selected through purposeful sampling to provide an in-depth understanding of the culture that is being studied.  The selection is done so that the site and participants reflect the culture that is being studied.
Data is obtained by personal, in-depth, semi structured or unstructured interview.  The interviews are typically long, and the researcher may have several interview sessions with each participant.  Because of the heavy reliance on this single method of data collection, it is important for the researcher to be skilled at interviewing.  The interviews are tape-recorded for analysis.	Data is obtained by: Observing a culture for weeks, months, even years Interact with and interview members of the culture Analyze documents and artifacts (observation, interview, document analysis) The researcher engages in extensive work in the naturally occurring setting or context.  The researcher takes field notes; detailed recordings of observed behavior. The researcher could be a participant observer or a complete observer.  Interviews could consist of key informant interviews, life-history interviews, or focus group interviews.
Data is analyzed by: Because the focus is on shared meaning and consciousness, the researcher must be very careful in creating codes and concepts that form the basis for descriptions and meanings.  The analysis begins with a description of the researcher’s experiences with the phenomenon.  Statements are identified that show how the participants experience the phenomenon and then meaningful units are formed from the statements using verbatim language from the participants as illustrations.  Descriptions of what was experienced are separated from how it was experienced.  The researcher may reflect on his or her own experiences and integrate them with those of the participants.  An overall description of the meaning of the experience is constructed.  Individual as well as composite descriptions are written to show how the experiences fit with the meaning derived.	Data is analyzed by: Pages of field notes or interview transcripts must be critically examined and synthesized.  Analysis is done during collection as well as after all data have been gathered.  The goal of the analysis is to discover patterns, ideas, explanations, and understandings.  Specific data elements have to be organized and then synthesized to derive the patterns and ideas that will form the basis of the conclusions.  Analysis requires organization of the data, summarizing of the data, and then interpreting the data. Emic: participant wording Etic: researcher representations of emic data Codes: Words or phrases to signify units of data Category: Idea that represents coded data