chapter 10 (ethnography and participant observation)

Question 1

ethnography

Answer 1

researcher immersed in social setting for period of time, observing behaviour, asking questions, and analyzing what is said in conversations between participants and field workers. more inclusive than participant observation.

Question 2

participant observation

Answer 2

fieldworkers immersed in social setting for period of time, observing behaviour, asking questions, and analyzing what is said in conversations between participants and researchers. interviewing key informants and studying documents. observational aspect of ethnography.

Question 3

reflexive

Answer 3

term used to refer to social researchers’ awareness of the implications that their methods, values, biases, decisions, and mere presence in the situations they investigate have for the knowledge they generate.

Question 4

realist

Answer 4

epistemological position according to which reality is independent of the senses but is to some degree accessible to the researcher’s tools and theoretical speculations.

Question 5

purposive sampling

Answer 5

form of non-probability sampling in which cases are selected on the basis of their ability to provide information relevant to the topic of the study.

Question 6

snowball sampling

Answer 6

non-probability sample in which the researcher makes initial contact with a small group of people connected to the research topic and then uses them to establish contact with others.

Question 7

theoretical saturation

Answer 7

in grounded theory, the point where emerging concepts have been fully explored and no new insights are being generated. part of theoretical sampling.