Midterm 2

Question 1

Three types of interviews

Answer 1

• standardized (structured, formal)
• unstandardized or non- standardized
• semi standardized

Question 2

Assumptions of standardized interviews:

Answer 2

• questions are comprehensive enough that they will elicit all pertinent information about the topic
• questions are worded so that participants clearly understand what the interviewer is asking
• the meaning of each question is identical for every subject

Question 3

Assumptions of unstandardized interviews

Answer 3

• interviewers do not know what all the necessary questions are
• people’s linguistic capacities are not commensurate
• participants will not necessarily find equal meaning in like worded questions

Question 4

Assumptions of standardized interviews

Answer 4

• interviewers know what some of the important questions are
• there is some commensurability between individuals
• interviewer must standardize questions in the language/ vocabulary of the participants and use probes to explore novel emic concepts

Question 5

Types of interview questions

Answer 5

• deriving questions to ask - creating schedule (order, content, style)
• essential, extra, throw- away, probes
• wording of questions
• grand tour and mini tour
• common problems with questions

Question 6

Deriving questions

Answer 6

• research questions guide question formulation
• we start with a broad outline comprised of major categories we would like to explore
• our questions relate to the different categories
• we get these categories from a thorough search and reading of the literature

Question 7

Order, content, style

Answer 7

• structure of schedule will depend upon traits of your participants
• structure includes the order or sequence of questions, phrasing, level of language, adherence to subject matter
• factors influencing structural choices we make include: participants level of education, ethnicity, age, and gender

Question 8

Essential questions

Answer 8

• exclusively concern Central focus of study
• designed to elicit specific info
• distributed throughout schedule

Question 9

Extra questions

Answer 9

• designed to confirm responses to essential questions (rewording of essential)
• power of repetition (why interview not like convo)

Question 10

Throw away questions

Answer 10

• at the beginning of the schedule for developing rapport
• way cool off participant when breached sensitive topic
• demographics, general info, setting pace

Question 11

Grand tour

Answer 11

• the point for participants to take is on a tour of some facet or feature of their lives

Question 12

Mini tour

Answer 12

• probe during grand tours

Question 13

Double- battled question

Answer 13

• avoid, asking two questions in one

Question 14

Thomas and Znaniecki

Answer 14

• the Polish peasant in Europe and America
• Chicago school
• requested written life histories from who they were studying

Question 15

Zorbaugh

Answer 15

The Gold Coast and the Slum

- got informants to document their participants observations just like the researcher

Question 16

Nygren and Blom

Answer 16

• got narratives from social work students dealing with problems experienced
• example narratives solicited by ethnograpjers

Question 17

Mass observation archive in U.K.

Answer 17

• ability literate volunteers to produce native accounts of everyday life around them

Question 18

Gamst

Answer 18

• documents with locomotive engineers

- published (ie rule books) and unpublished (ie correspondence)

Question 19

Zerubavel

Answer 19

• documents and time in hospitals

Question 20

Latour and Woolgar

Answer 20

• biomedical laboratory field study and document centrality written outputs in scientific world

Question 21

Douglas

Answer 21

• era where official record keeping and counting are primary sources of knowledge
• audit society

Question 22

Sudnow

Answer 22

• productions of normal crimes in a public defenders office

- certain people who have task creating documents, and this effort is subjective and interactionalist in character

Question 23

Garfinkel

Answer 23

• written records are “contractual” not “actuarial”

- not records of what actually happened, tokens fact that people fulfilled roles competently and reasonably

Question 24

Building a house in zorse

Answer 24

• participation acknowledgement relatedness and mutual obligation
• brother in law builds the zong (contains shrines)
• building a zing is a comment in status if bridewealth
• shrines as social records

Question 25

Stewart and Williams

Answer 25

Ethnography in digital spaces: use online for irritable bowel syndrome research

Question 26

Indexing

Answer 26

Scanning and copying relevant sections

Question 27

Olesen & Whitaker

Answer 27

• ethnography with student nurses and field worker

- in order to not make participants uncomfortable write when students writing, and don’t write when they are not

Question 28

Calvey

Answer 28

• couldn’t write field notes while acting as bouncer

Question 29

Graham

Answer 29

• got away with writing notes on a car assembly line because it wasn’t unusual for people to carry clipboards and write things down

Question 30

Analytic index

Answer 30

• take each data segment and index it under a developing set of headings
• you can do this on index cards or in a database program
• segments that have the same indexing are easily found in the hard copy

Question 31

Willis

Answer 31

Links counterculture to various indicators in his studying of working class boys to school 
- used descriptions and quotations a

Question 32

Triangulation

Answer 32

• two sources on the same subject provide greater breadth and depth of knowledge, and hence less chance of error than one source
• decrease chance error