Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
In this lab you’re going to practice both an observational research method and the kind of
qualitative coding you’ll do with your survey answers to open-ended questions.
Step 1 - Go out on campus to a worksite (e.g. Help Desk, office, library, dining hall) and for 15
minutes observe one or more people working. If unobtrusive observation doesn’t fit into the
setting, ask permission to observe.
Take as many fieldnotes as possible, getting quotes, noting body language, sensory details about
the setting, your own reactions, whatever you notice. Try to hand-write or type with your eyes up
as much as you can.
Step 2 - Back in the classroom, read your fieldnotes and mark whatever strikes you as
noteworthy.
Step 3 - Now review your marks and note any recurring themes or items that pique your
curiosity. Make a list of those themes, clumping similar ones, and organize them into a short
codebook.
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For each item in your codebook, go through your fieldnotes and type up quotes and observations
that fit the item.
Re-read your themes with the examples under them. What do you notice?
This is the heart of qualitative analysis, the moment when you can have an “aha” experience, see
patterns and realize what your findings are. If you were going to write up these data, what might
you write about?
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This method is inductive research that could result in grounded theory: you are starting with
what you observe and drawing out themes, instead of starting with a hypothesis.
1. Pace of work - ● slow time - leaning forward on counters like resting arms
Body language for ● rush time - they duck behind each other so no contact
fast versus slow even when moving very fast - impressive ballet!
times ● 7 orders in 11 minutes - wow!
b) Yiddish and English ● Customer asks for schmear, Sodexo guy asks what kind
pronounciations of of schmear but he pronounces it “smear,”
“schmear” ● Woman worker (someone called her Elena? or Helena?)
only spoke English to customers. She says “schmear”
with the “sh” sound - the Yiddish way - is she Jewish or
do others say it that way too? I only heard 2 customers
say it, both with the “sh” sound.
● Customer says “Smear” without the “sh” so it varies
1. Clothes that mark ● Two workers, both with Sodexo badges - uniform shirts
roles but not pants - woman is in jeans - are there rules about
dress?
● Customer (young white female in pajama pants so she
must be a student)
● Customer (middle-aged black male in suit jacket -
professional staff?)
● older white woman - Multicolored scarf and earrings
make me think she’s a faculty member (why do I think
that?)
b) chatting or not ● Sodexo woman said “here you go” to every customer.
chatting ● Manuel said “Gonna snow tonight!” in a cheerful tone
Example of Step 5 - Thinking about what I’ve found and possible findings
I think I will drop the topic of how schmear is pronounced - it connects to nothing, and I don’t
know anything about Yiddish pronunciations, I’m just guessing.
Everything else has to do with how we create a sense of one big friendly community at Lasell,
but also mark boundaries between sub-communities. That’s what I could write up!
I think this is a study about bonding across differences and similarities. I totally didn’t think of
that while in the bagel place observing! But that’s what I’ll write about.
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If you were writing up your findings, this could be the outline and raw material you’d start with.
Exercise 2 - Drafting some codebook items for your research
Soon you will create a codebook to analyze your survey answers to open-ended questions, by
drawing out themes from what your respondents wrote. Meanwhile, you can get some themes
from what you’ve done so far.
Go through your survey questions and answers, your analysis of existing data, and your literature
review to pull out some likely themes. Write a list of them here.
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If you have time left, start organizing your codebook by clumping items and putting them in a
logical sequence.