Low cost – Millstead
High cost – Shorefield
Ethnography focuses on understanding culture and the behaviours, experiences and meanings at the group level. The main method of data collection is participant observation, which can be combined with interviews, focus groups and field notes to inform interpretations of the research topic.
Qualitative Research – a practical guide for health and social care researchers and practitioners Copyright © 2023 by Darshini Ayton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.
A newer edition of this book is available.
Anthony Kwame Harrison, Department of Sociology, Virginia Tech
Embracing the trope of ethnography as narrative, this chapter uses the mythic story of Bronislaw Malinowski’s early career and fieldwork as a vehicle through which to explore key aspects of ethnography’s history and development into a distinct form of qualitative research. The reputed “founding father” of the ethnographic approach, Malinowski was a brilliant social scientist, dynamic writer, conceited colonialist, and, above all else, pathetically human. Through a series of intervallic steps—in and out of Malinowski’s path from Poland to the “Cambridge School” and eventually to the western Pacific—I trace the legacy of ethnography to its current position as a critical, historically informed, and unfailingly evolving research endeavor. As a research methodology that has continually reflected on and revised its practices and modes of presentation, ethnography is boundless. Yet minus its political, ethical, and historical moorings, I argue, the complexities of twenty-first-century society render its future uncertain.
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What are the methods in ethnographic research, how do i conduct an ethnography.
An ethnographic study is one of the most ambitious endeavors a researcher can pursue in qualitative research . It involves using several ethnographic methods to observe and describe social life, social relations, or human society as a whole. Time-consuming and arduous as the data collection and data analysis might be, conducting an ethnography can be one of the most rewarding challenges in cultural anthropology, social anthropology, and similar qualitative research areas.
Let's look at the fundamentals of ethnographic research, examples of ethnographic studies, and the fundamentals of ethnography as a qualitative research method.
"Culture" is an ambiguous term that resists an easy definition. What defines a culture? What takes place inside a culture? What cultures does a particular individual belong to? Who decides who belongs to any specific culture?
Even within a particular context, there are several layers of cultures. Take the United States, for example. Given how diverse and as big as it is, how can one define American culture in as brief an explanation as possible? What are the different social groups within this one country, and how do those groups interact with each other?
Quantitative research is often incapable of capturing such detail, especially because it is extremely difficult to adequately capture a culture in quantitative terms. As a result, researchers often conduct traditional ethnographic research when they want to understand a culture. A credible, written account of a social group is challenging to produce. It requires looking at participant experiences, interviews , focus groups , and document collection, which are different ways to collect data for ethnographic research.
Ethnography belongs squarely in the realm of observational research . In other words, writing culture and cultural critique cannot be based on experiments performed in controlled settings. Ethnography aims to provide an immersive experience in a culture for audiences who are unfamiliar with it. In that case, the researcher must observe the intricate dimensions of social interaction in its natural environment. In ethnographic research, this observation is active and involves being part of the culture to understand the dimensions of cultural norms from the inside.
That said, even observation alone cannot capture concepts such as social relationships or cultural practices. Researchers conducting ethnographic studies acknowledge that simply observing and describing actions are insufficient to grasp social interaction fully. The concept of thick description, or the description of perspectives and beliefs informing those actions in addition to the actions themselves, guides the use of various methods to capture social phenomena from multiple angles.
Ethnographic studies are heavily used in social and cultural anthropology disciplines to generate and expand theory. Outside of anthropology, the insights uncovered by ethnography help to propose or develop theories that can be verified by further qualitative or quantitative research within the social and human sciences.
In simple terms, ethnographic studies relate what a culture is to audiences who are otherwise unfamiliar outsiders. Armed with this understanding, researchers can illustrate and persuade audiences about patterns that emerge from a community or group of people. These patterns are essential to generating theory and pioneering work.
Ethnographic research aims to reach a deep understanding of various socially-constructed topics, including:
Ethnography as a qualitative method is common in social and cultural anthropology and any scholarly discipline concerned with social interaction. The traditional role of ethnography is to inform scholars interested in cultures they wouldn't otherwise have contact or experience with. Various topics that have been explored by such research with ethnography include:
Other disciplines, especially in the social sciences, employ ethnographic research methods for varied reasons, including understanding:
The range of inquiries that ethnography can answer is vast, highlighting the importance of ethnographic methods in studies where the researcher seeks a deep understanding of a particular topic.
Even within anthropology, there is a lack of consensus on the particular processes for conducting research through ethnography. Interaction among people is unpredictable to the extent that the researcher might encounter unexpected issues with research participants not foreseen at the outset of a study. Because no observational research can be conducted in a fully controlled setting, it is a challenge to define an exact process for an ethnography beyond the general principles guiding an ethnographic approach.
In broad terms, ethnographic data collection methods are varied. Still, all such methods carry the assumption that a single research method cannot fully capture a thorough understanding of a cultural phenomenon. A systematic study that employs ethnographic research methods collects data from observations, participant observations, and interviews . The researchers' reflections also contribute to the body of data since personal experiences are essential to understanding the unfolding ethnography.
At the core of field research is a method called participant observation . Scholars in contemporary ethnography have long acknowledged the importance of active participation in understanding cultural life. This method allows the researcher to experience activities and interactions alongside participants to establish an understanding they wouldn't otherwise achieve by observing from afar. In active participant observation, the ethnographic researcher takes field notes of what they see and experience. They are essential during fieldwork as they create a record that the researcher can look at later on to structure their analysis and recall crucial developments useful to data analysis .
During participant observation, the researcher may also collect other forms of data, including photographs and audio and video recordings . Sensory data is beneficial to ethnography because it helps the researcher recall essential experiences with vivid detail and provides potentially abundant supporting evidence for the arguments in their findings.
Participant observation provides data for seeing what people say and do in their natural environment. However, observation has its limits for capturing what people think and believe. As a result, an ethnographic researcher conducts interviews to follow up on what they saw in fieldwork with research participants.
A common type of interview in an ethnography is the stimulated recall interview. In a stimulated recall interview, research participants are asked questions about the events the researcher observed. These questions help research participants remember past experiences while providing the researcher with their way of thinking about those experiences.
A focus group involves interactions between the researcher and multiple research participants. Suppose the researcher is interested in the interpersonal dynamics between research participants. In that case, they might consider conducting focus groups to elicit interactions that are markedly different from one-on-one exchanges between a single research participant and the researcher. Interviews and focus groups also help uncover insights otherwise unfamiliar to the researcher, who can then use those insights to guide their theoretical understanding and further data collection .
Documents often make up an essential aspect of cultural practices. Think about these examples:
The visual elements uncovered during an ethnography are potentially valuable to theoretical insights, and a researcher might find it important to incorporate documents in their project data.
In any ethnography, the researcher is the main instrument of data collection. Their thoughts and beliefs are consequential to the data analysis in that any theoretical insights are filtered by their interpretations . As a result, a researcher should take field notes during participant observation and reflection notes about any connections between what they saw and what it might mean for generating theory during data analysis.
As with taking field notes, a researcher might not remember all the different things that transpire during an ethnography without being able to refer to some sort of record later on. More importantly, reflecting on theory during participant observation may be challenging. A useful practice involves sitting down after observations or interviews and writing down potential theoretical insights that come to mind.
Reflections guide participant observations during an ethnography and theoretical analysis afterward. They point the researcher toward phenomena that are most relevant to theory and guide discussion of that theory when the time comes to write a description of their ethnographic study.
With a research approach as complex as ethnography, you will likely collect abundant data that require organization to make the analytical process more efficient. Researchers can use ATLAS.ti to store all their data in a single project. Document groups allow you to categorize data into different types (e.g., text, audio, video), different contexts (e.g., hospital room, doctor's office), or even different dates (e.g., February 17th observation, March 21st observation).
Moreover, researchers can integrate text with multimedia in ATLAS.ti, which is ideal for analyzing interviews, because you can look at transcripts and their video or audio recordings simultaneously. This is a valuable feature in ethnographic studies examining how people speak and what they say. Photos and other visual documents can also easily be incorporated and analyzed, adding further valuable dimensions to your research.
Download a free trial of ATLAS.ti to put your project data to work.
Now that we have established a foundational understanding of the various methods associated with ethnography, let's look at what an ethnographic approach to research might look like.
As with any research study, ethnographic studies begin when researchers want to know more about something unfamiliar. Do you want to understand how a particular group of people interact with their natural environment? What about how group members decide on a social structure? How is daily life affected by changing economic conditions over a long period of time?
Ethnographic research may also be appropriate for conducting a comparative study of multiple cultures. For example, consider the different groups of soccer fans in several parts of the world: fans in South America might act differently from fans in Europe or Asia. Teaching and learning in high school are bound to look different than teaching and learning in university settings. Emergency room medicine and hospice care have distinct purposes that affect the nature of interactions between doctors and patients.
Whatever the inquiry, the researcher benefits from defining a focus for their ethnography. A clear research question can help the researcher narrow their field of perception during participant observation . Suppose the research question has to do with doctor-patient interactions. In that case, the ethnographer can lend more focus to those conversations and less emphasis on ancillary developments within their research context. With a more specific view, they can examine how doctors speak to their patients while being less concerned about the hospital executives in earshot or the orderlies passing by unless and until they are relevant to the research inquiry.
To further narrow the focus of the ethnography, a theoretical lens can direct the ethnographer toward aspects relevant to theory. Continuing with the example regarding doctor-patient interactions, let's imagine that the ethnographic study explores the role of reassuring language in situations regarding dire medical conditions. Are there relevant theories about what people can say to give peace of mind to others?
Typically, theories in qualitative research consist of a framework with discrete indicators you can use to organize knowledge. For example, let's suppose that there exists a concept of reassurance that can be broken down like this:
empathy - understanding and affirming other people's emotions evidence - providing examples of favorable results in similar situations responsiveness - actively listening to and validating others' concerns
With this sort of theory in mind, an ethnography can focus on listening for instances of these particular indicators during participant observation and recording these examples in field notes . Naturally, a theory is more credible if it's grounded in previous research.
The next step is to choose an appropriate and accessible context for your ethnography. Ethics are an important part of contemporary research in the social sciences, requiring permission from potential participants to observe and interact with them for research purposes.
Before any meaningful data collection, make sure to obtain informed consent from the research participants you are studying. Essentially, this involves receiving permission from your participants to document what they say and do after explaining the purpose of your study and the rights they have while participating in your ethnography.
With a context and theory in mind, it's now time to conduct your ethnography. In general terms, this means entering the field and capturing as much rich data relevant to your research question as possible.
Good ethnographic practice relies on pursuing multiple research methods to capture data. Participant observation can help you document what people say and do, but good ethnographies also capture what people believe about their everyday actions.
However, the research method most associated with ethnographic research is note-taking. Field notes capture the researcher's personal experience with the culture they observe, which is necessary to fully understand the captured data. With the ethnographer as the main instrument of data collection, readers of ethnographic studies can attain a sense of the possible ways they can view cultures through the researcher's eyes.
Moreover, ethnography relies on rapport with research participants. Ethnographers who want to conduct interviews later will benefit from establishing good relationships with their research participants. As a result, more involved interactions during fieldwork can generate deeper and richer data for your study.
It's important to remember that the ethnographer's presence can affect how people behave. Especially in participant observation, your interactions with research participants will directly influence what they do in their daily lives. Even our natural environment is affected by what we do in it. When writing your reflections, qualifying your interactions in the field with a sufficient accounting of how your presence might change what others say and do is important.
There are also ethical questions about what to document and how to use the resulting data afterward. Within anthropology, there are issues of representing cultural groups with respect and ensuring you have their permission to use what you observe and collect from the field. Top scholarly journals and academic conferences also want to know how you observed research ethics during fieldwork, so it is necessary to use your reflection memos to document your ethics practices in addition to the data you collect.
Unexpected issues in field research , especially long-term fieldwork, can help you refine your theoretical framework . Returning to the example of the concept of reassurance, you might observe a doctor's explanation of a medical procedure and find that it's similar to providing evidence. Still, it does not fully align with the established theory. In other words, studying real-world episodes of medical explanations may contribute novel insights about reassurance, helping you further develop your focus in subsequent observations.
As you continue your ethnography, refining the scope of your theoretical perspective helps you more easily gather observational data relevant to your research inquiry and thus provide a fully developed framework for your data.
ATLAS.ti is the ultimate tool for all your data analysis needs. Download a free trial today.
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To describe the characteristics of a particular culture/ethnographic group.
Ethnography is the study of culture (Taylor & Francis, 2013) it is in many ways similar to anthropology; this being the study of human societies and cultures.
Exploration and data collection can occur in either an emic or etic approach. Emic meaning that the observation happens from within the culture. Etic meaning the observation is external looking in (Taylor et al., 2006)
Used to explore questions relating to the understanding of a certain group's beliefs, values, practices and how they adapt to change. (Taylor & Francis, 2013)
Ethnographic studies can be about identifying inequalities. For example exploring racial and cultural aspects of how a cultural group functions and the rules that guide behaviours. (Taylor & Francis, 2013)
One form of ethnography is an auto-ethnography which involves exploration of the self as the topic being explored.
The researcher places themselves as a ‘participant observer’ amidst the culture.
The setting is a very important consideration within ethnographic studies as the exploration of the people and their behaviours must be within the context of that cultural situation.
Methods used include, but are not limited to: observation, interviews, focus groups, review of documentary evidence and keeping field notes. (Taylor & Francis, 2013)
Steps involved include:
Identify the culture to be studied
Identify the significant variables within the culture
Review existing literature
Gain entrance
Immerse within the culture or observe the culture
Acquire the informants
Gather data
Describe the culture
Develop theories.
(Taylor & Francis, 2013)
Direct insight into the lives and experiences of the people and the group of interest.
Allows for rich detailed data to be collected (Howitt, 2019).
Provides an opportunity for researchers to uncover new unknown ways of thinking. Researchers may become aware of behaviors, trends and beliefs that are present within one culture although these may be previously unknown to other cultures. This enables new opportunities for improved ways of viewing and solving issues within other cultures.
Biases can be apparent because a researcher will always bring with them their own culture and own perspective which may impact their interpretations of the experiences they observe within this different culture.
Genuine co-operation and engagement from the people of interest may not always be forthcoming and rapport might be difficult to establish.
There can be a greater cost involved for this study type than others. Due to the need for transport, accommodation and researcher time that is spent in the field among the participants. This can be greater than what would be spent in a different research methodology where the engagement may be limited to a laboratory or shorter duration.
Certain logistics can pose challenges for this type of research approach, such as travelling and gaining access to communities depending on their unique cultural values, for example there are many indigenous societies that only permit people of certain genders to have access.
As the setting may be very specific to a particular group or community of people it may not be possible to generalise and apply the findings very broadly.
Researchers need to be aware of the impact that their presence can have on the behaviours of the population they are investigating.
The “Hawthorne effect” can be a limitation to observing genuine behaviours within a group. This is a situation founded by Dickson and Roethlisberger in 1966 when they reviewed previous experiments conducted at the Hawthorne factory. These experiments observed the ways that different influences, such as the level of lighting, impacted on the efficiency of factory workers. Their re-examination demonstrated that participants can behave differently to what they usually would when they are aware that they are being studied or recorded. As such, the methods selected need to counteract this effect for all study types, but for ethnographic studies especially, as authenticity of the cultural experience is quite important to ethnographic methodology.
What expectations and beliefs do people within specific communities hold about their healthcare options?
What practices are being undertaken by healthcare professionals in specific settings and are these consistent with best practice?
What barriers are certain communities experiencing in relation to different healthcare access?
Are people within a specific community receiving the appropriate information and communication about aspects of their health for them to then make informed educated decisions?
Coughlin, C. (n.d.). An ethnographic study of main events during hospitalisation: perceptions of nurses and patients . Journal of Clinical Nursing, 22(15–16), 2327–2337.
Molloy, L., Walker, K., Lakeman, R., & Lees, D. (2019). Mental Health Nursing Practice and Indigenous Australians: A Multi-Sited Ethnography. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 40(1), 21–27.
Rainsford, S., Phillips, C. B., Glasgow, N. J., MacLeod, R. D., & Wiles, R. B. (2018). The ‘safe death’: An ethnographic study exploring the perspectives of rural palliative care patients and family caregivers. Palliative Medicine, 32(10), 1575–1583.
Newnham, E., McKellar, L., & Pincombe, J. (2017). ‘It’s your body, but…’ Mixed messages in childbirth education: Findings from a hospital ethnography. Midwifery, 55, 53–59
King, P. (2019). The woven self: An auto-ethnography of cultural disruption and connectedness . International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation, 8(3), 107–123.
Howitt, D. (2019). Introduction to qualitative research methods in psychology: putting theory into practice. Pearson Education.
Taylor, B. J., & Francis, K. (2013). Qualitative research in the health sciences: methodologies, methods and processes: Routledge.
Taylor, B. J., Kermode, S., & Roberts, K. L. (2006). Research in nursing and health care: creating evidence for practice (Third edition. ed.): Thomson.
O’Connor, S. J. (2011). Context is everything: The role of auto‐ethnography, reflexivity and self‐critique in establishing the credibility of qualitative research findings. European Journal of Cancer Care, 20(4), 421–423. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2354.2011.01261.x
Dickson, W. J & Roethlisberger, F. J., (1966) Counseling in an organization: a sequel to the Hawthorne researches. 1898-1974 & Western Electric Company (U.S.) Division of Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston
https://doi.org/10.1136/eb-2017-102786
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Collectively qualitative research is a group of methodologies, with each approach offering a different lens though which to explore, understand, interpret or explain phenomena in real word contexts and settings. This article will provide an overview of one of the many qualitative approaches, ethnography , and its relevance to healthcare. We will use an exemplar based on a study that used participant-as-observer observation and follow-up interviews to explore how occupational therapists embed spirituality into everyday practice, and offer insights into the future directions of ethnography in response to increased globalisation and technological advances.
What research methods do ethnographic researchers adopt.
Ethnographic methods are diverse and a range of approaches can be adopted; they are based on observation, often complemented with interviews, and detailed analysis often at a micro level. Although the methods used are not exclusive to ethnography, it is the depth of fieldwork and the continuous process of engaging with participants and their natural environments that is central and adds strength to the findings of ethnographic studies. 6 Participant observation requires immersion in the setting under investigation, and observing the language, behaviours and values of the participants. 7 Consequently, paramount to undertaking an ethnographic study is the role of the researcher in data collection.
Engaging with participants in the real world poses several challenges; first the researcher must decide whether to adopt an overt or covert approach to data collection and observation. In an overt approach the participants know they are being observed, whereas in a covert approach the participants are unaware they are being observed. The rationale for undertaking covert data collection in healthcare contexts needs careful consideration because of ethical implications, and the tensions with the principles of good research governance such as the right to choice whether to participate, information provision and gaining consent. 8 Second, the researcher must consider ‘their position’ either as an ‘insider’ (emic) or ‘outsider’ (etic). 5 Broadly, an emic approach is aligned with immersing into the culture, observing and recording participants’ way of life and activity, in contrast to the etic approach that observes and describes communities and cultures ( table 1 ). Both methods produce rich, in-depth data aiming to make sense of the context or phenomena under investigation, and require the researcher to be reflexive when undertaking fieldwork, accounting for their own assumptions and presuppositions to strengthen the findings. 5
Approaches to participant observation 7
Ethnographic approaches to data collection produce voluminous unstructured data from a range of sources, for example fieldwork notes, diary entries, memos and, where appropriate, interview transcripts. The volume of data can be challenging to analyse and we would recommend a structured approach such as the framework approach. 9 The framework approach is rigorous, logical and transparent, and is particularly suitable to manage large amounts of textual information, while remaining close to the original data. 10 Framework approach supports the process of crystallisation, where the multiple facets of an ethnographic study are iteratively analysed, and constantly reviewed to identify patterns and associations across the data. 9 While the final stage in the framework approach aims to present the data in a way that is meaningful to the reader by grouping findings into categories and themes, the role of the researcher is to offer explanations about ‘how and why’ events, actions and interactions occur. 9 10
Table 2 outlines the methods adopted, rationale for decisions made and challenges of undertaking an ethnographical study that explored how occupational therapists incorporate spiritual care into their everyday practice. 11 Data were collected through participant-as-observer, recognising JJ’s role as an occupational therapist and knowledge of the study setting, with semistructured interviews used to explore with participants their decisions and thoughts by reflection on the observational data collected. Several key findings emerged; first spirituality is more meaningfully described than defined for occupational therapy practice. Second, central to occupational therapy practice is supporting patients during times of vulnerability; addressing the spiritual constructs of practice is essential to holistic person-centred care. Finally, organisational and contextual factors influenced how the occupational therapists framed their practice, and adopted strategies to retain their commitment to holistic, person-centred practice. 11
Methods, rationale for decision and challenges undertaking ethnographical research
Rapidly advancing technology and increased globalisation require healthcare organisations to adapt and change; similarly approaches to undertaking qualitative research must evolve. 12 The increased use of web-based platforms as a means of sharing information, offering support networks and monitoring patients is creating opportunities for health researchers to study the naturally occurring and vast amount of data generated online. The rapid advancement of online communities has resulted in the emergence of online research methodologies such as netnography. 13 Netnography is rooted in ethnographical methods that aim to explore the social interactions of online communities, and can be adapted across the spectrum of online activities. 14
The emergence of team-based ethnography, as a departure from the traditional lone researcher working ‘ in the field’ , is in part in response to the globalisation of societies, economies and ororganisations. 15 Multisite or global ethnography is a new way of conceptualising ethnography that offers opportunities to study the interconnectedness of modern society, 15 and could be appropriate to study healthcare systems globally.
In summary, it is not surprising that qualitative research has been widely adopted as a means of understanding healthcare from the patient experience, and exploring service provision, care delivery and organisational cultures. The value of focused ethnographic studies in healthcare is essential to develop an in-depth understanding of healthcare cultures and explore complex phenomenon in real world contexts.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
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Wayne A. Babchuk, University of Nebraska--Lincoln
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Journal of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research (JEQR) is a quarterly, peer-reviewed periodical, publishing scholarly articles that address topics relating directly to empirical qualitative research and conceptual articles addressing topics related to qualitative. The journal has been assigned ISSN #1935-3308. It is indexed with ERIC and EBSCO (H.W. Wilson, Social Science Full Text, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, SocINDEX, and Academic Search Complete). Additionally, we intend to pursue abstract indexing with PsychInfo and other indexing organizations. An example of a published JEQR article is Researching Violence: Conducting Risky Fieldwork in Dangerous Spaces Across Latin America and the Caribbean .
JEQR is a printed journal available for subscription at university libraries. Inquiries, including permission for reprints, should be sent to [email protected] . The journal (ISSN 1935-3308) accepts unsolicited manuscripts from all scholars, with prompt feedback regarding their status for potential publication.
Beyond typical fair-use federal guidelines, permission is granted for the photocopying of single articles for use by university faculty in non-profit contexts, including library reserve use or reading packets. This assumes that no profit is made from the copying and permission has been obtained from the article's respective lead author. PDF files of JEQR articles are provided to authors which reasonably may be shared at their discretion for teaching and limited scholarly purposes, provided the non-profit parameters indicated above. JEQR articles may not be reprinted elsewhere without express consent from the journal's executive editor.
JEQR gratefully acknowledges peer-review assistance from the Editorial Board. In the spirit of open academic inquiry, views expressed in the articles represent the respective authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the editors or related universities .
Among other quality research conferences, potential JEQR authors are encouraged to first present their papers at the Ethnographic & Qualitative Research Conference. EQRC began at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), moving to Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. Subsequent sponsors included Duquesne University (Pittsburgh), State University of New York (Albany), and Cedarville University (Greater Dayton area, Ohio). EQRC possesses a long and rich tradition as a forum for dissemination of scholarly ideas in the qualitative research tradition. The conference is usually held in February, with the call for papers issued in fall semester. Visit www.eqrc.net for details.
In addition to EQRC, the journal also publishes juried papers from a number of other quality conferences, following independent peer-review by JEQR staff and its review board members. Please notify the JEQR editor if you are aware of other qualitative research conferences that may desire affiliation with the journal.
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Georgia b. black.
Department of Applied Health Research, UCL, London, UK
Samantha machen, naomi j. fulop, associated data.
All papers included in the review are listed in Additional file 4 and are publicly available from their publishers’ websites.
The relationship between ethnography and healthcare improvement has been the subject of methodological concern. We conducted a scoping review of ethnographic literature on healthcare improvement topics, with two aims: (1) to describe current ethnographic methods and practices in healthcare improvement research and (2) to consider how these may affect habit and skill formation in the service of healthcare improvement.
We used a scoping review methodology drawing on Arksey and O’Malley’s methods and more recent guidance. We systematically searched electronic databases including Medline, PsychINFO, EMBASE and CINAHL for papers published between April 2013 – April 2018, with an update in September 2019. Information about study aims, methodology and recommendations for improvement were extracted. We used a theoretical framework outlining the habits and skills required for healthcare improvement to consider how ethnographic research may foster improvement skills.
We included 274 studies covering a wide range of healthcare topics and methods. Ethnography was commonly used for healthcare improvement research about vulnerable populations, e.g. elderly, psychiatry. Focussed ethnography was a prominent method, using a rapid feedback loop into improvement through focus and insider status. Ethnographic approaches such as the use of theory and focus on every day practices can foster improvement skills and habits such as creativity, learning and systems thinking.
We have identified that a variety of ethnographic approaches can be relevant to improvement. The skills and habits we identified may help ethnographers reflect on their approaches in planning healthcare improvement studies and guide peer-review in this field. An important area of future research will be to understand how ethnographic findings are received by decision-makers.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12874-021-01466-9.
Research can help to support the practice of healthcare improvement, and identify ways to “improve improvement” [ 1 ]. Ethnography has been identified particularly as a research method that can show what happens routinely in healthcare, and reveal the ‘ what and how of improving patient care [ 2 ]. Ethnography is not one method, but a paradigm of mainly qualitative research involving direct observations of people and places, producing a written account of natural or everyday behaviours and ideas [ 3 ]. Ethnographic research can identify contextual barriers to healthcare improvement. For example, Waring and colleagues suggested that hospital discharge could be improved by allowing staff to have more opportunities for informal communication [ 4 ].
There have been advances in ethnographic methods that support its role in supporting healthcare improvement. Multi-site, collaborative modalities of ethnography have evolved that suit the networked nature of modern healthcare [ 5 ]. Similarly, rapid ethnographic approaches (e.g. Bentley et al. [ 6 ];) meet the needs of improvement activities to produce findings within short timeframes [ 7 ]. However, the production of sustained ethnographic fieldwork has waned in response to demands for rapid evidence [ 6 , 8 , 9 ]. Critics of rapid ethnographic methods worry that they are diluting ethnography within applied contexts more widely [ 5 , 10 ].
The relationship between ethnography and healthcare improvement has been the subject of methodological concern [ 8 ]. The first concern is that some research identified as ethnography does not fit within the ethnographic paradigm, merely collecting observational data without a theoretical analysis, interpretation or researcher reflexivity [ 11 ]. A second concern is whether the topics of ethnographic inquiry produce findings that are seen as useful for improvement [ 12 ], particularly if they do not make explicit recommendations or produce checklists [ 8 , 13 – 15 ]. Authors fear that ethnographic findings that capture complexity [ 16 ] and expose taken-for-granted behaviours and phenomena [ 14 , 17 ] may be too abstract to be relevant to healthcare improvement [ 8 ]. However, these critiques position ethnographic research as a product which may be taken up by healthcare improvers, rather than seeing ethnographic work itself as an improvement activity. We take the view that healthcare improvement aims to change human behaviour to improve patient care, and is therefore reliant on the development of particular skills and habits (such as good communication) [ 18 ]. We would consider that engaging in ethnographic research may support skill development and habit formation that serves healthcare improvement.
In the literature of ethnography in healthcare improvement, there is not much discussion of the close relationship between methodological features of ethnographic research, and their impact on improvement skills. The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to describe current ethnographic methods and practices in healthcare improvement research and (2) to consider how these may affect habit and skill formation in the service of healthcare improvement [ 19 ].
This is a scoping review following the methods outlined by Arksey & O’Malley and later refined by Levac et al., [ 20 , 21 ] including a systematically conducted literature review and reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR; see Additional file 1 for PRISMA checklist). No protocol was published for this review. Our literature search and analyses were conducted iteratively, searching reference lists and undertaking discussions with colleagues about key lines of argument. We also held a workshop at Health Services Research UK conference in 2018 on this topic to gain a wide range of stakeholder views.
Our search strategy was designed to capture a wide range of approaches to ethnography from different journals, healthcare settings and types of research environment. It was not our aim to capture every study using this methodology, but to map the current field. Thus we did not search grey literature, books or monographs. The search strategy was developed and piloted in consultation with a health librarian. Medline (on OVID platform), PsychINFO, CINAHL and EMBASE databases were searched, and six journals were hand-searched, including: BMJ Quality & Safety, Social Science and Medicine, Medical Anthropology, Cochrane library, Sociology of Health and Illness and Implementation Science. These databases were searched between dates April 2013 – April 2018 and an update was performed in September 2019 using the search terms outlined in Additional file 2 . We limited the search to these dates in order to capture the most recent methodological characteristics of ethnographic studies in this field.
We screened titles and then abstracts according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria detailed in Table Table1. 1 . We included studies which self-identified as using ethnography or ethnographic methods rather than using our own criteria. This is because ethnography can be hard to define, and use of criteria may risk excluding papers which exemplify the sorts of tensions and workarounds we are trying to capture.
Inclusion and exclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria | Exclusion criteria | |
---|---|---|
Method | • Stated to be using ethnographic methods of any kind | • Meta-ethnography or meta-synthesis • Scoping review or other review methodologies • Interviewing or observational work alone without reference to ethnographic lens |
Subject matter | • Studies relating to healthcare topics or from an applied healthcare discipline, as defined by the specific search terms | • Public health topics (health promotion, screening, vaccination, communicable disease management, etc.) • Health-related topics that are not within health service context, such as o self-management techniques, care homes, social care, peer support groups, refugee centres, day care, community interventions, prisons o health beliefs, cultural attitudes, patient views, disease experiences o trial acceptability, research acceptability o ethnography related to basic science • Social care • Organisational studies that are not situated in health service settings • Studies about ethnographic methodology with no specific reference to health or healthcare |
Study design | • Peer-reviewed publications • Studies that state their use of ethnographic methods | • Commentary, letter, response, critical review • Book review |
The retrieved papers were screened by GB, SVO and SM based on inclusion and exclusion criteria (Table (Table1). 1 ). The total number of papers after screening titles, abstracts and full texts was 274 (Fig. (Fig.1 1 ).
PRISMA statement of all references retrieved, screened and included in the scoping review
Characteristics of each paper, such as title, authors, journal, year, country and healthcare subject area were extracted (see Table Table2 2 ).
Characteristics of studies in review
Method summary | |
Focused ethnography | 25 |
Thematic analysis | 21 |
Grounded theory study | 15 |
Case study | 13 |
Mixed methods | 13 |
Institutional ethnography | 12 |
Critical ethnography | 12 |
Content analysis | 8 |
Constant comparison | 7 |
Discourse analysis | 6 |
Auto-ethnography | 2 |
Other | 107 |
Region | |
Middle East | 5 |
South America | 11 |
Asia | 15 |
Africa | 22 |
Australasia | 33 |
Europe (excl. UK) | 47 |
UK | 74 |
North America | 95 |
Healthcare subject area | |
Clinical communication | 3 |
HIV-AIDS | 3 |
Intensive Care Unit | 7 |
Medication prescribing and management | 8 |
Cancer | 10 |
Paediatrics | 10 |
Surgery and orthopaedics | 10 |
Patient safety | 11 |
Emergency medicine and acute care | 12 |
Chronic illness | 12 |
Family doctors, primary care and general practice | 12 |
Nursing practice | 13 |
Healthcare technology | 14 |
Maternity care and reproductive medicine | 15 |
Quality of care improvement and healthcare reform | 18 |
Mental health and psychiatry | 19 |
Dementia, care of the elderly, end of life care, palliative care | 20 |
No info/other | 86 |
a some studies have been allocated to more than one region
We coded all 274 papers using NVivo software for stated aims and recommendations. This included close reading, and retrieval of key ideas and quotations from the papers that exemplified key ideas in relation to healthcare improvement, methodology and the authors’ reflections on these. The coded extracts of aims and recommendation in conjunction with the closer reading of the sub-sample were used to inductively develop conceptual ideas, such as how the corpus of papers explicitly aimed to contribute to healthcare improvement, and if not, how this affected the types of conclusions drawn. Some papers were read in greater depth to understand how the authors’ methods related to their findings and conclusions. In order to consider how ethnography supports habits and skills associated with healthcare improvement, we drew on a framework which identifies five habits of ‘improvers’: creativity, learning, systems thinking, resilience and influencing [ 19 ]. Applying this model to our selected papers, we mapped traits or approaches to the ethnographic studies that exemplified these habits either in the authors, or as part of developing these habits in others (e.g. healthcare decision-makers and professionals). Thematic interpretations and lines of argument were generated and discussed by all the authors.
The included studies covered a wide range of ethnographic methodologies and healthcare subjects, published internationally (Table (Table2) 2 ) in predominantly social science and clinical journals (see Additional file 3 ). The full list of the 274 included studies is available in Additional file 4 .
Most studies described themselves as an ‘ethnography’ or ‘ethnographic’, although some described their methodology as ‘mixed methods’ including ethnographic components. For example, Collet et al. conducted a mixed methods participatory action research study using observations to produce an “ethnographic description” [ 22 ].
Almost all studies relied on observation and interviews as the main data sources. It was not always specified whether researchers took a participant or non-participant approach to observation. There were some examples of other data sources e.g. video data, surveys, documents, field notes, diaries, and artefacts. A few examples contained a paucity of data, such as only video data [ 23 ], limited fieldwork [ 24 ], a small number of interviewees [ 25 ], or reliance on focus group data alone [ 26 ]. Methods associated with qualitative methodology (but not necessarily ethnographic) were also used, such as data ‘saturation’ to denote that additional data did not provide new insights into the topic [ 27 ].
There were a number of minority or unusual ethnographic variations:
We found that many studies used methods that could identify issues relating to power and vulnerability, with potential relevance to how healthcare improvement problems are defined and solved, and by whom [ 1 ]. For example we noted a significant minority of studies using institutional and critical ethnography, mostly in vulnerable populations (see Table Table3). 3 ). These studies were explicitly attentive to systems and power relations, rather than on individual practices. We suggest that the use of geographically-oriented methods such as geo-mapping and street-level organisational ethnography are also attentive to the power structures inherent in place and space, and could be relevant to other geographical healthcare improvement topics such as networked healthcare systems, care at home and patient travel for treatment.
Ethnographic methodology and its relevance to healthcare improvement
Ethnographic methodology used | Description | Example paper | Relevance to healthcare improvement |
---|---|---|---|
Video-reflexive ethnographic study | Collecting in-depth data on intimate or micro-interactions | Patients’ and families’ perspectives of patient safety at the end of life: a video-reflexive ethnography study. (Collier, Sorensen, Iedema, 2016) [ ] | • Able to capture complexity in delivery of healthcare. • Irrefutable basis for improving healthcare delivery from the 'bottom up' • Video footage played back to participants. • Video footage challenges the taken for granted aspects of practice individuals may not be aware of |
Peer ethnography | Peers collecting data from excluded or vulnerable populations | Using Peer Ethnography to address health disparities among young Black and Latino men who have sex with men. (Mutchler et al., 2013) [ ] | • Improves access to marginalised groups • Data collection on healthcare topics that may only happen between peers (for example, discussions about substance use with men who have sex with men) |
Focussed ethnography | Focus on a discrete community or organisation or social phenomena; problem-driven | Culture of Care for Infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome: A Focused Ethnography. (Nelson, 2016) [ ] | • Method often used in nursing research • Intense, short-term observation and interview data collection provides rich and thick description of culture of care • Rapid feedback loop into improvement through focus and insider status |
Critical ethnography | Projects with vulnerable populations and/or political improvement agendas | Nursing casualization and communication: a critical ethnography. (Batch and Windsor, 2014) [ ] | • Method gives focus to power, communicative distortions and context • 'Critical' element turned the focus to structures and situations of power and dominance that underpinned nursing culture |
Institutional ethnography | Research studying complex social issues and projects that aim to achieve meaningful social change at the nexus of health professions education and other social systems | Homelessness, health, and literacy: an institutional ethnographic study of the social organization of health care in Ontario, Canada. (Hughes, 2018) [ ] | • Insights to explicate the complex and invisible relations that exist being people, place, and things. • Powerful tool to explore the multi-layer entity of health care |
Qualitative methodology incorporated into ethnographic studies | |||
Grounded theory | Researcher co-constructs theories with the research participants, building the theory de novo from iterative data collection | Using an emic and etic ethnographic technique in a grounded theory study of information use by practice nurses in New Zealand. (Hoare et al., 2013) [ ] | • Focus on theory generation supports generalisability of healthcare improvement recommendations • Incorporating of grounded theory techniques such as memoing heightens reflexivity [ ] • Gives priority to the studied phenomena rather than the study setting |
Thematic analysis | Flexible qualitative analysis method of deriving themes from data through systematic coding procedures | Taking the heat or taking the temperature? A qualitative study of a large-scale exercise in seeking to measure for improvement, not blame. (Armstrong et al., 2018) [ ] | • Findings are (potentially) accessible to different audiences due to thematic presentation • Allows analysis of observation and interview data from a diverse sample of organisations • Can thematically explore people's views as well as see what they did in practice |
The high prevalence of ethnographic studies with vulnerable populations (e.g. psychiatry, end of life care) suggests that ethnography is also being conceptualised as an emancipatory method, reversing healthcare power structures in its focus. This has been a traditional focus of ethnography since social changes in power and representation in the 1970s, incorporated into the development of healthcare research methodology [ 40 , 41 ]. Some methods used were calculated to maximise the potential for supporting vulnerable groups, for example, Nightingale et al. [ 42 ] used focused ethnography (prolonged fieldwork in a small number of settings) to look at patient-professional interactions in paediatric chronic illness settings. The authors suggested that focussed ethnography is particularly suited to settings where fostering trust is essential. We would also suggest that ethnography may be particularly suited to settings in which participants are less able to verbalise their experiences.
The reviewed studies suggested that video ethnography can support healthcare improvement at a team level. For example, Stevens et al. [ 43 ] promoted video ethnography as a way to capture in-depth data on intimate interactions, in their study of elective caesareans. The video data allowed them to make use of timing data (e.g. of certain actions), physical positioning of different actors and equipment, and verbatim dialogue recording. The video data also suited the technical nature of the procedure, which was relatively time-limited. This form of data collection may not suit environments where healthcare activities are more spread out.
We noted that the use of ethnography for healthcare improvement has led to healthcare practitioners’ widespread involvement in data collection or analysis. We suggest that this is a form of negotiation across the healthcare-academia boundary, translating from ‘real world’ to data and back again. This has potential to create rich and relevant ethnographic studies that are geared towards improvement. However, some studies were undermined by a lack of reflexivity about the dual practitioner-ethnographer role.
A significant number of papers involved healthcare practitioners in fieldwork (e.g. Abdulrehman, 2017, Hoare et al. 2013; [ 37 , 44 ]). For example in Hoare et al. the lead researcher was a nurse, and wrote that they hoped “to bring both an emic and etic perspective to the data collection by bracketing my emic sense of self as a nurse practitioner in order to become a participant observer within my own general practice ” [ 37 ]. In this study, the findings fed directly into local service improvement as the lead researcher felt compelled to “share new ‘best practice’ information and join in the conversation.” There was little discussion about how this affected the generalisability of the findings, and whether their recommendations were adopted.
Similarly, Bergenholz et al. [ 45 ] conducted a study where a nursing researcher completed the main fieldwork and “assisted the nurses with practical care .” They acknowledged that “This may have caused limitations with regards to ‘blind spots’ in the nursing practice, but that it also gave access to a field that might be difficult for ‘outside-outsiders’ to gain .” However, there was no commentary on where the blind spots or extra access occurred, and how this may have affected the relevance and dissemination of their findings.
In this section, we evaluate the studies included in the review in terms of how their methods relate to improvement. We draw on the idea that successful improvement is based on a set of habits and their related skills acquired through experience and practice [ 19 ]. This section is structured around Lucas’s five habits of ‘improvers’: creativity, learning, systems thinking, resilience and influencing [ 19 ]. Under those headings, we describe the mechanisms by which ethnographic studies can support healthcare improvement habits, using illustrative examples.
Resilience is defined as being adaptable, particularly tolerating calculated risks and uncertainty, and proceeding with optimism. Being able to recover from adverse events is core to improvement, reframing them as opportunities. Adaptation and the ability to bounce back from adverse events and variation are core to improvement.
While we did not relate these traits to any particular ethnographic approach in our studies, we would consider that undertaking any ethnographic project requires resilience, as data collection is inherently exploratory and uncertain. For example, Belanger et al. wanted to know how health care providers and their patients approach patient participation in palliative care decisions. The authors explicitly eschewed the pull to create guidelines or other formalised knowledge, but aimed to explore the “unforeseen and somewhat unavoidable ways in which discursive practices prompt or impede patient participation during these interactions.” [ 46 ]
Creativity is defined as working together to encourage fresh thinking by generating ideas and thinking critically.
Researchers may consider healthcare through a particular theory or framework (e.g. private ordering [ 47 ], masculine discourse [ 48 ], compassion [ 49 ]). The restriction of the theoretical lens enables critical thinking, and keeps the ethnographer creatively engaged. For example, Mylopoulos & Farhat [ 28 ] used the concept of adaptive expertise in a cognitive ethnography to explore “the phenomenon of purposeful improvement” in a teaching hospital. This theoretical lens revealed that clinicians were engaging in “invisible” improvement in their daily work, in “specific activities such as scheduling, establishing patient relationships, designing physical space and building supporting resources”. The authors suggested that these practices were devalued in comparison to more formal improvement activities, justifying the utility of the ‘adaptive expertise’ theory in bringing the daily improvement practices to light.
We identified studies that challenged or reframed existing improvement problems e.g. Mishra [ 50 ]. This role removes the ‘blinkers’ of improvement research [ 51 ], and can ‘dissolve’ previously intractable implementation problems. For example, Boonan et al. [ 52 ] studied the practice of bar-coded medication from the perspective of nurses using the intervention. In their discussion, the authors challenge the assumption that if you introduce technology, then you will mitigate human factor risks. They highlighted that external pressures on hospitals perpetuate this perspective, and that “nurses and patients are consequently drawn into this discourse and institutional ruling, to which they are not oblivious”. Their recommendation was to understand the skills of nurses in tailoring technology to meet individual patients’ needs rather than trusting in systems blindly.
Learning is defined as harnessing curiosity and using reflective processes to extract meaning from experience.
We noted that some studies did not make explicit recommendations for improvement, but wrote their findings in a manner that would invite reflection on its subject matter. For example, Thomas & Latimer [ 53 ] wrote that they view their role as provocateurs of new ideas, stating that their intention “is not to propose specific policies or discourses designed to change or improve practice. More modestly, we hope that by analysing the everyday and by theorising the mundane, this article will ignite reflexive, ethical and pluralistic dialogues – and so better communication between practitioners, parents and the wider lay public – around reproductive technologies and medical conditions” (authors’ underline; p.951-2) [ 53 ]. Others such as Mackintosh et al [ 54 ] used their discussion section to examine their results in the context of other theories and provide illumination: “Our focus on trajectories illuminates the physiological process of birth and the unfolding pathology of illness (and death). This frame provides a means for us to link the agency of those involved in organising the care of acutely ill patients with the wider socio-political factors beyond the clinic, such as governmentality and risk (Heyman 2010, Waring 2007), death brokering (Timmermans 2005) and the medicalisation of birth and death (De Vries 1981).” (p.264). These two examples show that ethnographic work can be offered as an opportunity for learning and reflection, without a translation to specific recommendations.
Problem-finding is highlighted as an important part of learning in improvement [ 19 ]. Several studies paid attention to multivocality and power, using this to find problematic, unethical and exclusive practices in healthcare. For example, some studies reported previously unheard viewpoints [ 55 – 57 ], or identified restrictive organisational barriers and normative assumptions [ 58 , 59 ]. Others promoted ethnography as a way of exploring ethics and morality [ 47 , 60 , 61 ], such as criticising research that prioritizes the needs of individuals over the good of society [ 62 ]. Ross et al. [ 63 ] suggested that it is also more ethical to use critical ethnography than other evaluative methods in researching vulnerable populations (e.g. neurological illness), by being able to “explore perceived political and emancipatory implications, [clarify] existing power differentials and [maintain] an explicit focus on action” .
Some studies directly researched power within the healthcare setting. For example, Batch and Windsor’s study of nursing workforce suggested that senior nurse leaders should use their positions to advocate for better working conditions [ 35 ], “ Manageable nurse/patient ratios, flexible patient-centred work models, equal opportunity for advancement, skill development for all and unit teamwork promotion”. Challenging traditional cultural assumptions that have produced and reproduced stereotypes is problematic because they most often are, by their very nature, invisible. In a more critical approach, Gesbeck’s thesis [ 62 ] on diabetes care work challenges the very mechanism of achieving healthcare improvement through research, stating that “we need to change the social and political context in which health care policy is made. This requires social change that prioritizes the good of the society over the good of the individual—a position directly opposed to the current system oriented toward profit and steeped in the ideology of personal responsibility.”
Systems thinking is defined as seeing whole systems as well as their parts and recognising complex relationships, connections and interdependencies.
We found that many ethnographic studies emphasised skills of synthesis and connection-making, reorienting improvement to different areas, for example in overarching policy recommendations (e.g. Hughes [ 36 ]; Liu et al. [ 64 ], Matinga et al. [ 65 ]), or resetting priorities. For example, Manias’ [ 66 ] ethnography of communication relating to family members' involvement in medication management in hospital suggests that “greater attention should be played on health professionals initiating communication in proactive ways ” [p.865]. In another example, Cable-Williams & Wilson’s (2017) focussed ethnography captures cultural factors within long-term care facilities. Their discussion suggests that acknowledgement of death is under-represented in front-line practice and government policy, reorienting discussions towards an integration of living and dying care.
We found that several studies drew attention to ‘hidden’ practices in healthcare work, allowing them to evaluated and improved. For example, we found reference to practices such as coordinating [ 67 ], repair [ 68 ], caretaking [ 69 ], scaffolding [ 68 ], tinkering [ 52 ] and bricolage [ 58 ]. We also found that some studies had new interpretations of ‘the everyday’ or ‘taken-for-granted’ (e.g. nursing culture [ 34 , 35 , 45 , 70 ], interprofessional practice [ 67 , 71 – 75 ]). Authors’ outputs included frameworks [ 76 ] or models [ 69 , 71 , 77 , 78 ] that map these types of practices in a way that is helpful for intervention development or quality improvement. For example, Mackintosh et al. [ 54 ] looked at rescue practices in medical wards and maternity care settings using Strauss’s concept of the patient trajectory. Their findings highlighted the risks inherent in the wider social practices of hospital care, and suggested that improvement was needed at a level “beyond individual and team processes and technical safety solutions.”
Influencing is defined as engaging others and gaining buy-in using a range of facilitative processes.
Lucas suggests that to be influential, ethnographic studies need to have some empathy with clinical reality, whilst being facilitative and comfortable with conflict [ 19 ]. This was shown in ethnographic studies that made pragmatic recommendations, such as in Jensen’s study of clinical simulation. They advised that simulation might be useful in staging “adverse event scenarios with a view to creating more controlled and safer environments.” ( 80). In MacKichan et al. [ 79 ] observations and interviews were used to understand how primary care access influenced decisions to seek help at the emergency department. The authors made empathic, actionable recommendations such as “ simplifying appointments systems and communicating mechanisms to patients.” (p.10).
By capturing contextual and social aspects of healthcare improvement, ethnographic evaluations can support leaders and managers who are trying to implement improvement activities. This is a particularly helpful trait in ethnographic studies that pay attention to politics, governance and social theory in their evaluation of new interventions, “zooming out” [ 80 ] beyond the patient-clinician interaction to broader social networks. For example, Tietbohl et al. [ 81 ] investigated the difficulties of implementing a patient decision support intervention (DESI) in primary care through the theoretical lens of relational coordination between “physician and clinical staff groups (healthcare professionals)”. The authors’ recommended attention to the “underlying barriers such as the relational dynamics in a medical clinic or healthcare organization” when creating policies and programs that support shared decision-making using support interventions. This sort of insight can make it more likely that new policies or interventions will succeed. This skill was particularly fertile in the tradition of techno-anthropology, exploring technology-induced errors and the real-world interaction between people and technology, e.g. decision-support tools [ 81 – 86 ], the introduction of robot caregivers [ 87 ] and clinical simulations [ 88 ]. Other approaches included an investigation of one intervention or change but with a theoretical lens of inquiry.
This scoping review has identified the methodological characteristics of 5 years of published papers that self-identify as ethnography or ethnographic in the field of healthcare improvement. Ethnography is currently a popular research method in a wide range of healthcare topics, particularly in psychiatry, e.g. mental health, dementia and experiential concerns such as quality of life. Focused ethnography is a significant sub-group in healthcare, suggesting that messages about the importance of research timeliness have taken hold [ 89 ].
We have identified ethnographic methods reported in these papers, and considered their utility in developing skills and habits that support healthcare improvement. Specific practices associated with the ethnographic paradigm can encourage good habits (resilience, creativity, learning, systems thinking and influencing) in healthcare, which can support improvement. For example, using relevant theories to look at every day work in healthcare can foster creativity. The use of critical and institutional ethnography could increase skills in ‘systems thinking’ by critically evaluating how healthcare improvement problems are defined and solved, and by whom.
This scoping review is the first to consider how current ethnographic methods and practices may relate to healthcare improvement. Within the paradigm of applied healthcare research, there is normative value in being ‘useful’ or ‘impactful’ in our research, which affects our prospects for funding and career success [ 12 ]. However, our review has uncovered a multitude of ways that an ethnographic study can be useful in relation to healthcare improvement, without creating actionable findings. We found a spectrum of interactions with healthcare improvement: some authors explicitly eschewed recommendations or clinical implications; others made imperative statements about required changes to policy or practice. However, this diversity was not necessarily a reflection on how ‘traditional’ the ethnographic methodology was. This challenges the paper by Leslie et al. which puts ethnographic studies in two output categories with respect to healthcare improvement: critique versus feedback [ 8 ]. Instead, we uncovered a variety of ways that ethnography can support healthcare improvement habits, such as encouraging reflection, problem-finding and exposing hidden practices in healthcare.
We did find that supporting healthcare improvement through ethnographic research can require strategic effort, however. For example, we noted that several authors wrote multiple articles based on the same project, often for different types of journal to reach different audiences such as diverse readerships in health services and academic settings. For example, Collier and colleagues published two papers based on a video ethnography of end-of-life care (both in 2016), one in a healthcare quality journal [ 32 ] and one in a qualitative research journal [ 76 ]. The former is shorter, with explicit recommendations for patient safety, whereas the latter is longer, has more detailed results and long sections on reflexivity. Similarly, Grant published an article in a sociology journal [ 90 ] and a healthcare improvement paper [ 91 ] on the same work about medication safety. The sociological paper covered “spatio-temporal elements of articulation work” whereas the other put forward “key stages” and risks, suggesting that it was more closely oriented to improvement.
There have been some considerable debates about changes in ethnographic methods and tools, with concerns about lost researcher identity, dilution of the method, and challenges to “upholding ethnographic integrity” [ 92 ] . We contest this, suggesting that new variants such as focussed and cognitive ethnography are evolving in response to the complexity of hospitals and healthcare [ 93 ], while also being highly regulated, standardised and ordered by biomedicine. Such complex environments cannot be studied and improved under one paradigm alone. Ethnographic identity and method have also been affected by the cross-pollination of ethnography with other social science paradigms and applied environments (e.g. clinical trials, technology development). Debates about theoretical and methodological choices are not only made merely with respect to healthcare improvement, but also in response to professional pressures (e.g. university requirements for impact) [ 12 ], and the mores of taste situated within the overlapping communities of practice that evaluate ethnographic healthcare research [ 94 ]. That said, we echo previous authors’ calls for attention to reflexivity, particularly in embedded or clinician-as-researcher roles [ 95 ].
Our scoping review challenges a previously expressed concern that ethnographic studies may not produce findings that are useful for improvement [ 10 , 12 , 16 ]. By considering different ethnographic designs in relation to skills and habits needed for improvement, we have shown that studies need not necessarily produce ‘actionable findings’ in order to make a valuable contribution. Instead, we would characterise ethnography’s role in the canon of healthcare research methodologies as a way of enhancing improvement habits such as comfort with conflict, problem-finding and connection-making.
This review has a number of limitations. The search may not have found all relevant studies, however the retrieved papers are intended as an exemplar rather than an exhaustive or aggregative review. The review is also limited to journal articles as evidence of researchers’ approach to improvement. This ignores many other ‘offline’ and ‘online’ activities such as meetings, presentations, blogs, books, and websites, which are conducted to disseminate findings and ideas. Our reliance on self-report for the identification of ethnographic studies will have excluded some studies within an ethnographic paradigm who chose different terms for their methodology (e.g. critical inquiry, case study). The strengths of this paper are its comprehensive coverage, incorporating all representative studies in healthcare research published within a five year period, and a wide range of ethnographic sub-types and healthcare subjects, drawn from an international pool of research communities.
We did not prescribe the right way for ethnographers to engage in healthcare improvement, indeed, we have identified that a variety of approaches can be relevant to improvement. The habits we identified may help ethnographers reflect on their approaches in planning healthcare improvement studies and guide peer-review in this field. Issues of taste, traditionalism and researcher identity need to be scrutinised in favour of value and audience. An important area of future research will be to understand how ethnographic findings are received by decision-makers, and further focused reviews on the relationship(s) between ethnographic methods, quality improvement skills and improvement outcomes.
The authors wish to thank Lorelei Jones, Natalie Armstrong, Justin Waring and Bill Lucas for their insightful comments and direction in the undertaking of this work.
NJF and GB led the development and conceptualization of this scoping review and provided guidance on methods and design of the scoping review. GB, SVO and SM made contributions to study search, study screening, and all data extraction work. All authors analysed the data. All authors contributed to the writing and editing of the paper, and all authors have read and approved the manuscript.
This paper is independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research CLAHRC North Thames. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the National Institute for Health Research or the Department of Health and Social Care.
NJF is an NIHR Senior Investigator. GB is supported by the Health Foundation’s grant to the University of Cambridge for The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute.
Declarations.
The authors have no competing interests to declare.
The original online version of this article was revised: due to incorrect figure 1 and the number of included papers need to be changed from "283" to "274".
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Speaker 1: Welcome to this overview of qualitative research methods. This tutorial will help give you the big picture of qualitative research, and introduce key concepts that will help you determine if qualitative methods are appropriate for your project study. First, let's review what research, particularly educational research, is designed to do. Research is an organized, systematic, disciplined approach to answering questions about our observations and experiences in the world. It is a structured approach to gathering and interpreting information that allows us to understand, theorize about, or explain experience. What, then, is distinctive about qualitative research? Qualitative research focuses on generating meaning and understanding through rich description. It can be a particularly useful approach to studying educational problems that requires developing an understanding of complex social environments, and the meaning that people within those environments bring to their experience. Qualitative research differs from quantitative research in several ways. It typically addresses different problems, arises from a different philosophical view of the world, works to achieve different goals, and uses different methods and design. This table illustrates some of the key differences. Focus Qualitative research focuses on the quality of experience, trying to describe or understand the essence or nature of human experience. Quantitative research, on the other hand, focuses on more measurable factors, asking questions such as, how much, how many, or how frequently. Philosophical Roots Qualitative research integrates more subjective human experience, rather than purely objective external reality. It belongs to the school of constructivism or interpretivism. Quantitative research is based on positivism that holds that physical and social phenomena are independent of the observer, are fairly stable over time and place, and can be objectively observed and quantified. Goals of Investigation The goals of qualitative research are to understand, describe, discover meaning, or generate hypotheses or theory. Quantitative research aims to predict, control, confirm, and test hypotheses. Design Characteristics The designs used in these two types of research are suited to their goals. Qualitative research design is more flexible, evolving, and emergent, while quantitative research design is structured and predetermined. It should be emphasized that the flexible structure of qualitative research in no way suggests that it is less disciplined or easier to design or implement. Quite the contrary. Well-designed, valid, scholarly qualitative research has flexible structure and is designed and implemented with the same care and attention to detail as any well-designed, valid, and scholarly quantitative study. Data Collection In qualitative research, the researcher is the primary instrument, bringing his or her own perspectives to the selection and meaning of data. Quantitative research depends upon external instruments, such as tests, surveys, or other tools used to measure and quantify a particular phenomenon. Now that we have discussed the nature of qualitative research and the kinds and forms of qualitative data, it is easier to understand how qualitative research pursues its research goals. In its very earliest stages, qualitative research aims to explore. The goal is to identify patterns, themes, hunches, and initial models that provide an initial understanding of this phenomenon. Description is the heart of qualitative research. The essential characteristics of description is that it conveys information with the detail and specificity necessary to accurately convey the experience. Ultimately, qualitative research strives to produce meaningful interpretations of events and phenomena. With interpretation, the goal is to make sense of what goes on, to reach out for understanding or explanation. Through exploration, description, and interpretation, the qualitative researcher arrives at a complete understanding of a phenomenon in a particular setting or context. Case studies explore a program, an event, an activity, a process, or one or more individuals in depth. Grounded theory derives a general abstract theory of a process, action, or interaction grounded in the views of participants. Ethnography studies an intact cultural group in a natural setting over a prolonged period of time. Phenomenology identifies the essence of human experiences. Narrative approaches study the stories that individuals provide about their lives and experiences. Methodologies come out of different social sciences. For example, ethnography has its roots in anthropology, while grounded theory got its start in sociological research. Phenomenology is rooted in the philosophy of phenomenology. Case study can combine any number of qualitative and quantitative traditions and techniques in order to meet the specific needs of the research situation. Case study is perhaps the most flexible methodology, able to bend several traditions into a valid research design. Consequently, it is among the most widely used research methodologies, particularly for applied research. Qualitative data are typically obtained from sources such as interviews, focus groups, observations of real-life settings, and existing documents. One study may include data from one, several, or all of these sources. For example, a researcher studying a school environment might observe students as they work on daily tasks in the classroom, including students' reactions to the activities such as body language and facial expressions. A researcher might interview the teacher and students individually, or as part of a small group, about what they were thinking or feeling during the lessons. She may also examine documents such as student work samples and lesson plans to paint a holistic picture of the educational experience. As you plan your research study, you must create a justification for your data collection methods in order to explain why the methods you propose are the most appropriate and most effective way to understand the phenomenon or focus of your study. Before you collect any data for your study, you must receive approval from Walden's Institutional Review Board, or IRB. Visit Walden University's IRB website in order to make sure that you obtain the proper permissions to collect and use data. Qualitative data analysis follows three basic steps. First, the researcher prepares and organizes the data. This could include transcribing interview notes, organizing field notes from observations, or ensuring all documents to be included in the analysis are present and available. Second, the researcher reduces the data by identifying themes, coding data elements, and creating categories. Finally, just as quantitative data must be presented in tables or figures, qualitative data can be presented in narrative form, tables, or visual diagrams. In qualitative research, the data analysis process is flexible and designed to meet each study's needs, but also follows an established protocol and relies on rigorous methodological approaches. The processes of analysis and preparing results are not distinct steps, but are interrelated and often occur simultaneously. In qualitative research, validity is the extent to which the data and the interpretation of the data are credible. Qualitative researchers use different terms to refer to validity. Maxwell uses validity, Lincoln and Guba use trustworthiness, and Creswell uses validation. In addition, these authors use other related subterms. It is important for students to use one recognized author to define all relevant terms for validity. For instance, Lincoln and Guba use four additional terms to specify different aspects of trustworthiness – credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. As with any research approach, the researcher must take steps to ensure the validity or accuracy of the research findings. In qualitative research, validity is the extent to which the data and the interpretation of the data are credible. Creswell identifies eight different strategies used by qualitative researchers to ensure the validity of their findings. Prolonged engagement and persistent data gathering ensure that the researcher does not draw conclusions based upon an isolated idiosyncratic experience with a phenomenon. Using rich, thick description ensures that a sufficient level of detail about the phenomenon studied is included so that others might draw the same or similar conclusions. Triangulation refers to using multiple data sources in order to build up a complete picture of a phenomenon. Member checking allows the researcher to present the study's findings or conclusions to the original participants so they can comment on whether they believe their perspectives are accurately portrayed. Presenting negative or discrepant information acknowledges observations or findings that run contrary to the study's key themes. Clarifying one's biases as a researcher similarly acknowledges those preconceptions or biases that will inevitably color the study's conclusions. Peer debriefing enlists the aid of a person other than the researcher to review the findings and ensure that they make sense. Finally, an external auditor is someone not familiar with the researcher or the study who can review the study's overall logic, coherence, and consistency. When considering whether a qualitative approach is right for your study, ask yourself the following questions. First, what kind of phenomenon are you planning to study? Is it related to some aspect of human experience that cannot be counted or expressed in numbers? Does it relate to subjective experience, cultural characteristics, personal perspective, idiosyncratic ideas, or comparisons of intangibles? Second, what do you want to know about the phenomenon? Can you find out what you want to know by immersing yourself in the environment in which you will study the phenomenon, by observing or talking to people within that environment, or by studying the materials they have created? Third, why are you doing the study? Are you interested in interpreting, generating meaning, and gaining a holistic view of a phenomenon, rather than in comparing, measuring, or quantifying a phenomenon? If you answered positively to these questions, qualitative research may be the right choice for your study. Qualitative research is a powerful method of studying the implicit as well as the explicit. It accomplishes this by focusing on personal perceptions of the world and the experiences of people as they construct the reality in which they live. Because of these characteristics, qualitative research can be a powerful tool for social change. As a Walden student, social change is a feature of every student capstone. Qualitative methods may help you meet this requirement. Once you have decided to embark upon the process of conducting a qualitative study, use the following steps to get started. First, review research studies that have been conducted on your topic to determine what methods and research traditions were used. Consider the strengths and weaknesses of the various research traditions, data collection methods, and data analysis methods. Next, review the literature on qualitative research methods. Every aspect of your research has a body of literature associated with it. Just as you would not confine yourself to your course textbooks for your review of research on your topic, you should not limit yourself to your course texts for your review of methodological literature. Read broadly and deeply from the scholarly literature to gain expertise in qualitative research. Additional self-paced tutorials have been developed on different methodologies and techniques associated with qualitative research. Make sure you complete all of the self-paced tutorials and review them as often as needed. You will then be prepared to complete a literature review of the specific methodologies and techniques you will use in your study. Thank you for watching.
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Methods and practices of ethnographic research are closely connected: practices inform methods, and methods inform practices. In a recent study on the history of qualitative research, Ploder (2018) found that methods are typically developed by researchers conducting pioneering studies that deal with an unknown phenomenon or field (a study of Andreas Franzmann 2016 points in a similar direction).
Examples of ethnographic research within the health services literature include Strauss's study of achieving and maintaining order between managers, clinicians, and patients within psychiatric hospital settings; Taxis and Barber's exploration of intravenous medication errors in acute care hospitals; Costello's examination of death and dying in elderly care wards; and Østerlund's work ...
Ethnography is a type of qualitative research that involves immersing yourself in a particular community or organization to observe their behavior and interactions up close. The word "ethnography" also refers to the written report of the research that the ethnographer produces afterwards. Ethnography is a flexible research method that ...
Ethnography Uncovered: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding People and Cultures. Ethnography is a qualitative research method that focuses on the systematic study of people and cultures. It involves observing subjects in their natural environments to better understand their cultural phenomena, beliefs, social interactions, and behaviors within a specific community or group.
Ethnography is research in that it describes a methodology (distinguished from a research method in the section Ethnography as Methodology) usually conceptualized as involving participant observations within a community or field of study. 1 Thus, a person can speak of doing ethnographic research among Vermont maple sugarers (Lange, 2017) or ...
Definition: Ethnographic research is a qualitative research method used to study and document the culture, behaviors, beliefs, and social interactions of a particular group of people. It involves direct observation and participation in the daily life and activities of the group being studied, often for an extended period of time.
Ethnography, a qualitative research method focusing on the study of people and cultures, presents a unique set of challenges for researchers: Time Commitment: Ethnography is a time-consuming endeavor. Researchers need to spend significant time immersed in the community or organization they are studying to build relationships, observe ...
What is ethnography? The key concept in ethnography is culture.. Ethnography studies emerged from the discipline of anthropology. They aim to understand the meanings and behaviours associated with the membership of groups, teams, organisations and communities. 1 The focus of ethnographic research is on the lived culture of groups of people; ethnographers have studied systems of belief ...
The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) is a checklist intended to improve reporting of qualitative research in health sciences ... where ethnographic research has traditionally been published, have word limits in the range of 9,000-15,000, rather than 2,000-4,000 that is typical of health journals, and do not ...
Abstract. Embracing the trope of ethnography as narrative, this chapter uses the mythic story of Bronislaw Malinowski's early career and fieldwork as a vehicle through which to explore key aspects of ethnography's history and development into a distinct form of qualitative research. The reputed "founding father" of the ethnographic ...
Ethnographic research aims to reach a deep understanding of various socially-constructed topics, including: Rituals and other cultural practices in everyday life. Social interaction among people of different cultures. People's interactions with their natural environment.
Ethnography plays an important role in qualitative research, as it seeks to answer the. reasoning behind many elements of human behavior and social events. This paper will. explore the history of ...
Ethnography is a type of qualitative research that gathers observations, interviews and documentary data to produce detailed and comprehensive accounts of different social phenomena. The use of ethnographic research in medical education has produced a number of insightful accounts into its role, functions and difficulties in the preparation of ...
Ethnographic research has long played an important role in medicine. 4 - 6 Becker and colleagues' landmark ethnographic study, Boys in White: Student Culture in Medical School, 7 used qualitative interviews and participant observation to learn how medical students are acculturated into the medical profession; how they learn to negotiate the ...
"Ethnographic methods are a research approach where you look at people in their cultural setting, with the goal of producing a narrative account of that particular culture, against a theoretical backdrop." ... This guide from Colorado State University introduces various types of observational qualitative research. How to Use Ethnographic ...
Ethnography is the study of social interactions, behaviours, and perceptions that occur within groups, teams, organisations, and communities. Its roots can be. traced back to anthropological ...
Ethnography is the study of culture (Taylor & Francis, 2013) it is in many ways similar to anthropology; this being the study of human societies and cultures. ... (2013). Qualitative research in the health sciences: methodologies, methods and processes: Routledge. Taylor, B. J., Kermode, S., & Roberts, K. L. (2006). Research in nursing and ...
We estimate that ethnographic research should require 25-50 interviews and observations, including about four-to-six focus group discussions, while phenomenological studies require fewer than 10 interviews, grounded theory studies 20-30 interviews and content analysis 15-20 interviews or three-to-four focus group discussions ...
Collectively qualitative research is a group of methodologies, with each approach offering a different lens though which to explore, understand, interpret or explain phenomena in real word contexts and settings. This article will provide an overview of one of the many qualitative approaches, ethnography , and its relevance to healthcare. We will use an exemplar based on a study that used ...
Victoria Zascavage, Xavier University. Journal of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research (JEQR) is a quarterly, peer-reviewed periodical, publishing scholarly articles that address topics relating directly to empirical qualitative research and conceptual articles addressing topics related to qualitative. The journal has been assigned ISSN #1935-3308.
Ethnography relies on the researcher to interpret meanings and develop greater understanding. Whether your research focus is user experience, customer journeys, healthcare, or academic, an ethnographic methodology requires you to describe and interpret the experiences and behaviours of others. This is essential.
The FE approach, also known as ethnonursing qualitative research, involves an intensive exploration of perspectives of specific cultural groups (Leininger, 1985, 1997; Leininger & McFarland, 2006). Unlike conventional ethnography, which explores entire cultural communities or social contexts for extended periods, the FE focuses on specific ...
Background. Research can help to support the practice of healthcare improvement, and identify ways to "improve improvement" [].Ethnography has been identified particularly as a research method that can show what happens routinely in healthcare, and reveal the 'what and how of improving patient care [].Ethnography is not one method, but a paradigm of mainly qualitative research involving ...
Qualitative research methods such as participant observation as a mode of gathering and producing data remain marginal in educational research about international students in Anglophone countries. ... thus, it is important to acknowledge the role of subjectivity and personal interpretation in research. Ethnographic research aims at capturing ...
Background: To date services for children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) have not been informed by the perspective of children with DCD. This study aimed to synthesise the findings of discrete qualitative studies reporting the lived experiences views and preferences of children and young with DCD using a meta-ethnographic approach to develop new conceptual understandings.
Qualitative research design is more flexible, evolving, and emergent, while quantitative research design is structured and predetermined. ... Ethnography studies an intact cultural group in a natural setting over a prolonged period of time. Phenomenology identifies the essence of human experiences. Narrative approaches study the stories that ...