Cognitive Chrono-Ethnography (CCE): a methodology for anticipating future user needs

This paper proposes Cognitive Chrono-Ethnography (CCE), a new study methodology for understanding people's in situ behavior selections in daily life. People select their next behavior to maximize their satisfaction for a given behavioral needs. They appropriately coordinate available cognitive resources to make the best decisions by using their knowledge of past experiences and by processing input from the environment and individual intrinsic state. When a study field is specified, CCE starts by defining critical parameters for understanding people's behavior by considering the nature of behavior selection processes in the field in question, and then designing ethnographical field observations by taking into account the fact that their results will be described in terms of the specified critical parameters. The participants' behavior is recorded, followed by a series of structured retrospective interviews for the purpose of describing their present behavior and obtaining their history of behavioral development. Analysis of the interview results aid in developing models of present behavior selections and their chronological changes in the past. These models serve as defining future needs of persons who follow the same developing paths with a certain amount of delay, e.g., a few years of delay. This paper describes a CCE study of spectators of professional baseball games at a ballpark who have become frequent visitors to a baseball stadium in 5 years.     

Exploring types of interference between work and non-work: using a diary study approach

Studies of work and family issues have used predominately between-subject cross-sectional designs. While some researchers have called for more longitudinal studies, others have suggested that a more strategic way forward for the field is the use of daily diary studies (Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992). This study explores different types of interference between work and non-work domains, using a diary study methodology. This study consisted of a two-week diary study among 12 Irish employees. Analysis involved a two-step procedure involving both content analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Results indicated that while individuals reported strain-based and time-based interference, evidence was also found of interference concerning persistent and intrusive thoughts. Despite some limitations to the study, this paper demonstrates that diary studies represent an opportunity for researchers to explore work and non-work experiences in a sensitive and ecologically valid way.     

Installing Circuit Breakers: Mechanisms to Avoid Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

This paper suggests that a synergy is both possible and necessary between two traditionally distinct management approaches: the Weberian approach, which contends that the bureaucratic structure of a company affects the daily activities of employees, and the human relations model, which holds that small group leadership dynamics at the divisional/department level affects daily activities of employees. The tendency within organizations is to promote one approach over the other. A resolution to the debate is suggested in applying mechanisms to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. Indeed, the courts have inadvertently pointed the way: the reasonable woman standard urges a human relations approach to resolving the problem of sexual harassment, placing the burden of solving the problem on supervisor personnel and their ability to direct their employee's behavior; the hostile environment issues promotes a Weberian structural solution, requiring sound policy be developed at the executive level to ensure workplace compliance to appropriate normative behavior. A one-sided approach is doomed to failure, which may explain why the issue continues to rage in the corporate sphere.     

The use of focus groups in rehabilitation research

In this article, the authors explore the applications of focus groups to rehabilitation and disability research. Key issues in designing focus group research (e.g., methodological considerations, strategies for conducting focus groups, data analysis procedures) are highlighted. The authors then discuss specific considerations for conducting focus groups with people with disabilities. The article concludes with a review of three research studies in rehabilitation that used a focus group methodology.     

Perceived contra observed physical work load in Swedish dentists

In an earlier questionnaire study, dentists reported high experienced physical work load in their profession, but low to moderate complaints from their musculoskeletal system. The correlation between reported physical work load and pain from the musculoskeletal system was weak. This discrepancy could not be satisfactorily explained. Therefore, a second study was undertaken, in which the same 27 dentists who reported musculoskeletal problems were video recorded during one hour of clinical work, and the records were later analyzed using PEO (Portable Ergonomic Observation). PEO is a frequency analysis method which allows observation of work in real time using a portable computer or video recordings. PEO can be adjusted for registration of single or multiple work operations. Output data are presented as frequency, duration, and sequence of the various work operations. The aim of the present study was to investigate if there was a relation between observed work load recorded with PEO, and subjectively estimated work load and musculoskeletal complaints recorded with a questionnaire based on Visual Analogue Scales. Sitting and standing postures, and head, trunk and arm movements were analyzed. The PEO observations showed that dentists generally perform their clinical work in a sitting position, with the head bent forward almost half of the time. Only weak to moderate correlations (r =0.0-0.6) were found between observed physical work load and subjective estimations of experienced physical work load and musculoskeletal complaints. These findings support the results in our previous study, but they do not explain the large difference between the observed low work load and the subjectively experienced high work load. The study will be followed up by EMG measurements and free interviews, where both muscular load and psychosocial factors will be evaluated.     

Discursive psychology as a method of analysis for the study of couple and family therapy

The field of couple and family therapy has benefitted from evidence generated from qualitative approaches. Evidence developed from approaches relying on language and social interaction using naturally occurring recordings of real‐world practice has the benefit of facilitating practice‐based recommendations and informing practice. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of one approach to discourse analysis, Discursive Psychology (DP), demonstrating how a social constructionist framework and focus on discourse can provide an important contribution to the field of therapy. To illustrate the methodological decision‐making process for researchers and/or practitioners who utilize DP, we draw upon a video‐recorded therapeutic session involving Tom Andersen. To conclude, we make recommendations for practitioners using DP to explore and examine therapeutic practice.     

‘Don't speak like that to her!’: Linguistic minority children's socialization into an ideology of monolingualism

It is of general interest to the study of language in society how ideologies motivating linguistic hegemony get formulated in the context of increasing diversity. This includes if and how linguistic diversity surfaces under conditions that are clearly disfavouring it, and why or why not it happens. Also, we need to know how ideologies of language surface at the micro‐level, and how they are continuously passed on, shared, negotiated or contested. These are central issues in this study of socialization into a condition and an ideology of linguistic hegemony in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is illustrated how school‐authorities, parents and children co‐create Danish dominance and a linguistic ideology of monolingualism during the first school year. The primary focus is on two school‐beginners with minority language background in a linguistically diverse classroom, and the linguistic registers of particular interest are Danish, the majority language, and Turkish, an immigrant language. The article builds on field‐notes, ethnographic interviews, video‐ and audio‐recordings. Linguistic Ethnography and Language Socialization constitute the methodological frameworks, and Silverstein's ‘total linguistic fact’ forms an analytic principle.     

A Study of a Network Meeting: Exploring the Interplay between Inner and Outer Dialogues in Significant and Meaningful Moments

The present study is part of a series of qualitative studies focusing on dialogic practice in southern Norway. In this article, we present a qualitative study of a network meeting focusing on the interplay between the participants' inner and outer dialogues. The network meeting is between an adolescent boy, his mother and two network therapists, the same adolescent case discussed previously in this journal by Bøe et al. ( 2013 ). The aim of this study is to explore how the interplay between inner and outer dialogues contributes to significant and meaningful moments for the interlocutors. A multiperspective methodology is used that combines video recordings of a network meeting and participant interviews with text analysis. Our research found the interplay has an important role in understanding the emergence of significant and meaningful moments in therapy. A one‐sided focus on participants' utterances or inner dialogues was insufficient to explain their significance and meaning to the interlocutors. A dialogical approach provides a theoretical frame and concepts that are useful in investigations of therapeutic conversations.     

Rural participatory research in Alaska: The case of Tanakon village

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how participatory research methodologies may be utilized to investigate the planning of improved sanitation services in rural Alaska. The village selected for this case study had a strong tribal and municipal government, and was in the process of designing research to determine the feasibility of various options for upgraded sanitation service. Establishing contacts early in the project ensured that a network of support was in place prior to the field visit to the village. This was critical to the successful and timely completion of the field visit. Key features of the participatory research methods included gaining permission from Native authorities and Elders to visit and conduct research, participating in group interviews, community activities, and transect walks, developing seasonal and historic timelines, and conducting a secondary source review of city and agency documents and school district archives. The findings of this study confirm that flexible and personalized research approaches can reveal a body of local knowledge that exists regarding how best to address sanitation issues. Such information can be utilized in developing efficient, cost-effective ways of providing environmentally sound waste disposal in rural communities.     

Exploring the contributions of human and social capital to productivity

In this article we investigate how human and social capital contribute to individual productivity. We study three firms that complete all their tasks as projects. The employees in all firms initiate and organise their projects. We collected archival data from the firms on performance, human capital, tenure, gender and their project activities. Social network data are generated from interviews and a survey. We find that social capital is the most important factor to determine productivity. We found mixed effects from human capital; only in one firm did human capital have a noticeable effect on productivity; tenure has no effects on productivity.     

Video-Based Studies of Work Practice

The use of the visual, let alone video, is surprisingly rare within social scientific studies of work and organisations. Nevertheless there is an emerging corpus of research that use video recordings, augmented by field work, as their principal data; recordings that provide access to the fine details of work as it is accomplished within everyday organisational settings. They include studies of work in a broad range of domains, including call centres, mobile offices, operating theatres, construction sites and control centres. This paper outlines the nature of these video-based studies of work and organisation and highlights some of their major contributions to our understanding of issues such as the nature of skill and expertise, the use of technology and the organisation of teamwork. It also reflects on the impact that these studies, and this approach, are having within the practical fields of industrial and market research.     

Inside out: some notes on carrying out feminist research in cross-cultural interviews with South Asian women immigration applicants

This article considers a number of important issues raised in the growing literature with regard to the place of ethnicity in feminist research methodology and the woman-to-woman interview. Drawing on examples from the author's experiences of conducting interviews with South Asian women immigration applicants, the article firstly illustrates that because of a different ethnicity, a white feminist researcher is likely to be regarded as an outsider by the minority-ethnic interviewees, regardless of the sharing of gender. Secondly, using the ideas of 'personal' and 'structural' power the article discusses how the researcher's outsider status complicates the power relations between the interviewer and the participants.     

Recalling sexual behavior: A methodological analysis of memory recall bias via interview using the diary as the gold standard

This study examined the effect of time lag on the validity of retrospective self‐reports of sexual behavior. Seventy‐five heterosexual students (44 women, 31 men) made daily recordings of sexual behavior, condom use, and alcohol or substance use for 1 month. Ability of respondents to recall sexual behavior recorded during this period was assessed at 1, 2, and 3 months after diary completion using recall interviews (25 interviewed at each interval). For vaginal intercourse, total recall error was significantly greater at 3 months than at 1 month post‐diary. For all other variables assessed, the 2‐ and 3‐month time intervals did not produce significant increases in total recall error. Higher frequency of vaginal intercourse, orgasm, and alcohol use prior to sexual activity were associated with total recall error for some but not all behaviors and outcomes. The results provide a partial validation of the diary‐interview recall model as a method for studying recall error.     

Recalling sexual behavior: a methodological analysis of memory recall bias via interview using the diary as the gold standard

This study examined the effect of time lag on the validity of retrospective self-reports of sexual behavior. Seventy-five heterosexual students (44 women, 31 men) made daily recordings of sexual behavior, condom use, and alcohol or substance use for 1 month. Ability of respondents to recall sexual behavior recorded during this period was assessed at 1, 2, and 3 months after diary completion using recall interviews (25 interviewed at each interval). For vaginal intercourse, total recall error was significantly greater at 3 months than at 1 month post-diary. For all other variables assessed, the 2- and 3-month time intervals did not produce significant increase in total recall error. Higher frequency of vaginal intercourse, orgasm, and alcohol use prior to sexual activity were associated with total recall error for some but not all behaviors and outcomes. The results provide a partial validation of the diary-interview recall model as a method for studying recall error.     

The uses of stance in media production: A study in embodied sociolinguistics

While many conversation analysts and scholars in related fields have used video recordings to study interaction, this study is one of a small but growing number that investigates video recordings of the joint activities of media professionals working with, and on, video. It examines practices of media production that are, in their involvement with the visual and verbal qualities of video, both beyond talk and deeply shaped by talk. The article draws upon video recordings of the making of a feature‐length documentary. In particular, it analyses a complex course of action where an editing team are reviewing their interview of the subject of the documentary, their footage being intercut with existing reality TV footage of that same interviewee. The central contributions that the article makes are, firstly, to the sociolinguistics of mediatisation, through the identification of the workplace concerns of the members of the editing team; secondly, showing how editing is accomplished, moment by moment, through the use of particular forms of embodied action; and, finally, how the media themselves feature in the ordering of action. While this is professional work, it sheds light on the video‐mediated practices in contemporary culture, especially those found in social media where video makers carefully consider their editing of the perspective toward themselves and others.     

Issues of Conducting Qualitative Research in an Inner-City Community

ABSTRACT

This paper describes and critiques the use of a combined qualitative and quantitative research methodology to investigate the impact of the verdict and subsequent civil disturbances in the Rodney King police brutality case upon Black youth, ages 15-3Q, in South Central Los Angeles. The study conducted in 1993-1994, focused on the attitudes and experiences of these youth in four institutional systems: education, employment, criminal justice and health care. Eight research issues were identified in 17 focus groups and 32 individual interviews: (1) developing the study design; (2) establishing research credibility; (3) recruiting the sample, (4) conducting the focus groups; (5) confidentiality and use of data; (6) data analysis; (7) generalizability of results; and (8) feedback to the community.