Enhanced Ethnographic Methods: Audiovisual Techniques, Focused Group Interviews, and Elicitation (Ethnographer's Toolkit) [Paperback]

Jean J. Schensul (Author), Margaret D. LeCompte (Author), Bonnie K. Nastasi (Author), Stephen P. Borgatti (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0761991298 | ISBN-13: 978-0761991298 | Publication Date: August 19, 1999 | Edition: 1

In addition to the traditional use of participant observation, interviews, and surveys, qualitative researchers have developed a variety of other methods to obtain information in their studies. Visual data from film and still photographs are now supplemented with video and computer techniques and are used in many settings. Focused group interviews, once in the domain of market researchers, are now regularly used by qualitative researchers as well. Elicitation techniques, such as triads, pile sorts, and freelists, originally developed by cognitive anthropologists have been widely adopted to help understand the inner workings of the members of a group. In this brief volume, these three sets of methods are explained in simple, practical language. The authors describe when and how to use these sets of techniques for community research, market research, and formative evaluation and other health, social welfare, and educational settings both domestically and internationally.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jean J. Schensul: Institute for Community Research, Hartford
Margaret Diane LeCompte: University of Colorado, Boulder
Bonnie K. Nastasi: SUNY Albany
Stephen P. Borgatti: Boston University

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Altamira Press; 1 edition (August 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761991298
• ISBN-13: 978-0761991298
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #573,572 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Review, August 5, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Enhanced Ethnographic Methods: Audiovisual Techniques, Focused Group Interviews, and Elicitation (Ethnographer's Toolkit) (Paperback)

This volume is a very easy to read and is organized to be used as a reference tool. The format of having frequent summary tables makes the relevant information very accessible and easy to find. The authors have included a lot of examples of ways that their techniques have been used in real research for clarification purposes. However, these are set off from the main text into separate sections so it is convenient both to read for the base content and skip the examples or to get a fuller understanding to read straight through. The key points are bolded and emphasized by special markers and the important definitions are pulled into the margins. This makes it simple to get the main points of the book without much effort.

There are three main topics covered as supplementary methods to do ethnographic research: Audiovisual techniques, Focus Group Interviewing, and Elicitation Techniques for Cultural Domain Analysis. The authors make it very clear that there is a definite niche for these methods in the field of ethnography, but also that these are to be used as auxiliaries to the main methods covered in another volume. The book covers the main advantages and disadvantages of each of these techniques, gives step by step instructions as to how to implement the techniques and gives thorough examples of how these methods have already been used in the field.

This volume is clearly part of a larger series and the authors urge the readers to use the whole succession. The introduction to the book is actually more of an introduction to the entire took kit series than an overview of the book. This particular part of the sequence is valuable for someone who is involved in ethnography and is looking for new ideas to get at specific issues, or is looking for a way to get good supplementary information. This book is definitely not the core of the series, but it is an excellent work on some of the issues on the periphery.