Week 4. Case Study, Ethnography and Action Research

In previous weeks we talked about naturalistic studies. This perspective studies the reality in the participants' natural settings, looking for characteristics, causes, and consequences of social phenomenon.

Case study, ethnography and action research are methods (and techniques) with a qualitative inclination. They consider participants as meaning-making beings who help the research construct the meaning and sense of their world. Therefore, these methods accept the existence of multiples realities.

In all these methods, the process of research acquires the same importance as the outcomes. Researchers become instruments of research through the application of techniques like observation, interviews, field notes, and memos.

Ethnographic studies are concerned about cultural knowledge, activities of groups in a particular context and description and analysis of patterns of social interaction. This study uses all of the mentioned elements to build new theories.

While there are several types of ethnography, I found particularly interesting autoethnography, because it enables the researcher to describe and analyze personal experiences in order to understand the cultural experience. On the other hand, it's also interesting how this method fights the critiques about the relevance of one person's experience for scientific purposes.

Case studies can provide detailed examinations of evolving situations or small samples. This method can focus on a person, a group or an organization and it gives us great examples of real situations occurring to real people in their natural settings.