Health Informatics
Obtaining requirements – Qualitative methods
Obtaining Requirements
-
Qualitative methods
Written by: Robin Beaumont e-mail:
Date last updated: 03/05/2003 17:04 Version: 1
How this document should be used:
This document has been designed to be suitable for web based and face-to-face teaching. The text has been made to be as interactive as possible with web based group exercises.
If you are using this document as part of a web-based course you are urged to use the online discussion board to discuss the issues raised in this document and share your solutions with other students.
Who this document is aimed at:
This document is aimed for two types of people:
· Those who wish to become involved in planning a role in Information Systems development/maintainance/evaluation but are not interested in the nuts
and bolts of systems analysis, such people are commonly called domain experts and act a bridges between a professional group (e.g. medics, Solicitors etc) to which they belong and IT experts.
· As an introduction for those just beginning professional computer science courses
I hope you enjoy working through this document.
Robin Beaumont
Contents
1. Before you start 3
1.1 Prerequisites 3
1.2 Required Resources 3
2. Learning Outcomes 4
3. Introduction 5
4. Ethnography 5
4.1 The Stages of an Ethnographic Study 7
4.2 The Mini-Ethnographic Study 8
4.3 Shadowing 9
4.3.1 What is the difference between shadowing a person and visiting an organisation? 11
4.3.2 What should I tell the person I am shadowing is the purpose of the exercise? 11
4.4 Ethnography and Information Systems 12
4.5 Ethnography and User Interface Requirements 13
5. Dry and Wet Data 13
6. Ethnomethodology 14
6.1 So What is Ethnomethodology? 14
6.1.1 Explanation One 15
6.1.2 Explanation Two 16
6.2 Ethnomethodology in Health and Information Systems 18
7. Exercises 19
8. Summary 20
9. Links 21
10. References 21
1. Before you start
1.1 Prerequisites
This document assumes that you have worked through a number of documents to gain the following knowledge and skills:
1. Basic knowledge of systems development methods see the following to check out specifically what you should know: http://www.robinbt2.free-online.co.uk/virtualclassroom/chap12/s3/des1.htm
2. Basic knowledge of information systems see the following to check out specifically what you should know:
http://www.robinbt2.free-online.co.uk/virtualclassroom/chap12/s2/systems1.pdf
3. Basic knowledge of issues around user involvement in systems development - see the following to check out specifically what you should know in the document " Getting Users Involved in Developing Information Systems" at http://www.robinbt2.free-online.co.uk/virtualclassroom/chap12/s4/des2.pdf
4. Quantitative /Qualitative research fundamental propositions see the following to check out specifically what you should know in the document at
http://www.robinbt2.free-online.co.uk/virtualclassroom/chap5/s5/comm_theories/qual_quan1.pdf
5. Obtaining Requirements using a Requirements Engineering Perspective - - see the following to check out specifically what you should know in the document at
http://www.robinbt2.free-online.co.uk/virtualclassroom//chap5/s5/requirements_quant/obtaining_reqs_quantitative.pdf
You can find all the above documents at:
http://www.robinbt2.free-online.co.uk/virtualclassroom/contents.htm
1.2 Required Resources
You need the ability to be able to view this document while online so that you can check out the various web sites mentioned.
2. Learning Outcomes
This document aims to provide you with the following skills and information. After you have completed it you should come back to these points, ticking off those with which you feel happy.
Learning outcome / Tick boxBe able to describe the difference between the systems engineering approach and more qualitative methods /
Be able to provide a summary description of Ethnography /
Be able to describe the main stages of an Ethnographic study /
Be able to describe an example of Ethnography in ‘Workplace Studies’ /
Be able to undertake a mini-ethnographic study (i.e. shadowing) /
Be able to write up a mini-ethnographic study (i.e. shadowing) /
Be able to re-interpret a mini-ethnographic study (i.e. shadowing) using various theoretical frameworks such as Feminism, Marxist and Symbolic Interactionism (i.e. roles and acting metaphor) /
Be able to evaluate the various reflective interpretations that you applied to a shadowing exercise /
Be able to compare / evaluate the various qualitative methods described in this document against those presented in the ‘Requirements Engineering’ perspective document /
Be able to describe Goguen’s concepts of Wet and Dry Data /
Be able to provide a brief summary of Ethnomethodology /
Be able to provide an example of where Ethnomethodology as been used in Healthcare research /
Be able to provide a brief description of that various web sites providing information about Qualitative methods and Information Systems /
3. Introduction
In the previous documents we have considered the fundamental differences between the Quantitative and Qualitative approach and have investigated various methods that purport to apply the empirical/quantitative paradigm to elucidating Information System requirements. In this document we will concentrate on qualitative approaches. , It is interesting to note that if one takes a iterative approach to systems development much of what is discussed in this document can also be applied to qualitative evaluation.
I will not discuss the assumptions that are made when choosing to use either a quantitative or qualitative approach here – I assume you know these. If you do not I strongly advice you to read the document “Quantitative /Qualitative research fundamental propositions” now. The following will make little sense if you do not appreciate the fundamentally different beliefs espoused by the two views. It is important also to realise that one can not apply standards developed to assess quantitative approaches to qualitative work. This is fundamental. See Potts & Newstetter 1997 for details
In this document we will look specifically at two qualitative techniques that have gained some popularity in the last few years. The first is ethnography and the second, a much more exoteric approach called, ethnomethodology.
4. Ethnography
Much of the information below is taken from McNeill 1990, one of the few sources of information that clarify, rather than cloud, research methods, particularly concerning qualitative methods.
Basically, ethnography means "Writing about a way of life" (McMeill 1990 p64). The important aspect is that it involves a process of getting to know the culture by immersing oneself in it. Possibly, a description is best:
"Go and sit in the lounges of the luxury hotels and on the doorsteps of the flophouses; sit on the Gold Coast settees and on the slum shakedowns; sit in the Orchestra Hall and in the Star and Garter Burlesk. In short gentlemen, go get the seats of your pants dirty in real research" (Park quoted in Gomm and McNeill 1982).
Most people tend to think that this, originally anthropological, technique is mainly being used to investigate cultures from distant lands. However, this is not the case as the researcher's gaze is more frequently turned to an unusual subculture of some type. (Sociologists would frequently call such cultures "deviant".)
Such an approach has a long history:
"Charles Booth (1840-1916) was conducting one of the first major social surveys, which he published between 1891 and 1903 in seventeen volumes entitled Life and Labour of the People in London. Booth, prompted by a number of newspaper and magazine articles, was concerned to find out the true extent of poverty among the working classes of London at that time, and he collected vast quantities of data about them, using a combination of early survey techniques and other less statistical methods. He went from house to house in certain areas of the East End of London, painstakingly recording the number of residents, the number of rooms they occupied, their living conditions, their income, diet, clothing, and so on. He also collected their feelings about it. He spent some time actually living as a boarder in houses in the areas that he was studying, and making detailed studies of particular families" (McNeill 1990 p3).
While one may well ask why Booth went to such extremes as living among the poor, it is he who provides the following explanation:
"It is not easy for any outsider to gain sufficient insight into the lives of these people. The descriptions of them in the books we read are for the most part as unlike the truth as are the descriptions of aristocratic life in the books they read. Those who know, think it is a matter without interest, so that again and again in my enquires, when some touch of colour has been given illuminating the ways of life among the people who are above the need for help, it has been cut short by a semi-apology: "But that is not what you want to know about"...Of personal knowledge I have not much...Yet such as it is, what I have witnessed has been enough to throw a strong light on the materials I have used, and, for me, has made the dry bones live. For three separate periods, I have taken up quarters, each time for several weeks, where I was not known, and as a lodger have shared the lives of people...I became intimately acquainted with some of those I met, and the lives and habits of many others naturally came under observation. My object, which I trust was a fair one, was never suspected, my position never questioned. The people with whom I lived became, and are still, my friends" (Booth quoted in McNeill 1990 p65)
The ethnographic approach has been used much more recently in the healthcare situation to great effect in two classic studies, both published in 1961, these being:
1. Erving Goffman's study of an asylum, his aim being:
"...to try to learn about the social work of the hospital inmate, as this world is subjectively experienced by him. I started out in the role of an assistant to the athletic director, when pressed avowing to be a student of recreation and community life, and I passed the day with patients, avoiding sociable contact with the staff and the carrying of a key. I did not sleep in the wards, and the top hospital management knew what my aims were." (Goffman 1961 p.Preface)
2. Howard Becker's study to understand the process of becoming a doctor. In this study he made use of interviews, but possibly more interestingly, he later made use of his skill as a Jazz pianist to study the music of dance musicians (Becker 1963).
The first of the descriptions above are frequently referred to as using the technique of participant observation (in contrast to non-participant). Although participant observation frequently means taking on an assumed role it need not mean fully participating:
"The essence of participant observation is the prolonged participation of the researcher in the daily life of a group (although not necessarily as a member of the group) and his or her attempt to empathize with the norms, values and behaviour of that group" (Becker 1970 quoted in Hammersley 1993 p185)
Possibly the most famous example of voyeuristic participant is the 1970 study by Humphreys (Humphreys 1970):
"...who investigated casual homosexual encounters in public lavatories in the USA. By passing himself off as a voyeur, interested in watching the sexual behaviour of others, he was able to obtain a considerable amount of information about the patterns of such encounters. Amongst the details given in his final report are accounts of the characteristics of the kinds of public toilets in which such behaviour takes place." (Quoted in Brodie, Williams and Owens 1994 p104).
As described in the above example,a personal characteristic of the researcher is often used to maximum advantage in this type of research (i.e. in this instance the ability of the researcher to be able to play Jazz piano). Here is another example:
"Patrick's (1973) study of a Glasgow gang is one of the best known, A social worker who looked considerably younger than he was, Patrick, managed to become accepted as a gang member by a Glasgow gang. His position as an accepted member of the bang provided him with a unique opportunity to investigate the activities, motivations and attitudes of gang members." (Quoted in Brodie, Williams and Owens 1994 p96).
Occasionally researchers act to gain admission to a particular world:
"Rosenhaln (1973) who with several colleagues [in the United States] succeeded in having himself admitted to a psychiatric hospital with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia (the single researcher [who] was admitted to a private, rather than a state hospital, was given a diagnosis of mainic-depressive psychosis, a diagnosis with much better prognosis - despite the fact that all researchers had claimed identical symptoms when presenting!) In Rosenhahn's study the 'participant' status of the observers was in some way unusual, in that having been admitted to hospital all researchers thereafter behaved quite normally; notably the staff of the hospital typically failed to notice that they were 'normal' (one researcher's taking of notes was recorded in the hospital as 'obsessional note-taking behaviour) whilst a number of real patients recognised the researcher for what they were. Thus from the patients' point of view, Rosenhahn and his colleagues were outsiders, but from the viewpoint of the staff, who failed to recognise them, they were participants." (Quoted in Brodie, Williams and Owens 1994 p97)
The above situation of 'acting' to trigger certain behaviour is more common in the 'Ethnomethodological' approach, which will be mentioned later.
While the majority of ethnographic data is reported by the researcher, the life-history technique allows those being investigated to talk for themselves. A 'life history' is an autobiography of a person which has been obtained through interview and guided conversation (McNeill p85). The 'oral-history' project in the UK is an example of this technique.
Ethnographic techniques aim for 'naturalism' and are always carried out in the natural setting. This is pivotal to success as it provides part of the explanation of the meaning for the ethnographer.
To sum up, the purpose of an ethnographic study is to gain insight and understanding about a particular 'way of life' which is usually some type of subculture. It is a qualitative method; therefore, 'uniqueness' and interpretation, rather than generalisability and replicability, are valued more highly.
Now let's consider how one goes about undertaking an ethnographic study.