Estratégias de Trabalho de Campo e Métodos de Observação: Um Guia para Entender o Mundo

6 Fieldwork Strategies and Observation Methods To Understand the World And the children said unto Halcolm We want to understand the world Tell us O Sage what must we do to know the world Have you read the works of our great thinkers Yes Master every one of them as we were instructed And have you practiced diligently your meditations so as to become One with the infinity of the universe We have Master with devotion and discipline Have you studied the experiments the surveys and the mathematical models of the Scianos Beyond even the examinations Master we have studied in the innermost chambers where the experiments and surveys are analyzed and where the mathematical models are developed and tested Still you are not satisfied You would know more Yes Master We want to understand the world Then my children you must go out into the world Live among the peoples of the world as they live Learn their language Participate in their rituals and routines Taste of the world Smell it Watch and listen Touch and be touched Write down what you see and hear how they think and how you feel Enter into the world Observe and wonder Experience and reflect To understand a world you must become part of that world while at the same time remaining separate a part of and apart from Go then and return to tell me what you see and hear what you learn and what you come to understand From Halcolms Methodological Chronicle 259 260 QUALITATIVE DESIGNS AND DATA COLLECTION Folk Wisdom About Human Observation In the fields of observation chance favors the prepared mind Louis Pasteur 18221895 People only see what they are prepared to see Ralph Waldo Emerson 18031882 Every student who takes an introductory psychology or sociology course learns that human perception is highly selective When looking at the same scene or object different people will see different things What people see is highly dependent on their interests biases and backgrounds Our culture shapes what we see our early childhood socialization forms how we look at the world and our value systems tell us how to interpret what passes before our eyes How then can one trust observational data In their classic guide for users of social science research Katzer Cook and Crouch 1978 titled their chapter on observation Seeing Is Not Believing They open with an oftrepeated story meant to demonstrate the problem with observational data Once at a scientific meeting a man suddenly rushed into the midst of one of the sessions Another man with a revolver was chasing him They scuffled in plain view of the assembled researchers a shot was fired and they rushed out About twenty seconds had elapsed The chairperson of the session immediately asked all present to write down an account of what they had seen The observers did not know that the ruckus had been planned rehearsed and photographed Of the forty reports turned in only one was less than 20 percent mistaken about the principal facts and most were more than 40 percent mistaken The event surely drew the undivided attention of the observers was in full view at close range and lasted only twenty seconds But the observers could not observe all that happened Some readers chuckled because the observers were researchers but similar experiments have been reported numerous times They are alike for all kinds of people Katzer et al 19782122 Using this story to cast doubt on all varieties of observational research manifests two fundamental fallacies 1 These researchers were not trained as social science observers and 2 they were not prepared to make observations at that particular moment Scientific inquiry using observational methods requires disciplined training and rigorous preparation The fact that a person is equipped with functioning senses does not make that person a skilled observer The fact that ordinary persons experiencing any particular incident will highlight and report different things does not mean that trained and prepared observers cannot report with accuracy authenticity and reliability that same incident Training to become a skilled observer includes learning to pay attention see what there is to see and hear what there is hear practice in writing descriptively acquiring discipline in recording field notes knowing how to separate detail from trivia to achieve the former without being overwhelmed by the latter using rigorous methods to validate and triangulate observations and reporting the strengths and limitations of ones own perspective which requires both selfknowledge and selfdisclosure Training observers can be particularly challenging because so many people think that they are natural observers and therefore have little to learn Training to become a skilled observer is a no less rigorous process than the training necessary to become a skilled survey researcher or statistician People dont naturally know how to write good survey items or analyze statisticsand people dont naturally know how to do systematic research observations All forms of scientific inquiry require training and practice Careful preparation for entering into fieldwork is as important as disciplined training Though I have considerable experience doing observational fieldwork had I been present at the scientific meeting where the shooting scene occurred my recorded observations might not have been significantly more accurate than those of my less trained colleagues because I would not have been prepared to observe what occurred and lacking that preparation would have been seeing things through my ordinary eyes rather than my scientific observers eyes Preparation has mental physical intellectual and psychological dimensions Pasteur said In the fields of observation chance favors the prepared mind Part of preparing the mind is learning how to concentrate during the observation Observation for me involves enormous energy and concentration I have to turn on that concentrationturn on my scientific eyes and ears my observational senses A scientific observer cannot be expected to engage in systematic observation on the spur of the moment any more than a worldclass boxer can be expected to defend his title spontaneously on a street corner or an Olympic runner can be asked to dash off at record speed because someone suddenly thinks it would be nice to test the runners time Athletes artists musicians dancers engineers and scientists require training and mental preparation to do their best Experiments and simulations that document the inaccuracy of spontaneous observations made by untrained and unprepared observers are no more indicative of the potential quality of observational methods than an amateur community talent show is indicative of what professional performers can do Two points are critical then in this introductory section First the folk wisdom about observation being nothing more than selective perception is true in the ordinary course of participating in daytoday events Second the skilled observer is able to improve the accuracy authenticity and reliability of observations through intensive training and rigorous preparation The remainder of this chapter is devoted to helping evaluators and researchers move their observations from the level of ordinary looking to the rigor of systematic seeing The Value of Direct Observations Im often asked by students Isnt interviewing just as good as observation Do you really have to go see a program directly to evaluate it Cant you find out all you need to know by talking to people in the program without going there and seeing it firsthand I reply by relating my experience evaluating a leadership development program with 262 QUALITATIVE DESIGNS AND DATA COLLECTION two colleagues As part of a formative evaluation aimed at helping staff and funders clarify and improve the programs design before undertaking a comprehensive followup study for a summative evaluation we went through the program as participant observers After completing the sixday leadership retreat we met to compare experiences Our very first conclusion was that we would never have understood the program without personally experiencing it It bore little resemblance to our expectations what people had told us or the official program description Had we designed the followup study without having participated in the program we would have completely missed the mark and asked inappropriate questions To absorb the programs language understand nuances of meaning appreciate variations in participants experiences capture the importance of what happened outside formal activities during breaks over meals in latenight gatherings and parties and feel the intensity of the retreat environmentnothing could have substituted for direct experience with the program Indeed what we observed and experienced was that participants were changed as much or more by what happened outside the formal program structure and activities as by anything that happened through the planned curriculum and exercises The firstorder purposes of observational data are to describe the setting that was observed the activities that took place in that setting the people who participated in those activities and the meanings of what was observed from the perspectives of those observed The descriptions should be factual accurate and thorough without being cluttered by irrelevant minutiae and trivia The quality of observational reports is judged by the extent to which that observation permits the reader to enter into and understand the situation described In this way evaluation users for example can come to understand program activities and impacts through detailed descriptive information about what has occurred in a program and how the people in the program have reacted to what has occurred Naturalistic observations take place in the field For ethnographers the field is a cultural setting For qualitative organizational development researchers the field will be an organization For evaluators the field is the program being studied Many terms are used for talking fieldbased observations including participant observation fieldwork qualitative observation direct observation and field research All these terms refer to the circumstance of being in or around an ongoing social setting for the purpose of making a qualitative analysis of that setting Lofland 197195 Direct personal contact with and observations of a setting have several advantages First through direct observations the inquirer is better able to understand and capture the context within which people interact Understanding context is essential to a holistic perspective Second firsthand experience with a setting and the people in the setting allows an inquirer to be open discovery oriented and inductive because by being onsite the observer has less need to rely on prior conceptualizations of the setting whether those prior conceptualizations are from written documents or verbal reports A third strength of observational fieldwork is that the inquirer has the opportunity to see things that may routinely escape awareness among the people in the setting For someone to provide information in an interview he or she must be aware enough to report the desired information Because all social systems involve routines participants in those routines may take them so much for granted that they cease to be aware of important nuances that are apparent only to an observer who has not become fully immersed in those routines The participant observer can also discover things no one else has ever really paid attention to One of the highlights of the leadership training program we experienced was the final evening banquet at which staff was roasted For three nights after training ended participants worked to put together a program of jokes songs and skits for the banquet Staff were never around for these preparations which lasted late into the night but they had come to count on this culminating event Month after month for two years each completely new training group had organized a final banquet event to both honor and make fun of staff Staff assumed that either prior participants passed on this tradition or it was a natural result of the bonding among participants We learned that neither explanation was true What actually occurred was that unbeknownst to program staff the dining hostess for the hotel where participants stayed initiated the roast After the second evenings meal when staff routinely departed for a meeting the hostess would tell participants what was expected She even brought out a photo album of past banquets and offered to supply joke books costumes music or whatever This 60yearold woman had begun playing what amounted to a major staff role for one of the most important processes in the programand the staff didnt know about it We learned about it by being there A fourth value of direct observation is the chance to learn things that people would be unwilling to talk about in an interview Interviewees may be unwilling to provide information on sensitive topics especially to strangers A fifth advantage of fieldwork is Fieldwork Strategies and Observation Methods 263 Fieldwork Variations 2002 Michael Quinn Patton and Michael Coenen the opportunity to move beyond the selective perceptions of others Interviews present the understandings of the people being interviewed Those understandings constitute important indeed critical information However it is necessary for the inquirer to keep in mind that interviewees are always reporting perceptionsselective perceptions Field observers will also have selective perceptions By making their own perceptions part of the dataa matter of training discipline and selfawarenessobservers can arrive at a more comprehensive view of the setting being studied than if forced to rely entirely on secondhand reports through interviews Finally getting close to the people in a setting through firsthand experience permits the inquirer to draw on personal knowledge during the formal interpretation stage of analysis Reflection and introspection are important parts of field research The impressions and feelings of the observer become part of the data to be used in attempting to understand a setting and the people who inhabit it The observer takes in information and forms impressions that go beyond what can be fully recorded in even the most detailed field notes Because the observer sees and hears the people he studies in many situations of the kind that normally occur for them rather than just in an isolated and formal interview he builds an evergrowing fund of impressions many of them at the subliminal level which give him an extensive base for the interpretation and analytic use of any particular datum This wealth of information and impression sensitizes him to subtleties which might pass unnoticed in an interview and forces him to raise continually new and different questions which he brings to and tries to answer in succeeding observations Becker and Geer 197032 ObservationBased Evaluation and Applied Research in a Political World The preceding review of the advantages of fieldwork strikes me as fairly straightforward but a bit abstract In a moment well consider the details of how to do fieldwork but to inform that transition and reinforce the importance of direct observation in the real world let me offer a perspective from the world of childrens stories Some of the most delightful entertaining and suspenseful fairy tales and fables concern tales of kings who discard their royal robes to take on the apparel of peasants so that they can move freely among their people to really understand what is happening in their kingdoms Our modernday kings and political figures are more likely to take television crews with them when they make excursions among the people They are unlikely to go out secretly disguised moving through the streets anonymously unless theyre up to mischief It is left then to applied researchers and evaluators to play out the fable to take on the appropriate appearance and mannerisms that will permit easy movement among the people sometimes secretly sometimes openly but always with the purpose of better understanding what the world is really like They are then able to report those understandings to our modernday version of kings so that policy wisdom can be enhanced and programmatic decisions enlightened At least thats the fantasy Turning that fantasy into reality involves a number of important decisions about what kind of fieldwork to do We turn now to those decisions participation while at the same time observing and talking with other participants about whatever is happening In the leadership program I evaluated through participant observation I was a full participant in all exercises and program activities using the field of evaluation as my leadership arena since all participants had to have an arena of leadership as their focus As did other participants I developed close relationships with some people as the week progressed sharing meals and conversing late into the night I sometimes took detailed notes during activities if the activity permitted eg group discussion while at other times I waited until later to record notes eg after meals If a situation suddenly became emotional for example during a small group encounter I would cease to take notes so as to be fully present as well as to keep my note taking from becoming a distraction Unlike other participants I sat in on staff meetings and knew how staff viewed what was going on Much of the time I was fully immersed in the program experience as a participant but I was also always aware of my additional role as evaluation observer The extent to which it is possible for an evaluator to become a participant in a program will depend partly on the nature of the program In human service and education programs that serve children the evaluator cannot participate as a child but may be able to participate as a volunteer parent or staff member in such a way as to develop the perspective of an insider in one of those adult roles Gender can create barriers to participant observation Males cant be participants in femaleonly programs eg battered womens shelters Females doing fieldwork in nonliterate cultures may not be permitted access to maleonly councils and ceremonies Programs that serve special populations may also involve natural limitations on the extent to which the evaluator can become a full participant For example a researcher who is not chemically dependent will not be able to become a full participant physically and psychologically in a chemical dependency program even though it may be possible to participate in the program as a client Such participation in a treatment program can lead to important insights and understanding about what it is like to be in the program however the evaluator must avoid the delusion that participation has been complete This point is illustrated by an exchange between an inmate and a student who was doing participant observation in a prison Inmate What are you in here for man Student Im here for a while to find out what its like to be in prison Inmate What do you meanfind out what its like Evaluator Im here so that I can experience prison from the inside instead of just studying what its like from out there Inmate You got to be jerkln me off man Experience from the inside Shit man you can go home when you decide youve had enough cant you Evaluator Yeah Inmate Then you aint never gonna know what its like from the inside Social cultural political and interpersonal factors can limit the nature and degree of participation in participant observation For example if the participants in a program all know each other intimately they may object to an outsider trying to become part of their close circle Where marked social class differences exist between a sociologist and people in a neighborhood access will be more difficult likewise when as is often the case an evaluator is well educated and middle class while welfare program clients are economically disadvantaged and poorly educated the participants in the program may object to any ruse of full participant observation Program staff will sometimes object to the additional burden of including an evaluator in a program where resources are limited and an additional participant would unbalance staffclient ratios Thus in evaluation the extent to which full participation is possible and desirable will depend on the precise nature of the program the political context and the nature of the evaluation questions being asked Adult training programs for example may permit fairly easy access for full participation by evaluators Offender treatment programs are much less likely to be open to participant observation as an evaluation method Evaluators must therefore be flexible sensitive and adaptive in negotiating the precise degree of participation that is appropriate in any particular observational study especially where reporting timelines are constrained so entry into the setting must be accomplished relatively quickly Social scientists who can take a long time to become integrated into the setting under study have more options for fuller participant observation As these examples illustrate full and complete participation in a setting what is sometimes called going native is fairly rare especially for a program evaluation Degree of participation and nature of observation vary along a wide continuum of possibilities The ideal in evaluation is to design and negotiate that degree of participation that will yield the most meaningful data about the program given the characteristics of the participants the nature of staffparticipant interactions the sociopolitical context of the program and the information needs of intended evaluation users Likewise in applied and basic research the purpose scope length and setting for the study will dictate the range and types of participant observation that are possible One final caution The researchers plans and intentions regarding the degree of program involvement to be experienced may not be the way things actually turn out Lang and Lang 1960 report that two scientific participant observers who were studying audience behavior at a Billy Graham evangelical crusade made their decision for Christ and left their observer posts to walk down the aisle and join Reverend Grahams campaign Such are the occupational hazards or benefits depending on your perspective of realworld fieldwork Insider and Outsider Perspectives Emic Versus Etic Approaches People who are insiders to a setting being studied often have a view of the setting and any findings about it quite different from that of the outside researchers who are conducting the study Bartunek and Louis 1996 Ethnosemanticist Kenneth Pike 1954 coined the terms emic and etic to distinguish classification systems reported by anthropologists based on 1 the language and categories used by the people in the culture studied an emic approach in contrast to 2 categories created by anthropologists based on their analysis of important cultural distinctions an etic approach Leading anthropologists such as Franz Boas and Edward Sapir argued that the only meaningful distinctions were those made by people within a culture that is from the emic perspective However as anthropologists turned to more comparative studies engaging in crosscultural analyses distinctions that cut across cultures had to be made based on the anthro pologists analytical perspective that is an etic perspective The etic approach involved standing far enough away from or outside of a particular culture to see its separate events primarily in relation to their similarities and their differences as compared to events in other cultures Pike 195410 For some years a debate raged in anthropology about the relative merits of emic versus etic perspectives Pelto and Pelto 19785560 Headland Pike and Harris 1990 but as often happens over time both approaches came to be understood as valuable though each contributes something different Nevertheless tension between these perspectives remains Today despite or perhaps because of the new recognition of cultural diversity the tension between universalistic and relativistic values remains an unresolved conundrum for the Western ethnographer In practice it becomes this question By which values are observations to be guided The choices seem to be either the values of the ethnographer or the values of the observedthat is in modern parlance either the etic or the emic Herein lies a deeper and more fundamental problem How is it possible to understand the other when the others values are not ones own This problem arises by plague ethnography at a time when Western Christian values are no longer a surety of truth and hence no longer the benchmark from which selfconfidently valid observations can be made Vidich and Lyman 200041 Methodologically the challenge is to do justice to both perspectives during and after fieldwork and to be clear with ones self and ones audience how this tension is managed A participant observer shares as intimately as possible in the life and activities of the setting under study in order to develop an insiders view of what is happening the emic perspective This means that the participant observer not only sees what is happening but feels what it is like to be a part of the setting or program Anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker 1966 has described the basic assumption underlying participant observation as follows To understand a society the anthropologist has traditionally immersed himself in it learning as far as possible to think see feel and sometimes act as a member of its culture and at the same time as a trained anthropologist from another culture p 9 Experiencing the setting or program as an insider accentuates the participant part of participant observation At the same time the inquirer remains aware of being an outsider The challenge is to combine participation and observation so as to become capable of understanding the setting as an insider while describing it to and for outsiders Obtaining something of the understanding of an insider is for most researchers only a first step They expect in time to become capable of thinking and acting within the perspective of two quite different groups the one in which they were reared andto some degreethe one they are studying They will also at times be able to assume a mental position peripheral to both a position from which they will be able to perceive and hopefully describe those relationships systems and patterns of which an inextricably involved insider is not likely to be consciously aware For what the social scientist realizes is that while the outsider simply does not know the meanings or the patterns the insider is so immersed that he may be oblivious to the fact that patterns exist What fieldworkers eventually produce out of the tension developed by this ability to shift their point of view depends upon their sophislication ability and training Their task in any case is to realize what they have experienced and learned and to communicate this in terms that will illumine Wax 19713 Who Conducts the Inquiry Solo and Team Versus Participatory and Collaborative Approaches The ultimate in insider perspective comes from involving the insiders as coresearchers through collaborative or participatory research Collaborative forms of fieldwork participatory action research and empowerment approaches to evaluation have become sufficiently important and widespread to make degree of collaboration a dimension of design choice in qualitative inquiry Participatory action research has a long and distinguished history Kemmis and McTaggart 2000 Whyte 1989 Collaborative principles of feminist inquiry include connectedness and equality between researchers and researched participatory processes that support consciousnessraising and researcher reflexivity and knowledge generation that contributes to womans liberation and emancipation Olesen 2000 Guerrero 1999a1522 Thompson 1992 In evaluation Cousins and Earl 1995 have advocated participatory and collaborative approaches to evaluation primarily to increase use of findings Empowerment evaluation often using qualitative methods Fetterman 2000a Fetterman Kaftarian and Wanderman 1996 involves the use of evaluation concepts and techniques to foster selfdetermination and help people help themselves by learning to study and report on their own issues and concerns What these approaches have in common is a style of inquiry in which the researcher or evaluator becomes a facilitator collaborator and teacher in support of those engaging in their own inquiry While the findings from such a participatory process may be useful a supplementary agenda is often to increase participants sense of being in control of deliberative about and reflective on their own lives and situations Chapter 4 discussed these approaches as examples of how qualitative inquiry can be applied in support of organizational or program development and community change Degrees of collaboration vary along a continuum At one end is the solo fieldworker or a team of professionals what characterizes this end of the continuum is that researchers completely control the inquiry At the other end are collaborations with people in the setting being studied sometimes called coresearchers they help design the inquiry collect data and are involved in analysis Along the middle of the continuum are various degrees of partial and periodic as opposed to continuous collaboration Overt Versus Covert Observations A traditional concern about the validity and reliability of observational data has been the effects of the observer on what is observed People may behave quite differently when they know they are being observed versus how they behave naturally when they dont think theyre being observed Thus the argument goes covert observations are more likely to capture what is really happening than are overt observations where the people in the setting are aware they are being studied Researchers have expressed a range of opinions concerning the ethics and morality of conducting covert research what Mitchell 19932335 calls the debate over secrecy One end of the continuum is represented by Edward Shils 1959 who absolutely opposed all forms of covert research including any observations of private behavior however technically feasible without the explicit and fully informed permission of the person to be observed He argued that there should be full disclosure of the purpose of any research project and that even participant observation is morally obnoxious manipulation unless the observer makes explicit his or her research questions at the very beginning of the observation Shils 1959 quoted in Webb et al 1966vi At the other end of the continuum is the investigative social research of Jack Douglas 1976 Douglas argued that conventional anthropological field methods have been based on a consensus view of society that views people as basically cooperative helpful and willing to have their points of view understood and shared with the rest of the world In contrast Douglas adopted a conflict paradigm of society that led him to believe that any and all covert methods of research should be considered acceptable options in a search for truth The investigative paradigm is based on the assumption that profound conflicts of interest values feelings and actions pervade social life It is taken for granted that many of the people one deals with perhaps all people to some extent have good reason to hide from others what they are doing and even to lie to them Instead of trusting people and expecting trust in return one suspects others and expects others to suspect him Conflict is the reality of life suspicion is the guiding principle Its a war of all and no one gives anyone anything for nothing especially truth All competent adults are assumed to know that there are at least four major problems lying in the way of getting at social reality by asking people what is going on and that these problems must be dealt with if one is to avoid being taken in duped achieved used put on fooled suckered made the patsy left holding the bag fronted out and so on These four problems are 1 misinformation 2 evasions 3 lies and 4 fronts Douglas 197655 57 Just as degree of participation in fieldwork turned out to be a continuum of variations rather than an allornone proposition so too is the question of how explicit to be about the purpose of fieldwork The extent to which participants in a program under study are informed that they are being observed and are told the purpose of the research has varied historically from full disclosure to no disclosure with a great deal of variation along the middle of this continuum Junker 1960 Disciplinebased ethics statements eg American Psychological Association American Sociological Association now generally condemn deceitful and covert research Likewise institutional review board IRB procedures for the protection of human subjects have severely constrained such methods They now refuse to approve protocols in which research participants are deceived about the purpose of a study as was commonly done in early psychological research One of the more infamous examples was Stanley Milgrams New Haven experiments aimed at studying whether ordinary people would follow the orders of someone in authority by having these ordinary citizens administer what they were told were behavior modification electric shocks to help students learn shocks that appeared to the unsuspecting citizens to go as high as 450 volts despite the screams and protests heard from supposed students on the other side of a wall The real purpose of the study participants later learned was to replicate Nazi prison guard behavior among ordinary American citizens Milgram 1974 IRBs also refuse to approve research in which people are observed and studied without their knowledge or consent as in the infamous Tuskegee Experiment For 40 years physicians and medical researchers under the auspices of the US Public Health Service studied untreated syphilis among Black men in and around the county seat of Tuskegee Alabama without the informed consent of the men studied men whose syphilis went untreated so that the progress of the disease could be documented Jones 1993 Other stories of abuse and neglect by researchers doing covert studies abound In the late 1940s and early 1950s schoolboys at the Walter E Fernald State School in Massachusetts were routinely served breakfast cereal doused with radioactive isotopes without permission of the boys or their guardians for the dissertation of a doctoral student in nutritional biochemistry In the 1960s the US Army secretly sprayed a potentially hazardous chemical from downtown Minneapolis rooftops onto unsuspecting citizens to find out how toxic materials might disperse during biological warfare Native American children on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in the Dakotas were used to test an unapproved and experimental hepatitis A vaccine without the knowledge or approval of their parents In the 1960s and 1970s scientists tested skin treatments and drugs on prisoners in a Philadelphia county jail without informing them of potential dangers Doctoral students frustrated by having their fieldwork delayed while they await IRB approval need to remember that they are paying for the sins of their research forebears for whom deception and covert observations were standard ways of doing their work Those most subject to abuse were often the most vulnerable in societychildren the poor people of color the sick people with little education women and men incarcerated in prisons and asylums and children in orphanages or state correctional schools Anthropological research was commissioned and used by colonial administrators to maintain control over indigenous peoples Protection of human subjects procedures are now an affirmation of our commitment to treat all people with respect And that is as it should be But the necessity for such procedures comes out of a past littered with scientific horrors for which those of us engaging in research today may still owe penance At any rate we need to lean over backward to be sure that such history is truly behind usand that means being ever vigilant in fully informing and protecting the people who honor us by agreeing to participate in our research whether they be homeless mothers Connolly 2000 or corporate executives Collins 2001 However not all research and evaluation falls under IRB review so the issue of what type and how much disclosure to make remains a matter of debate especially where the inquiry seeks to expose the inner workings of cults and extremist groups or those whose power affects the public welfare for example corporations labor union boards political parties and other groups with wealth andor power For example Maurice Punch 1986 1989 1997 formerly of the Nijenrode Business School in the Netherlands has written about the challenges of doing ethnographic studies of corruption in both private and public sector organizations notably the police One classic form of deception in fieldwork involves pretending to share values and beliefs in order to become part of the group being studied Sociologist Richard Leo carefully disguised his liberal political and social views instead feigning conservative beliefs to build trust with police and thereby gain admission to interrogation rooms Allen 199732 Sociologist Leon Festinger 1956 infiltrated a doomsday cult by lying about his profession and pretend ing to believe in the cults prophecies Sociologist Laud Humphreys 1970 pretended to be gay to gather data for his dissertation on homosexual encounters in public parks Anthropologist Carolyn Ellis 1986 pretended to be just visiting friends when she studied a Chesapeake Bay fishing culture Her negative portrayals made their way back to the local people many of whom were infuriated She later expressed remorse about her deceptions Allen 1997 In traditional scholarly fieldwork the decision about the extent to which observations would be covert was made by researchers balancing the search for truth against their sense of professional ethics In evaluation research the information users for whom the evaluation is done have a stake in what kind of methods are used so the evaluator alone cannot decide the extent to which observations and evaluation purposes will be fully disclosed Rather the complexities of program evaluation mean that there are several levels at which decisions about the covertovert nature of evaluation observations must be made Sometimes only the funders of the program or of the evaluation know the full extent and purpose of observations On occasion program staff may be informed that evaluators will be participating in the program but clients will not be so informed In other cases a researcher may reveal the purpose and nature of program participation to fellow program participants and ask for their cooperation in keeping the evaluation secret from program staff On still other occasions a variety of people intimately associated with the program may be informed of the evaluation but public officials who are less closely associated with the program may be kept in the dark about the fact that observations are under way Sometimes the situation becomes so complex that the evaluator may lose track of who knows and who doesnt know and of course there are the classic situations where everyone involved knows that a study is being done and who the evaluator isbut the evaluator doesnt know that everyone else knows In undertaking participant observation of the community leadership program mentioned earlier my two evaluation colleagues and I agreed with the staff to downplay our evaluation roles and describe ourselves as educational researchers interested in studying the program We didnt warn participants to think that they were being evaluated and therefore worry about our judgments Our focus was on evaluating the program not participants but to avoid increasing participant stress we simply attempted to finesse our evaluation role by calling ourselves educational researchers Our careful agreement on and rehearsal of this point with the staff fell apart during introductions at the start of the sixday retreat when the program director proceeded to tell participantsfor 10 minutesthat we were just participants and they didnt have to worry about our evaluating them The longer he went on reassuring the group that they didnt have to worry about us the more worried they got Sensing that they were worried he increased the intensity of his reassurances While we continued to refer to ourselves as educational researchers the participants thereafter referred to us as evaluators It took a day and a half to recover our full participating roles as the participants got to know us on a personal level as individuals Trying to protect the participants and the evaluation had backfired and made our entry into the group even more difficult than it otherwise would have been However this experience sensitized us to what we subsequently observed to be a pattern in many program situations and activities throughout the week and became a major finding of the evaluation staff overprotection of and condescending attitudes toward participants Based on this and other evaluation experiences I recommend full and complete disclosure People are seldom really deceived or reassured by false or partial explanationsat least not for long Trying to run a ruse or scam is simply too risky and adds to evaluator stress while holding the possibility of undermining the evaluation if and usually when the ruse becomes known Program participants over time will tend to judge evaluators first and foremost as people not as evaluators The nature of the questions being studied in any particular evaluation will have a primary effect on the decision about who will be told that an evaluation is under way In formative evaluations where staff members andor program participants are anxious to have information that will help them improve their program the quality of the data gathered may be enhanced by overtly soliciting the cooperation of everyone associated with the program Indeed the ultimate acceptance and usefulness of formative information may depend on such prior disclosure and agreement that a formative evaluation is appropriate On the one hand where program funders have reason to believe that a program is corrupt abusive incompetently administered andor highly negative in impact on clients it may be decided that an external covert evaluation is necessary to find out what is really happening in the program Under such conditions my preference for full disclosure may be neither prudent nor practical On the other hand Whyte 1984 has argued that in a community setting maintaining a covert role is generally out of the question p 31 Finally there is the related issue of confidentiality Those who advocate covert research usually do so with the condition that reports conceal names locations and other identifying information so that the people who have been observed will be protected from harm or punitive action Because the basic researcher is interested in truth rather than action it is easier to protect the identity of informants or study settings when doing scholarly research In evaluation research however while the identity of who said what may be possible to keep secret it is seldom possible to conceal the identity of a program and doing so may undermine the utility of the findings Evaluators and decision makers will have to resolve these issues in each case in accordance with their own consciences evaluation purposes political realities and ethical sensitivities Variations in Duration of Observations Another important dimension along which observational studies vary is the length of time devoted to data gathering In the anthropological tradition of field research a participant observer would expect to spend six months at a minimum and often years living in the culture being observed The fieldwork of Napoleon Chagnon 1992 among the Yanomami Indians in the rain forest at the borders of Venezuela and Brazil spanned a quarter century To develop a holistic view of an entire culture or subculture takes a great deal of time especially when as in the case of Chagnon he was documenting changes in tribal life and threats to the continued existence of these onceisolated people The effects of his longterm involvement on the people he studied became controversial Geertz 2001 Tierney 2000a 2000b a matter we shall take up later The point here is that fieldwork in basic and applied social science aims to unveil the interwoven complexities and funda mental patterns of social lifeactual perceived constructed and analyzed Such studies take a long time Educational researcher Alan Peshkin offers a stellar example of a committed fieldworker who lived for periods of time in varied settings in order to study the intersections between schools and communities He did fieldwork in a Native American community in a high school in a stable multiethnic midsized city in California in rural eastcentral Illinois in a fundamentalist Christian school and in a private residential school for elites Peshkin 1986 1997 2000b To collect data he and his wife Maryann lived for at least a year in and with the community that he was studying They shopped locally attended religious services and developed close relationships with civic leaders as well as teachers and students In contrast evaluation and action research typically involve much shorter durations in keeping with their more modest aims generating useful information for action To be useful evaluation findings must be timely Decision makers cannot wait for years while fieldworkers sift through mountains of field notes Many evaluations are conducted under enormous pressures of time and limited resources Thus the duration of observations will depend to a considerable extent on the time and resources available in relation to the information needs and decision deadlines of primary evaluation users Later in this chapter well include reflections from an evaluator about what it was like being a parttime inandout observer of a program for eight months but only present 6 hours a week out of the programs 40hour week On the other hand sustained and ongoing evaluation research may provide annual findings while over years of study accumulating an archive of data that serves as a source of more basic research into human and organizational development Such has been the case with the extraordinary work of Patricia Carini 1975 1979 at the Prospect School in North Bennington Vermont Working with the staff of the school to collect detailed case records on students of the school she established an archive with as much as 12 years of detailed documentation about the learning histories of individual students and the nature of the school programs they experienced Her data included copies of the students work completed assignments drawings papers projects classroom observations teacher and parent observations and photographs Any organization with an internal evaluation information system can look beyond quarterly and annual reporting to building a knowledge archive of data to document development and change over years instead of just months Participant observations by those who manage such systems can and should be an integral part of this kind of knowledgebuilding organizational data system that spans years even decades On the other end of the time continuum are shortterm studies that involve observations of a single segment of a program sometimes for only an hour or two Evaluations that include brief site visits to a number of program locations may serve the purpose of simply establishing the existence of certain levels of program operations at different sites Chapter 1 presented just such an observation of a single twohour session of an early childhood parent education program in which mothers discussed their childrearing practices and fears The site visit observations of some 20 such program sessions throughout Minnesota were part of an implementation evaluation that reported to the state legislature how these innovative at the time programs were operating in practice Each site visit lasted no more than a day often only a half day Sometimes an entire segment of a program may be of sufficiently short duration that the evaluator can participate in the complete program The leadership retreat we observed lasted 6 days plus three 1day followup sessions during the subsequent year The critical point is that the length of time during which observations take place depends on the purpose of the study and the questions being asked not some ideal about what a typical participant observation must necessarily involve Field studies may be massive efforts with a team of people participating in multiple settings in order to do comparisons over several years At times then and for certain studies longterm fieldwork is essential At other times and for other purposes as in the case of shortterm formative evaluations it can be helpful for program staff to have an evaluator provide feedback based on just one hour of onlooker observation at a staff meeting as I have also done My response to students who ask me how long they have to observe a program to do a good evaluation follows the line of thought developed by Abraham Lincoln during one of the DouglasLincoln debates In an obvious reference to the difference in stature between Douglas and Lincoln a heckler asked Tell us Mr Lincoln how long do you think a mans legs ought to be Lincoln replied Long enough to reach the ground Fieldwork should last long enough to get the job doneor answer the research questions being asked and fulfill the purpose of the study Variations in Observational Focus The preceding sections have discussed how observations vary in the extent to which the observer participates in the setting being studied the version between insider versus outsider perspectives the extent to which the purpose of the study is made explicit and the duration of the observations A major factor affecting each of these other dimensions is the scope or focus of the study or evaluation The scope can be broad encompassing virtually all aspects of the setting or it can be narrow involving a look at only some small part of what is happening Parameswaran 2001 wanted to interview young women in India who read Western romance novels Thus her fieldwork had a very narrow focus But to contextualize what she learned from interviews she sought active involvement in my informants lives beyond their romance reading How did she do this I ate snacks and lunch at cafes with groups of women went to the movies dined with them at their homes and accompanied them on shopping trips I joined womens routine conversations during break times and interviewed informants at a range of everyday sites such as college grounds homes and restaurants I visited usedbook vendors bookstores and lending libraries with several readers and observed social interactions between library owners and young women To gain insight into the multidimensional relationship between womens romance reading and their experiences with everyday social discourse about romance readers I interviewed young womens parents siblings teachers bookstore managers and owners of the lending libraries they frequented p 75 The tradition of ethnographic fieldwork has emphasized the importance of understanding whole cultural systems The various subsystems of a society are seen as interdependent parts so that the economic system the cultural system the political system the kinship system and other specialized subsystems could only be understood in relation to each other In reality fieldwork and observations have tended to focus on a particular part of the society or culture because of specific investigator interests and the need to allocate the most time to those things that the researcher considered most important Thus a particular study might present an overview of a particular culture but then go on to report in greatest detail about the religious system of that culture In evaluating programs a broad range of possible foci makes choosing a specific focus challenging One way of thinking about focus options involves distinguishing various program processes sequentially 1 processes by which participants enter a program the outreach recruitment and intake components 2 processes of orientation to and socialization into the program the initiation period 3 the basic activities that comprise program implementation over the course of the program the service delivery system and 4 the activities that go on around program termination including followup activities and client impacts over time It would be possible to observe only one of these program components some combination of components or all of the components together Which parts of the program and how many are studied will clearly affect such issues as the extent to which the observer is a participant who will know about the evaluations purpose and the duration of observations Chapter 5 discussed how decisions about the focus and scope of a study involve tradeoffs between breadth and depth The very first tradeoff comes in framing the research questions to be studied The problem is to determine the extent to which it is desirable and useful to study one or a few questions in great depth or to study more questions but each in less depth Moreover in emergent designs the focus can change over time Dimensions Along Which Fieldwork Varies An Overview Weve examined five dimensions that can be used to describe some of the primary variations in fieldwork Those dimensions discussed in the previous sections are graphically summarized in Exhibit 61 These dimensions can be used to help design observational studies and make decisions about the parameters of fieldwork They can also be used to organize the methods section of a report or dissertation in order to document how research or evaluation fieldwork actually unfolded What to Observe A Sensitizing Framework keep six honest serving men They taught me all I knew Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who Rudyard Kipling A recent example is the famous Hubble Space Telescope Deep Field in which the telescope obtained a single exposure of many days duration of one small field in an unremarkable part of the sky The objective was to see fainter and farther than ever before and thus to find out what the universe was like early in its history No hypothesis was requiredJust the unique opportunity to look where no one had ever looked before and see what nature herself had to tell us In many other sciences the culture demands that funding proposals and published papers be written in terms of formulating and testing a hypothesis But I wonder if this is really the way the scientific process works or is this just an artificial structure imposed for the sake of tradition Morrison 19998 Part of the value of openended naturalistic observations is the opportunity to see what there is to see without the blinders of hypotheses and other preconceptions Pure observation As Morrison put it so elegantly just the unique opportunity to look where no one has ever looked before and see what the world has to show us Thats the ideal However its not possible to observe everything The human observer is not a movie camera and even a movie camera has to be pointed in the right direction to capture what is happening For both the human observer and the camera there must be focus In fieldwork this focus is provided by the study design and the nature of the questions being asked Once in the field however the observer must somehow organize the complex stimuli experienced so that observing that becomes and remains manageable Experienced observers often use sensitizing concepts to orient fieldwork Qualitative sociologist and symbolic interactionist Herbert Blumer 1954 is credited with originating the idea of the sensitizing concept as a guide to fieldwork with special attention to the words and meanings that are prevalent among the people being studied More generally however a sensitizing concept is a starting point in thinking about the class of data of which the social researcher has no definite idea and provides an initial guide to her research van den Hoonaard 19972 Sensitizing concepts in the social sciences include loosely operationalized notions such as victim stress stigma and learning organization that can provide some initial direction to a study as a fieldworker inquires into how the concept is given meaning in a particular place or set of circumstances being studied Schwandt 2001 Rudyard Kiplings poem about his six honest serving men quoted above constitutes a fundamental and insightful sensitizing framework identifying the central elements of good description In social science group process is a general sensitizing concept as is the focus on outcomes in evaluation Kinship leadership socialization power and similar notions are sensitizing in that they alert us to ways of organizing observations and making decisions about what to record Qualitative methodologist Norman Denzin 1978a has captured the essence of how sensitizing concepts guide fieldwork The observer moves from sensitizing concepts to the immediate world of social experience and permits that world to shape and modify his conceptual framework In this way he moves continually between the realm of more general social theory and the worlds of native people Such an approach recognizes that social phenomena while displaying regularities vary by time space and circumstance The observer then looks for repeatable regularities He uses ritual patterns of dress and bodyspacing as indicators of selfimage He takes special languages codes and dialects as indicators of group boundaries He studies his subjects prized social objects as indicators of prestige dignity and esteem hierarchies He studies moments of interrogation and derogation as indicators of socialization strategies He attempts to enter his subjects closed world of interaction so as to examine the character of private versus public acts and attitudes p 9 The notion of sensitizing concepts reminds us that observers do not enter the field with a completely blank slate While the inductive nature of qualitative inquiry emphasizes the importance of being open to whatever one can learn some way of organizing the complexity of experience is virtually a prerequisite for perception itself Exhibit 62 presents examples of common sensitizing concepts for program evaluation and organizational studies These common program concepts and organizational dimensions constitute ways of breaking the complexities of planned human interventions into distinguishable manageable and observable elements The examples in Exhibit 62 are by no means exhaustive of evaluation and organizational sensitizing concepts but they illustrate oftused ways of organizing an agenda for inquiry These concepts serve to guide initial observations as the evaluator or organizational analyst watches for incidents interactions and conversations that illuminate these sensitizing concepts in a particular program setting or organization Highly experienced evaluators and organizational consultants have internalized some kind of sensitizing framework like this to the point where they would not need to list these concepts in a formal written design Less experienced researchers and dissertation students will usually benefit from preparing a formal list of major sensitizing concepts in the formal design and then using those concepts to help organize and guide fieldwork at least initially A note of caution about sensitizing concepts When they become part of popular culture they can lose much of their original meaning Philip Tuwaletstiwa a Hopi geographer relates the story of a tourist cruising through Native American areas of the Southwest He overheard the tourist all agog at halfheard tales about Hopi land ask his wife Where are the power places Tell her thats where we plugin TV he said quoted in Milius 199892 Overused sensitizing concepts can become desensitizing Sources of Data Poet David Wagoner 1999 bells those observing the modern world and afraid of being lost to follow the advice Native American elders gave the young when they were afraid of being lost in the forest Lost Stand still The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost Where you are is called Here And you must trust it as a powerful stranger Must ask permission to know it and be known The forest breathes Listen It answers I have made this place around you If you leave it you may come back again saying Here No two trees are the same to Raven No two branches are the same to Wren If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you You are surely lost Stand still The forest knows Where you are You must let it find you visualize that setting In writing a program description the observer unlike the novelist should avoid interpretive adjectives except as they appear in quotes from participants about their reactions to and perceptions of that environment Such adjectives as comfortable beautiful drab and stimulating interpret rather than describe and interpret vaguely at that More purely descriptive adjectives include colors a room painted blue with a blackboard at one end space a 40footby20foot classroom with windows on one side and purpose a library the walls lined with books and tables in the center Beginners can practice learning to write descriptively by sharing a description of a setting observed with a couple of people and asking them if they can visualize the setting described Another helpful exercise involves two people observing the same environment and exchanging their descriptions watching in particular for the use of interpretive adjectives instead of descriptive ones Vivid description provides sufficient information that the reader does not have to speculate at what is meant For example simply reporting a crowded room requires interpretation Contrast with this The meeting room had a threeperson couch across one side six chairs along the adjoining walls next to the couch and three chairs along the wall facing the couch which included the door With 20 people in the room all standing there was very little space between people Several participants were overheard to say This room is really crowded Such descriptive writing requires attention to detail and discipline to avoid vague interpretive phrases But such writing can also be dull Metaphors and analogies can enliven and enrich descriptions helping readers connect through shared understandings and giving them a better feel for the environment being described I once evaluated a wilderness education program that included time at the Grand Canyon Exhibit 63 presents my feeble attempt to capture in words our first view of the Grand Canyon Notice the metaphors that run through the description Of course this is one of those instances where a picture would be worth a mountain of words which is why qualitative fieldwork increasingly includes photography and videography This excerpt aims at offering a sense of the physical environment more than it offers a literal description because unless one has been there or seen pictures the landscape is outside ordinary experience The physical environment of a setting can be important to what happens in that environment The way the walls look in rooms the amount of space available how the space is used the nature of the lighting how people are organized in the space and the interpretive reactions of program participants to the physical setting can be important information about both program implementation and the effects of the program on participants A common mistake among observers is to take the physical environment for granted Thus an evaluator may report that the program took place in a school The evaluator may have a mental image of school that matches what was observed but schools vary considerably in size appearance and neighborhood setting Even more so the interiors of schools vary considerably The same can be said for criminal justice settings health settings community mental health programs and any other human service activity Example of Combining Description and Metaphor to Provide a Sense of Place Context for a Wilderness Program First View from Bright Angel Point at the Grand Canyon We followed an asphalt path from the lodge a quarter mile to Bright Angel Point perhaps the most popular tourist site at the Grand Canyon because of its relatively easy accessibility With cameras aimed in all directions at the spectacular panorama in a sea of domestic accents and foreign tongues we waited our turn at the edge to behold the magnificent rock temples of Ottoman Amphitheater Deva Brahma Zoroaster and in the distance Thor Each rises a half mile above the undulating grayness of the stark Tonto Platform defining the eightmile descent of Bright Angel Canyon a narrow slit hiding the inner gorge that looks like it had been drawn in black ink to outline the base of the temples Each begins as sheer Redwall that forms a massive foundation supporting a series of sloping sedimentary rock terraces the Supai These sweeping terraces spotted green with sparse desert vegetation point upward like arrow feathers to a white sandstone pedestal the Coconino A dark red pinnacle of Hermit shale uniquely crowns each temple Eons of erosion have sculpted dramatic variations in every aspect save one their common geologic history I studied each separately wanting to fix in my mind the differences between them but the shared symmetry of strata melded them into a single massive formation a half mile high and many miles around Behind me I heard a participant say softly to no one in particular almost under her breath Its too awesome I feel overwhelmed SOURCE Adapted from Patton 1999a During site visits to early childhood education programs we found a close association between the attractiveness of the facility childmade decorations and colorful posters on the walls wellorganized learning materials orderly teacher area and other program attributes parent involvement staff morale clarity of the programs goals and theory of action An attractive wellordered environment corresponded to an engaging wellordered program In observing as well as conducting workshops I have noted how the arrangement of chairs affects participation It is typically much easier to generate discussion when chairs are in a circle rather than in lecture style The dim lighting of many hotel conference rooms seems to literally drain energy from people sitting in those rooms for long periods of time Physical environments clearly affect people and programs Variations in the settings for a wilderness training program for which I served as participant observer provide an interesting example of how physical environments affect a program The explicit purpose of holding the field conferences in the wilderness was to remove people from their everyday settings in largely urban environments surrounded by humanmade buildings and the paraphernalia of modern industrial society Yet wilderness environments are no more uniform than the environments of human service programs During the yearlong program participants were exposed to four different wilderness environments the autumn forest in the Gila wilderness of New Mexico the rough terrain of Arizonas Kofa Mountains in winter the muddy flooding San Juan River in the canyon lands of Utah during the spring and among the magnificent rock formations of the Grand Canyon in summer a desert environment One focus of the evaluation then was to observe how participants responded to the opportunities and constraints presented by these different environments forest mountains canyonlined river and Grand Canyon desert In addition weather and seasonal differences accentuated variations among these environments Program activities were clearly affected by the extent to which there was rain cold wind and shelter In the programs theory weather uncertainties were expected to be a natural part of the program offering natural challenges for the group to deal with But the program theory also called for participants to engage deeply with each other during evening group discussions During one 10day winter field conference that was unusually cold and wet participants were miserable and it became increasingly difficult to carry on group discussions thus reducing considerably the amount of group process time available and rushing the interactions that did occur because of participants discomfort Program staff learned that they needed to anticipate more clearly the possible variations in physical environments plan for those variations and include the participants in that planning so as to increase their commitment to continuing the process under difficult physical conditions The Human Social Environment Just as physical environments vary so too do social environments The ways in which human beings interact create socialecological constellations that affect how participants behave toward each other in those environments Rudolf Moos 1975 described the socialecological view of programs as follows The social climate perspective assumes that environments have unique personalities just like people Personality tests assess personality traits or needs and provide information about the characteristic ways in which people behave Social environments can be similarly portrayed with a great deal of accuracy and detail Some people are more supportive than others Likewise some social environments are more supportive than others Some people feel a strong need to control others Similarly some social environments are extremely rigid autocratic and controlling Order clarity and structure are important to many people Correspondingly many social environments strongly emphasize order clarity and control p 4 In describing the social environment the observer looks for the ways in which people organize themselves into groups and subgroups Patterns and frequency of interactions the direction of communication patterns from staff to participants and participants to staff and changes in these patterns tell us things about the social environment How people group together can be illuminative and important Allmale versus allfemale groupings malefemale interactions and interactions among people with different background characteristics racial identities andor ages alert the observer to patterns in the social ecology of the program Decisionmaking patterns can be a particularly important part of a programs social environment Who makes decisions about the activities that take place To what extent are decisions made openly so that participants are aware of the decisionmaking pro cess How are decisions by staff communicated to participants Answers to these questions are an important part of the description of a programs decision environment An observers descriptions of a social environment will not necessarily be the same as the perceptions of that environment expressed by participants Nor is it likely that all participants will perceive the settings human climate in the same way At all times it is critical that the observer record participants comments in quotation marks indicating the sourcewho said whatso as to keep perceptions of participants separate from the observers or evaluators own descriptions and interpretations Historical Perspectives Historical information can shed important light on the social environment The history of a program community or organization is an important part of the context for research Distinguished qualitative sociologist William Foote Whyte sometimes called the father of sociological field research has reflected on how he came to value historical research as a critical part of his fieldwork When we began our Peruvian research program I viewed history as having little value for understanding the current scene I thought I was only being sympathetic to the idleness of our Peruvian researchers in suggesting that they gather historical data on each village for the last 50 years Fortunately the Peruvians refused to accept the 50year limit and in some cases probed up to 500 years in the history of villages or areas Much of these data on rural communities would be of interest only to historians However understanding the paradox of the Mantaro Valley required us to go back to the conquest of Peru and in the Chancay Valley we traced the beginnings of the differentiation of Huayopampa from Pacaras back more than a century Whyte 1984153 Documenting and understanding the context of a program will require delving into its history How was the program created and initially funded Who were the original people targeted for program services and how have target populations changed over time To what extent and in what ways have goals and intended outcomes changed over time What have staffing patterns been over time How has the programs governance board been involved at various stages in the programs history What crises has the program endured If the program is embedded within a larger organizational context what is the history of that organization in relation to the program How has the larger political and economic environment changed over time and how have those changes affected program development What are the stories people tell about the programs history These kinds of questions frame inquiry into the programs history to illuminate context In the 1990s I evaluated a free high school that had been created during the struggles and turmoil of the 1960s Little about the programs current programming could be understood outside the context of its historical emergence The schools image of itself its curriculum and its policies had been handed down and adapted from that intense period of early development Doing fieldwork in the 1990s could only be done by traversing the memories and legends of the schools historical emergence in the 1960s Planned Program Implementation Activities and Formal Interactions Most evaluations focus at least some observations on planned program activities What goes on in the program What do participants and staff do What is it like to be a participant These are the kinds of questions evaluators bring to the program setting to document program implementation Build observations around activities that have a kind of unity about them a beginning some middle point and a closure Pointsuch things as a class session a counseling session meal time in the residential facility a meeting of some kind a home visit in an outreach program a consultation or a registration procedure Attending to sequence illustrates how the inquiry progresses over the course of an observation Initially the observer will focus on how the activity is introduced or begun Who is present at the beginning What exactly was said How did participants respond or react to what was said These kinds of basic descriptive questions guide the evaluator throughout the full sequence of observation Who is involved What is being done and said by staff and participants How do they go about what they do Where do activities occur When do things happen What are the variations in how participants engage in planned activities How does it feel to be engaged in this activity The observer records his or her own feelings as part of the observation How do behaviors and feelings change over the course of the activity Finally the observer looks for closure points What are the signals that a particular activity is being ended Who is present at that time What is said How do participants react to the ending of the activity How is the completion of this unit of activity related to other program activities and future plans Each unit of activity is observed and treated as a selfcontained event for the purpose of managing field notes The observation of a single session of the early childhood parent education program presented in Chapter 1 is an example Each observed event or activity can be thought of as a minicase writeup of a discrete incident activity interaction or event During analysis one looks across these discrete unitsofactivity cases for patterns and themes but during the initial stages of fieldwork the observer will be kept busy just trying to capture selfcontained units of activity without worrying yet about looking for patterns across activities Observing and documenting formal program activities will constitute a central element in evaluating planned program implementation but to fully understand a program and its effects on participants observations should not be restricted to formal planned activities The next section discusses observation of the things that go on between and around formal planned program activities Informal Interactions and Unplanned Activities If observers put away their seeing and observing selves as soon as a planned formal activity ends they will miss a great deal of data Some programs build in free or unstructured time between activities with the clear recognition that such periods provide opportunities for participants to assimilate what has occurred during formal programmatic activities as well as to provide participants with necessary breathing space Rarely if ever can a program or institution plan every moment of participants time During periods of informal interaction and unplanned activity it can be particularly difficult to organize observations because people are likely to be milling around coming and going moving in and out of small groups with some sitting alone some writing some seeking refreshments and otherwise engaging in a full range of what may appear to be random behaviors How then can the evaluator observer collect data during such a time This scenario illustrates beautifully the importance of staying open to the data and doing opportunity sampling One cant anticipate all the things that might emerge during unplanned program time so the observer watches listens and looks for opportunities to deepen observations recording what people do the nature of informal interactions eg what subgroups are in evidence and in particular what people are saying to each other This last point is particularly important During periods of unplanned activity participants have the greatest opportunity to exchange views and to talk with each other about what they are experiencing in the program In some cases the evaluator will simply listen in on conversations or there may be opportunities to conduct informal interviews either with a single participant in natural conversation or with some small group of people asking normal conversational questions So what did you think of what went on this morning Was it clear to you what they were trying to get at What did you think of the session today How do you think what went on today fits into this whole thing that were involved in Such questioning should be done in an easy conversational manner so as not to be intrusive or so predictable that every time someone sees you coming they know what questions youre going to ask Get ready here comes the evaluator with another endless set of questions Also when doing informal conversational interviewing be sure that you are acting in accordance with ethical guidelines regarding informed consent and confidentiality See the earlier discussion in this chapter about overt versus covert fieldwork How something is said should be recorded along with what is said At a morning break in the second day of a twoday workshop I joined the other men in the restroom As the men lined up to use the facilities the first man to urinate said loudly Heres what I think of this program As each man finished he turned to the man behind him and said Your turn to piss on the program This spontaneous group reaction spoke volumes more than answers to formal interview questions and provided much greater depth of expression than checking very dissatisfied on an evaluation questionnaire Everything that goes on in or around the program is data The fact that none of the participants talk about a session when it is over is data The fact that people immediately split in different directions when a session is over is data The fact that people talk about personal interests and share gossip that has nothing to do with the program is data In many programs the most significant participant learnings occur during unstructured time as a result of interactions with other participants To capture a holistic view of the program the evaluator observer must stay alert to what happens during these informal periods While others are on break the observer is still working No breaks for the dedicated fieldworker Well not really Youve got to pace yourself and take care of yourself or your observations will deteriorate into mush But you get the idea You may be better off taking a break during part of a formal session time so you can work collect data while others are on break As happens in many programs the participants in the wilderness education program I was observingevaluating began asking for more free unstructured time When we werent hiking or doing camp chores a lot of time was spent in formal discussions and group activities Participants wanted more free time to journal Some simply wanted more time to reflect Most of all they wanted more time for informal interactions with other participants I respected the privacy of onetoone interactions when I observed them and would never attempt to eavesdrop I would however watch for such interactions and judging body language and facial expressions I would speculate when serious interpersonal exchanges were taking place I would then look for natural opportunities to engage each of those participants in conversational interviews telling them I had noticed the intensity of their interaction and inquiring whether they were willing to share what had happened and what significance they attached to the interaction Most appreciated my role in documenting the programs unfolding and its effects on participants and were open to sharing It was on the basis of those informal interviews and observations that I provided formative feedback to staff about the importance of free time and helped alleviate the feeling among some staff members that they had a responsibility to plan and account for every moment during the program Participant observation necessarily combines observing and informal interviewing Observers need to be disciplined about not assuming they know the meaning to participants of what they observe without checking with those participants During one period of unstructured time in the wilderness program following a fairly intensive group activity in which a great deal of interpersonal sharing had taken place I decided to pay particular attention to one of the older men in the group who had resisted involvement Throughout the week he had taken every available opportunity to make it known that he was unimpressed with the program and its potential for impact on him When the session ended he immediately walked over to his backpack pulled out his writing materials and went off to a quiet spot where he could write He continued writing completely absorbed until dinnertime an hour later No one interrupted him With his legs folded his notebook in his lap and his head and shoulders bent over the notebook he gave off clear signals that he was involved concentrating and working on something to which he was giving a great deal of effort I suspected as I watched that he was venting his rage and dissatisfaction with the program I tried to figure out how I might read what he had written I was so intrigued that I momentarily even considered covert means of getting my hands on his notebook but quickly dismissed such unethical invasion of his privacy Instead I looked for a natural opportunity to initiate a conversation about his writing During the evening meal around the campfire I moved over next to him made some small talk about the weather and then began the following conversation You know in documenting experiences people are having Im trying to track some of the different things folks are doing The staff have encouraged people to keep journals and do writing and I noticed that you were writing fairly intensely before dinner If youre willing to share it would be helpful for me to know how you see the writing fitting into your whole experience with the program language of detoxification and retoxification to refer to wilderness time versus ordinary urban civilization time ultimately shortening the words to detox and retox This language came to permeate the programs culture of bias is high in any study in which a respondent is aware of his subject status Webb et al 196615 presidents letter and highlighted it in bold font at the beginning of the report often on the cover page From year to year the focus changed until over the course of 10 years the stated mission had changed dramatically without official board action approval or even awareness Further investigation through years of board minutes revealed that in fact the board had never adopted a mission statement at all a matter of considerable surprise to all involved As this example shows documents prove valuable not only because of what can be learned directly from them but also as stimulus for paths of inquiry that can be pursued only through direct observation and interviewing As with all information to which an evaluator has access during observations the confidentiality of program records particularly client records must be respected The extent to which actual references to and quotations from program records and documents are included in a final report depends on whether the documents are considered part of the public record and therefore able to be publicized without breach of confidentiality In some cases with permission and proper safeguards to protect confidentiality some information from private documents can be quoted directly and cited Program records can provide a behindthescenes look at program processes and how they came into being In the wilderness program evaluation program staff made their files available to me I discovered a great deal of information not available to other program participants letters detailing both conceptual and financial debates between the technical staff who led the wilderness trips and the project directors who had responsibility for the overall management of the program Without knowledge of those arguments it would have been impossible to fully understand the nature of the interactions between field staff and executive staff in the project Disagreements about program finances constituted but one arena of communication difficulties during the program including time in the wilderness Interviews with those involved revealed quite different perceptions of the nature of the conflicts their intensity and their potential for resolution While participants became aware of some arguments among staff for the most part they were unaware of the origins of those conflicts and the extent to which program implementation was hampered by them My review of files also revealed the enormous complexity of the logistics for the wilderness education program Participants college deans program directors administrators were picked up at the airport in vans and driven to the wilderness location where the field conference would take place Participants were supplied with all the gear necessary for surviving in the wilderness Prior to each field trip staff had many telephone and written exchanges with individual participants about particular needs and fears Letters from participants especially those new to the wilderness showed how little they understood about what they were getting into One seasoned administrator and hardcore smoker inquired with reference to the first 10day hike in the heart of the Gila wilderness Will there be a place to buy cigarettes along the way Talk about being clueless But by the end of the year of field trips he had given up smoking His letter of inquiry alerted me to the importance of this prepost observation Without having looked over this correspondence I would have missed the extent to which preparation for the oneweek experiences in the wilderness consumed the time and energy of program staff The intensity of work involved before the field conferences helped explain the behavior of staff once the field trips got under way So much had gone into the preparations virtually none of which was appreciated by or known to program participants that program staff would sometimes experience a psychological letdown effect and have difficulty energizing themselves for the actual wilderness experience Learning to use study and understand documents and files is part of the repertoire of skills needed for qualitative inquiry For an extended discussion of the interpretation of documents and material culture see Hodder 2000 Observing What Does Not Happen The preceding sections have described the things one can observe in a setting or program Observing activities interactions what people say what they do and the nature of the physical setting is important in a comprehensive approach to fieldwork But what about observing what does not happen The potential absurdity of speculating about what does not occur is illustrated by a Sufi story During a plague of locusts the wisefool Mulla Nasrudin always looking on the bright side went from village to village encouraging people by observing how fortunate they were that elephants had no wings You people dont realize how lucky you are Imagine what life would be like with elephants flying overhead These locusts are nothing To observe that elephants have no wings is indeed data Moreover elephants have no fins claws feathers or branches Clearly once one ventures into the area of observing what does not happen there are a nearinfinite number of things one could point out The absence of occurrence list could become huge It is therefore with some caution that I include among the tasks of the observer that of noting what does not occur If social science theory program goals implementation designs andor proposals suggest that certain things ought to happen or are expected to happen then it is appropriate for the observer or evaluator to note that those things did not happen If a community where water is scarce shows no evidence of conflict over water rights an anthropologist could be expected to report and explain this absence of community conflict If a school program is supposed to according to its funding mandate and goals provide children with opportunities to explore the community and no such explorations occur it is altogether appropriate for the evaluator to note said implementation failure If the evaluator reported only what occurred a question might be left in the mind of the reader about whether the other activities had occurred but had simply not been observed Likewise if a criminal justice program is supposed to provide onetoone counseling to juveniles and no such counseling takes place it is entirely appropriate for the evaluator to note the absence of counseling In observing early childhood programs the absence of childrens art on the walls in one center stood out Indeed the absence of any colorful posters or art of any kind stood out because all other centers walls were covered with colorful displays When I pointed this out embarrassed staff members explained that they had set in motion a planning process for decorating the walls that had become bogged down and they had just neglected to get back to the issue because they realized they got gotten used to the way things were Thus it can be appropriate to note that something did not occur when the observers basic knowledge of and experience with the phenomenon suggests that the ab sence of some particular activity or factor is noteworthy This clearly calls for judgment common sense and experience As eminent qualitative methodologist Bob Stake 1995 has asserted One of the principal qualifications of qualitative researchers is experience Added to the experience of ordinary looking and thinking the experience of the qualitative researcher is one of knowing what leads to significant understanding recognizing good sources of data and consciously and unconsciously testing out the veracity of their eyes and robustness of their interpretations It requires sensitivity and skepticism Much of this methodological knowledge and personality come from hard work under the critical examination of colleagues and mentors pp 4950 Making informed judgments about the significance of nonoccurrences can be among the most important contributions an evaluator can make because such feedback can provide program staff members or other evaluation users with information that they may not have thought to request Moreover they may lack the requisite experience or awareness to have noticed the absence of that which the evaluator observes For example the absence of staff conflict is typically noteworthy because staff conflict is common Similarly absence of conflict between administrative levels local state and federal would be noteworthy because such conflict is in my experience virtually universal In many such cases the observation about what did not occur is simply a restatement in the opposite of what did occur That restatement however will attract attention in a way that the initial observation might not For example if one were observing a program being conducted in a multiracial community it is possible that program goals would include statements about the necessity of staff being sensitive to the particular needs interests and cultural patterns of minorities but there may not be specific mention of the desired racial composition of program staff If then the evaluator observes that the staff of the program consists entirely of Caucasians it is appropriate to report that the staff is all White that is no people of color are among the program staff the importance of which derives from the location and nature of the program Observations of staff interaction and decisionmaking processes also provide opportunities for evaluators to note things that do not happen If over time the observer notes that program planning processes never include participants input in any systematic or direct way it may well be appropriate for the evaluator to point out the absence of such input based on experiences indicating the significance of participant input in the planning processes of other programs My evaluation of the wilderness education program included observations about a number of things that did not occur No serious injuries occurred at any of the six field conferences in the wildernessimportant information for someone thinking about the possible risks involved in such a program No participant refused to shoulder his or her share of the work that had to be done in order for the group to live and work together in the wilderness This observation emerged from discussions with technical field staff who often worked with juveniles In wilderness settings where uneven sharing of cooking cleaning and related responsibilities often led to major group conflicts The fact that the groups I observed never had to deal with one or two people not helping out was worth noting Perhaps the most important observation about what did not happen came from observing staff meetings Over time I noticed a pattern in which staff held meetings to make decisions about important issues but no such decisions were made Staff sometimes thought that a decision had been made but closure was not brought to the decisionmaking process and no responsibility for followup was assigned Many subsequent implementation failures and staff conflicts could be traced to ambiguities and differences of opinion that were left unresolved at staff meetings By hearing me describe both what was and was not occurring staff became more explicit and effective in making decisions Reporting what did happen in staff meetings was important but it was also extremely important to observe what did not happen Nested and Layered Case Studies During Fieldwork A case study is expected to catch the complexity of a single case The single leaf even a single toothpick has unique complexitiesbut rarely will we care enough to submit it to case study We study a case when it itself is of very special interest We look for the detail of interaction with its context Case study is the study of the particularity and complexity of a single case coming to understand its activity within important circumstances Stake 1995xi Months of fieldwork may result in a single case study that describes a village community neighborhood organization or program However that single case study is likely to be made up of many smaller casesthe stories of specific individuals families organizational units and other groups Critical incidents and case studies of specific bounded activities like a celebra tion may also be presented within the larger case The qualitative analysis process typically centers on presentation of specific cases and thematic analysis across cases Knowing this fieldwork can be organized around nested and layered case studies which means that some form of nested case sampling must occur Let me briefly review the centrality of case studies as a qualitative inquiry strategy Chapter 1 opened by citing a number of wellknown and influential books based on case studies for example In Search of Excellence Lessons From Americas BestRun Companies by Peters and Waterman 1982 Angela Brownes important book When Battered Women Kill 1987 and Sara LawrenceLightfoots six detailed case studies in Respect 200013 Chapter 2 presented the construction of unique case studies as a major strategic theme of qualitative inquiry Chapter 3 reviewed theoretical perspectives that are inductively case based Chapter 4 reviewed at some length the importance in qualitative evaluation of capturing and reporting individualized outcomes based on case studies of how participants in programs change during a program and whether they maintain those changes afterward To illustrate this point in the wilderness education program our evaluation team constructed case studies of participants using multiple sources of data from fieldwork 1 background data gathered through interviews about participants situations and perspectives upon entering the year of field conferences 2 observations of their experiences during field conferences 3 informal and conversational interviews with them during the wilderness trips 4 quotations from formal group interviews focus groups held at various times during the trips 5 excerpts from their journals and other personal writings when they were willing to share those with us as they often were and 6 followup telephone interviews with participants after each field trip and after the entire program was completed to track the impact of the program on individuals over time Let me pause at this point and note some confusion in the qualitative literature about terminology For example sociologists Hamel Dufour and Fortin 1993 ask But is the case study a method Or is it an approach Case studies employ various methods These can include interviews participant observation and field studies Their goals are to reconstruct and analyze a case from a sociological perspective It would thus be more appropriate to define the case study as an approach although the term case method suggests that it is indeed a method p 1 Whatever term or phrase is used case studies depend on clearly defining the object of study that is the case But this too is complex When more than one object of study or unit of analysis is included in fieldwork case studies may be layered and nested within the overall primary case approach William Foote Whytes 1943 classic study Street Corner Society has long been recognized as an exemplar of the singlecommunity N 1 case study eg Yin 1989 even though his study of Cornerville includes the stories case studies of several individual lowerincome youth some of whom were striving to escape the neighborhood The wilderness program illustrates how case studies often are layered and nested The threeyear wilderness program constituted the overall one might say macro case study The final evaluation report presented conclusions about the processes and outcomes of the overall program a case exam tiative As Exhibit 64 p 300 shows how ever within that overall evaluation case study were nested individual case studies documenting individual experiences and outcomes case studies of each yearlong group cohort and case studies of each separate field conference for example the 10 days in the Gila wilderness or the 10 days in the Kofa Mountains Slicing through the fieldwork and analysis in other ways were case studies of particular incidents for example the emotional catharsis experienced by one participant when she finally man aged to overcome her terror and rappel down a cliff face the whole group watching and urging her on a process that took some 45 terse minutes Other minicases consisted of different units of analysis A full days hike could be a case as could running a specific dangerous rapid on the San Juan River Each evening discussion constituted a case such that that over the three years we had notes on over 80 discussions of various kinds Staff meetings made for a different unit of analysis and therefore a different series of case studies Thus extended fieldwork can and typically does involve many mini or microcase studies of various units of analysis individuals groups specific activities specific periods of time critical incidents all of which together make up the overall case study in this example the final evaluation of the wilderness education program Chapter 5 discusses at length various units of analysis and sampling strategies for case studies see especially Exhibit 55 p 231 on units of analysis and Exhibit 56 pp 243244 on purposeful sampling strategies Fieldwork then can be thought of as engaging in a series of multilayered and nested case studies often with intersecting and overlapping units of analysis One final case study deserves considerationthe observers experiences and reactions We turn to that now Observing Oneself Physician heal thyself Observe observe thyself Malcolm In the second chapter I identified voice and perspective or reflexivity as one of the central strategic themes of contemporary postmodern qualitative inquiry The term reflexivity has entered the qualitative lexicon as a way of emphasizing the importance of selfawareness politicalcultural consciousness and ownership of ones perspective Reflexivity reminds the qualitative inquirer to observe herself or himself so as to be attentive to and conscious of the cultural political social linguistic and ideological origins of her or his own perspective and voice as well asand often in contrast tothe perspectives and voices of those she or he observes and talks to during fieldwork Reflexivity calls for selfreflection indeed critical selfreflection and selfknowledge and a willingness to consider how who one is affects what one is able to observe hear and understand in the field and as an observer and analyst The observer therefore during fieldwork must observe self as well as others and interactions of self with others Once again for continuity I cite Parameswaran 2001 who has written a wonderfully selfreflective account of her experience returning to her native India to do fieldwork as a feminist scholar after being educated in United States Because my parents were fairly liberal compared to many of my friends parents I grew up with a little more awareness than many middle and upperclass Indians of the differences between my life and that of the vast majority of Indians Although I questioned some restrictions that were specific to women of my class I did not have the language to engage in a systematic feminist critique of patriarchy or nationalism Feminism for me had been unfortunately constructed as an illness that struck highly Westernized intellectual Indian women who were out of touch with reality It was my dislocation from India to the relatively radicalized context of the United States that prompted my political development as a feminist and a woman of color p 76 Given this background and the controversial focus of her fieldwork reading of Western romance novels by young Indian women she identified reflective questions to guide her reflexive inquiry during and after fieldwork How do kinship roles assigned to nativescholars shape social interactions in the field How can commitments to sisterhood make it difficult for feminist ethnographers to achieve critical distance and discuss female informants prejudiced views p 76 Her personal inquiry into these questions reflecting on her own fieldwork experiences Parameswaran 2001 is a model of reflexivity Many year ago Indian philosopher J Krishnamurti 1964 commented on the challenges of selfknowledge Although his reflections were directed to the importance of lifelong learning rather than to being reflexive in fieldwork his ruminations offer a larger context for thinking about how to observe oneself a context beyond concern Nested Layered and Overlapping MiniCase Studies During Fieldwork Example From the Wilderness Education Program Evaluation The wilderness education program evaluation illustrates how case studies often are layered and nested Evaluation of the threeyear wilderness program constituted the overall macro case study Nested and layered within that overall evaluation were various minicases of overlapping and intersecting units of analysis that helped organize and frame fieldwork Macro Case Study Final Evaluation Study of the ThreeYear Program Possible nested layered and overlapping minicase studies 35 individual case studies documenting individual experiences and outcomes Case studies of each separate field conference eg the 10 days in the Gila wilderness or the 10 days in the Kofa Mountains N 64 Case studies of each yearlong group cohort N 2 and subgroups that formed Case notes of staff meetings and planning sessions Case studies of particular incidents eg the emotional catharsis experienced by one participant when she finally managed to overcome her terror and rappel down a cliff face the whole group watching and urging her on a process that took some 45 tense minutes Minicases of bounded activities like a kidss hike or running a practice or dangerous rapid on the San Juan River Case study of year 3 followup and dissemination effort Case study of the evaluation observers experiences and reactions A case study of reflexivity Each evening discussion constituted a case N 86 discussions of various kinds over three years about methodological authenticity though his advice applies to that as well Selfknowledge comes when you observe yourself in your relationship with your fellow students and your teachers with all the people around you it comes when you observe the manner of another his gestures the way he wears his clothes the way he talks his contempt or flattery and your response it comes when you watch everything in you and about you and see yourself as you see your face in the mirror Now if you can look into the mirror of relationship exactly as you look into the ordinary mirror then there is no end to selfknowledge It is like entering a fathomless ocean which has no shore if you can just observe what you are and move with it then you will find that it is possible to go infinitely far Then there is no end to the journey and that is the mystery the beauty of it Krishnamurti 19645051 emphasis added I realize that Krishnamurtis phrase There is no end to the journey may strike terror in the hearts of graduate students reading this in preparation for dissertation fieldwork or evaluators facing a report deadline But remember hes talking about lifelong learning of which the dissertation or a specific evaluation report is but one phase Just as most dissertations and evaluations are reasonably expected to contribute incremental knowledge rather than make major breakthroughs so too the selfknowledge of reflexive fieldwork is but one phase in a lifelong journey toward selfknowledgebut its an important phase and a commitment of growing significance as reflexivity has emerged as a central theme in qualitative inquiry The point here which we shall take up in greater depth in the chapters on analysis and credibility is that the observer must ultimately deal with issues of authenticity reactivity and how the observational process may have affected what was observed as well as how the background and predispositions of the observer may have constrained what was observed and understood Each of these areas of methodological inquiry depends on some degree of critical reflexivity Sources of Data Reviewed This lengthy review of options in what to observe and sources of data for evaluation fieldwork began with the suggestion that a sensitizing framework can be useful as a tool to guide fieldwork The list of data sources weve reviewed can be used to stimulate thinking about evaluation fieldwork possibilities Other phenomena and other observational arenas would have different sensitizing frameworks or concepts The following summarizes the observation and inquiry topics weve reviewed for evaluation Description of the program settingphysical environment Description of the social environment Capturing historical perspectives Describing planned program implementation activities and structured interactions Observing informal interactions and unplanned activities Recording participants special program language Observing nonverbal communication Watching for unobtrusive indicators Analyzing documents files records and artifacts Commenting on notable nonoccurrences what does not happen Constructing nested and layered case studies during fieldwork for intersecting and overlapping units of analysis Observing oneself Reflexivity Documenting individualized and common outcomes Chapter 4 Creativity in Fieldwork No checklist can be relied on to guide all aspects of fieldwork A participant observer must constantly make judgments about what is worth noting Because it is impossible to observe everything some process of selection is necessary Plans made during design should be revised as appropriate when important new opportunities and sources of data become available Thats where flexibility and creativity help Creativity can be learned and practiced Patton 1967a Creative fieldwork means using every part of oneself to experience and understand what is happening Creative insights come from being directly involved in the setting being studied I shall return to the issue of creativity in considering the interpretation of field notes later in this chapter and again in the analysis chapter For the moment it is sufficient to acknowledge the centrality of creativity in naturalistic inquiry and to connect with Virginia Woolf Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order I mark Henry James sentence observe perpetually Observe the oceans of age Observe grand Observe my own despondency By that means it becomes serviceable quoted in Partnow 1978 185 5 Doing Fieldwork The DataGathering Process The purpose of the research has been clarified The primary research questions have been focused Qualitative methods using observations have been selected as one of the appropriate methods of data gathering It is time to enter the field Now begins the arduous task of taking field notes Field Notes Many options exist for taking field notes Variations include the writing materials used the time and place for recording field notes the symbols developed by observers as their own method of shorthand and how field notes are stored No universal prescriptions about the mechanics of and procedures for taking field notes are possible because different settings lend themselves to different ways of proceeding and the precise organization of fieldwork is very much a matter of personal style and individual work habits What is not optional is the taking of field notes Aside from getting along in the setting the fundamental work of the observer is the taking of field notes Field notes are the most important determinant of later bringing off a qualitative analysis Field notes provide the observers raison detre If not doing them the observer might as well not be in the setting Lofland 1971102 Field notes contain the description of what has been observed They should contain everything that the observer believes to be worth noting Dont trust anything to future recall At the moment one is writing it is very tempting because the situation is still fresh to believe that the details or particular elements of the situation can be recalled later If its important as part of your consciousness as an observer if its information that has helped you understand the context the setting and what went on then as soon as possible that information should be captured in the field notes First and foremost field notes are descriptive They should be dated and should record such basic information as where the observation took place who was present what the physical setting was like what social interactions occurred and what activities took place Field notes contain the descriptive information that will permit you to return to an observation later during analysis and eventually permit the reader of the studys findings to experience the activity observed through your report The passages in Exhibit 65 on the next page illustrate different kinds of descriptive field notes On the left side are vague and overgeneralized field notes On the right side are more detailed and concrete field notes from the same observation These examples illustrate the problem of using general terms to describe specific actions and conditions Words such as poor anger and messy are insufficiently descriptive Such interpretive words conceal what actually went on rather than reveal the details of the situation Such terms have little meaning for a person present for the observation Moreover the use of such terms in field notes without the accompanying detailed description means that the fieldworker has fallen into the bad habit of primarily recording interpretations rather than description Particularly revealing are terms that can make sense only in comparison to something else The phrase poorly dressed requires some frame of reference about what constitutes good dress No skill is more critical in fieldwork than learning to be descriptive concrete and detailed Field notes also contain what people say Direct quotations or as near as possible recall of direct quotations should be captured during fieldwork recording what was said during observed activities as well as responses garnered during interviews both formal and conversational Quotations provide the emic perspective discussed earlierthe insiders perspectivewhich is at the heart of most ethnographic research Fetterman 198930 Field notes also contain the observers own feelings reactions to the experience and reflections about the personal meaning and significance of what has been observed Dont deceive yourself into thinking that such feelings can be conjured up again simply by reading the descriptions of what took place Feelings and reactions should be recorded at the time they are experienced while you are in the field Both the nature and intensity of feelings should be recorded In qualitative inquiry the observers own experiences are part of the data Part of the purpose of being in a setting and getting close to the people in the setting is to permit you to experience what it is like to be in that EXHIBIT 65 Fieldnotes Comparisons Vague and Overgeneralized Notes Detailed and Concrete Notes 1 The new client was uneasy waiting for her intake interview 1 At first the new client sat very stiffly on the chair next to the receptionists desk She picked up a magazine and let the pages flutter through her fingers very quickly without really looking at any of the pages She set the magazine down looked at her watch pulled her skirt down picked up the magazine again set it back down took out a cigarette and lit it She watched the receptionist out of the corner of her eye and glanced at the two or three other people waiting in the room Her eyes moved from people to the magazine to the cigarette to the people to the magazine in rapid succession but avoided eye contact When her name was finally called she jumped like she was startled 2 The client was quite hostile toward the staff person 2 When Judy the senior staff member told the client that she could not just do whatever she wanted to do the client began to yell screaming that Judy couldnt couldnt control her life accused Judy of being on a power trip and said that shed like to beat the shit out of her then told her to go to hell The client shook her fist in Judys face and stomped out of the room leaving Judy standing there with her mouth open looking amazed 3 The next student who came in to take the test was very poorly dressed 3 The next student who came into the room wore clothes quite different from the three previous students The other students had hair carefully combed clothes clean pressed and in good condition with colors coordinated This new student wore soiled pants with a tear in one knee and a threadbare seat His flannel shirt was wrinkled with one tail tucked into the pants and the other tail hanging out His hair was disheveled and his hands looked liked hed been playing in the engine of a car setting If what it is like for you the observer or participant observer is not recorded in your field notes then much of the purpose for being there is lost Finally field notes include your insights interpretations beginning analyses and working hypotheses about what is happening in the setting and what it means While you should approach fieldwork with a disciplined intention not to impose preconceptions and early judgments on the phenomenon being experienced and observed nevertheless as an observer you dont become a mechanical recording machine on entering the field Insights ideas inspirationsand yes judgments toowill occur while making observations and recording field notes Its not that you sit down early on and begin the analysis and if youre an evaluator make judgments Rather its in the nature of our intellects that ideas about the meaning causes and significance of what we experience find their way into our minds These insights and inspirations become part of the data of fieldwork and should be recorded in context in field notes I like to set off field interpretations with brackets Others use parentheses asterisks or some other symbol to distinguish interpretations from description The point is that interpretations should be understood to be just that interpretations and labeled as such Fieldbased insights are sufficiently precious that you need not ignore them in the hopes that if really important they will return later Field notes then contain the ongoing data that are being collected They consist of descriptions of what is being experienced and observed quotations from the people observed the observers feelings and reactions to what is observed and fieldgenerated insights and interpretations Field notes are the fundamental database for constructing case studies and carrying out thematic crosscase analysis in qualitative research Procedurally Speaking When field notes are written will depend on the kind of observations being done and the nature of your participation in the setting being studied In an evaluation of a parent education program I was introduced to the parents by the staff facilitator and explained the purpose of the evaluation and assured the parents that no one would be identified I then openly took extensive notes without participating in the discussions Immediately following those sessions I would go back over my notes to fill in details and be sure what I had recorded made sense By way of contrast in the wilderness education program I was a full participant engaged in full days of hiking rock climbing and raftingkayaking I was sufficiently exhausted by the end of each day that I seldom stayed awake making field notes by flashlight while others slept Rather each night I jotted down basic notes that I could expand during the time that others were writing in their journals but some of the expansion had to be completed after the weeklong field conference In evaluating a leadership training program as a participant observer the staff facilitator privately asked me not to take notes during group discussions because it made him nervous even though most other participants were taking notes The extent to which notes are openly recorded during the activities being observed is a function of the observers role and purpose as well as the stage of participant observation If the observer or evaluator is openly identified as a shortterm external nonparticipant observer participants may expect him or her to write down what is going on If on the other hand one is engaged in longerterm participant observation the early part of the process may be devoted to establishing the participant observer role with emphasis on participation so that open taking of notes is deferred until the fieldworkers role has been firmly established within the group At that point it is often possible to openly take field notes since it is hoped the observer is better known to the group and has established some degree of trust and rapport The wilderness program evaluation involved three 10day trips field conferences with participants at different times during the year During the first field conference I never took notes openly The only time I wrote was when others were also writing During the second field conference I began to openly record observations when discussions were going on if taking notes did not interfere with my participation By the third week I felt I could take notes whenever I wanted to and I had no indication from anyone that they even paid attention to the fact that I was taking notes By that time I had established myself as a participant and my participant role was more primary than my evaluator role The point here is that evaluator observers must be strategic about taking field notes timing their writing and recording in such a way that they are able to get their work done without unduly affecting either their participation or their observations Given those constraints the basic rule of thumb is to write promptly to complete field notes as soon and as often as physically and programmatically possible Writing field notes is rigorous and demanding work Lofland 1971 has described this rigor quite forcefully Let me not deceive the reader The writing of field notes takes personal discipline and time It is all too easy to put off actually writing notes for a given day and to skip one or more days For the actual writing of the notes may take as long or longer than did the observation Indeed a reasonable rule of thumb here is to expect and plan to spend as much time writing notes as one spent in observing This is of course not invariant but one point is inescapable All the fun of actually being out and about monkeying around in some setting must also be met by cloistered rigor in committing to paper and therefore to future usefulness what has taken place p 104 5 Observations Interviews and Documentation Bringing Together Multiple Perspectives Fieldwork is more than a single method or technique For example evaluation fieldwork means that the evaluator is onsite where the program is happening observing talking with people and going through program records Multiple sources of information are sought and used because no single source of information can be trusted to provide a comprehensive perspective on the program By using a combination of observations interviews and document analysis the fieldworker is able to use different data sources to validate and crosscheck findings Each type and source of data has strengths and weaknesses Using a combination of data types triangulation a recurring theme in this book increases validity as the strengths of one approach can compensate for the weaknesses of another approach Marshall and Rossman 1989 79111 Limitations of observations include the possibility that the observer may affect the situation being observed in unknown ways program staff and participants may behave in some atypical fashion when they know they are being observed and the selective perception of the observer may distort the data Observations are also limited in focusing only on external behaviors the observer cannot see what is happening inside people Moreover observational data are often constrained by the limited sample of activities actually observed Researchers and evaluators need other data sources to find out the extent to which observed activities are typical or atypical Interview data limitations include possibly distorted responses due to personal bias anger anxiety politics and simple lack of awareness since interviews can be greatly affected by the emotional state of the interviewee at the time of the interview Interview data are also subject to recall error reactivity of the interviewee to the interviewer and selfserving responses Observations provide a check on what is reported in interviews interviews on the other hand permit the observer to go beyond external behavior to explore feelings and thoughts Documents and records also have limitations They may be incomplete or inaccurate Client files maintained by programs are notoriously variable in quality and completeness with great detail in some cases and virtually nothing in others Document analysis however provides a behindthescenes look at the program that may not be directly observable and about which the interviewer might not ask appropriate questions without the leads provided through documents By using a variety of sources and resources the evaluator observer can build on the strengths of each type of data collection while minimizing the weaknesses of any single approach This mixed methods triangulated approach to fieldwork is based on pragmatism Tashakkori and Teddlie 1998 and is illustrated in my attempt to understand some of the problems involved in staff communication during the wilderness education evaluation I mentioned this example earlier but Id like to expand it here As noted two kinds of staff worked in the program 1 those who had overall management and administrative responsibility and 2 the technical staff who had responsibility for wilderness skills training field logistics and safety The technical staff had extensive experience leading wilderness trips but they also were skilled at facilitating group processes During the trips the lines of responsibility between technical staff and administrative staff were often blurred and on occasion these ambiguities gave rise to conflicts I observed the emergence of conflict early on the first trip but lacked context for knowing what was behind these differences Through interviews and casual conversations during fieldwork I learned that all of the staff both administrative and technical had known each other prior to the program Indeed the program administrative directors had been the college professors of the technical staff while the latter were still undergraduate students However the technical staff had introduced the directors to the wilderness as an environment for experiential education Each of the staff members described in interviews his or her perceptions of how these former relationships affected the field operations of the program including difficulties in communication that had emerged during planning sessions prior to the actual field conferences Some of those conflicts were documented in letters and memos Reading their files and correspondence gave me a deeper understanding of the different assumptions and values of various staff members But the documentation would not have made sense without the interviews and the focus of the interviews came from the field observations Taken together these diverse sources of information and data gave me a complete picture of staff relationships Working back and forth among individual staff members and group staff meetings I was able to use this information to assist staff members in their efforts to improve their communication during the final field conference All three sources of information proved critical to my understanding of the situation and that understanding enhanced my effectiveness in providing feedback as a formative evaluator The Technology of Fieldwork and Observation The classic image of the anthropological fieldworker is of someone huddled in an African hut writing voluminously by lantern Contemporary researchers however have available to them a number of technological innovations that when used judiciously can make fieldwork more efficient and comprehensive First and foremost is the batteryoperated tape recorder or dictaphone For some people myself included dictating field notes saves a great deal of time while increasing the comprehensiveness of the report Learning to dictate takes practice effort and critical review of early attempts Tape recorders must be used judiciously so as not to become obtrusive and inhibit program processes or participant responses A tape recorder is much more useful for recording field notes in private than it is as an instrument to be carried about at all times available to put a quick end to any conversation into which the observer enters Portable computers have emerged as a fieldwork tool that can facilitate writing field notes Cameras have become standard accessories in fieldwork Photographs can help in recalling things that have happened as well as vividly capturing the setting for others Digital photography and advances in printing and photocopying now make it possible to economically reproduce photographs in research and evaluation reports In the wilderness education evaluation I officially became the group photographer making photographs available to all of the participants This helped legitimize taking photographs and reduced the extent to which other people felt it necessary to carry their own cameras at all times particularly at times when it was possible that the equipment might be damaged Looking at photographs during analysis helped me recall the details of certain activities that I had not fully recorded in my written notes I relied heavily on photographs to add details to descriptions of places where critical events occurred in the Grand Canyon initiation story I wrote about coming of age in modern society Patton 1999a Video photography is another technological innovation that has become readily accessible and common enough that it can sometimes be used unobtrusively For example in a formative evaluation of a staff training program I used videotapes to provide visual feedback to staff Videotaping classrooms training sessions therapeutic interactions and a host of other observational targets can sometimes be less intrusive than a notetaking evaluator We had great success taking videos of mothers and children playing together in early childhood education centers Of course use of such equipment must be negotiated with program staff and participants but the creative and judicious use of technology can greatly increase the quality of field observations and the utility of the observational record to others Moreover comfort with tape recorders and video cameras has made it increasingly possible to use such technology without undue intrusion when observing programs where professionals are the participants In addition sometimes videotapes originally done for research or evaluation can subsequently be used for future training program development and public relations making the costs more manageable because of added uses and benefits Evaluators learn to balance costs against benefits and look for multiple uses of more expensive techniques where there is a need to make judicious decisions about reducing expenses Visual technology can add an important dimension to fieldwork if the observer knows how to use such technology and uses it well for there is much to learn beyond how to click the camera or turn on the video recorder especially about integrating and analyzing visual data within a larger fieldwork context Ball and Smith 1992 Moreover a downside to visual technology has emerged since it is now possible to not only capture images on film and video but also change and edit those images in ways that distort In his extensive review of visual methods in qualitative inquiry Douglas Harper 2000 concludes that now that images can be created andor changed digitally the connection between image and truth has been forever severed p 721 This means that issues of credibility apply to using and reporting visual data as they do to other kinds of data Perhaps the ultimate in observer technology for fieldwork is the Stenomask a soundshielded microphone attached to a portable tape recorder that is worn on a shoulder strap The handle of the Stenomask contains the microphone switch The Stenomask allows the observer to talk into the recorder while an activity is occurring without people in the area being able to hear the dictation Its use is limited to external onlooker observations as the following passage makes clear Two procedures precede any data taking The first is orientation of the subject and as many other persons in the environment as are likely to be present during observations During this phase the observer goes into the habitat and behaves exactly as he or she will during the actual recording They wear the Stenomask follow the subject about and run the machine taking mock records The purpose of these activities is exactly what is implied in the title to adapt the subject and others in the environment to the presence of the observer and to reduce the effects of that presence to as near zero as possible The cardinal rule of the observer during this time is to be completely nonresponding It has been demonstrated over and over again that if the observer continues to resist all social stimuli from the subject and others and some will occur despite the most careful orientation by simply keeping the mask in place looking busily at work and remaining nonresponding both subjects and others soon cease emitting stimuli to the observer and come to truly accept him or her as a present and sometimes mobile but completely nonresponding part of the environment perhaps somewhat like a rolling chair Scott and Ekhund 1979911 The imagery of a fieldworker following a subject around through a day wearing a Stenomask offers a stark contrast to that of the traditional anthropologist doing participant observation and trying covertly to write notes during informal field interviews Taking field notes can be nearly as intrusive as wearing a Stenomask as illustrated in the fieldwork of anthropologist Carlos Castaneda In the passage below Castaneda 1973 reports on his negotiations with Don Juan to become his Native Indian key informant on sorcery and indigenous drugs The young anthropologist records that Don Juan looked at me piercingly What are you doing in your pocket he asked frowning Are you playing with your whatnot He was referring to my taking notes on a minute pad inside the enormous pockets of my windbreaker When I told him what I was doing he laughed heartily I said that I did not want to disturb him by writing in front of him If you want to write write he said You dont disturb me pp 2122 Whether one uses modern technology to support fieldwork or simply writes down what is occurring some method of keeping track of what is observed must be established In addition the nature of the recording system must be worked out in accordance with the participant observers role the purpose of the study and consideration of how the datagathering process will affect the activities and persons being observed Many of these issues and procedures must be worked out during the initial phase entry period of fieldwork 5 Stages of Fieldwork Thus far fieldwork has been described as if it were a single integrated experience Certainly when fieldwork goes well it flows with a certain continuity but it is useful to look at the evolution of fieldwork through identifiable stages These stages are most often discussed in the participant observation literature the entry stage the routinization of datagathering period and the closing stage The following sections explore each of these stages again using evaluative research as the primary example Entry Into the Field The writings of anthropologists sometimes present a picture of the early period of fieldwork that reminds me of the character in Franz Kafkas haunting novel The Castle Kafkas character is a wandering stranger K with no more identity than that initial He doesnt belong anywhere but when he arrives at the castle he wants to become part of that world His efforts to make contact with the faceless authorities who run the castle lead to frustration and anxiety He cant quite figure out what is going on cant break through either vagueness and impersonal nature He doubts himself then he gets angry at the way he is treated then he feels guilty blaming himself for his inability to break through the ambiguous procedures for entry Yet he remains determined to make sense out of the incomprehensible regulations of the castle He is convinced that after all where there are rules and he does find that there are rules they must fit together somehow have some meaning and manifest some underlying logic There must be some way to make contact to satisfy the needs of the authorities to find some pattern of behavior that will permit him to be accepted If only he could figure out what to do if only he could understand the rules then he would happily do what he was supposed to do Such are the trials of entry into the field Entry into the field for evaluation research involves two separate parts 1 negotiation with gatekeepers whoever they may be about the nature of the fieldwork to be done and 2 actual physical entry into the field setting to begin collecting data These two parts are closely related for the negotiations with gatekeepers will establish the rules and conditions for how one goes about playing the role of observer and how that role is defined for the people being observed In traditional scholarly fieldwork for the purpose of basic or applied research the investigator unilaterally decides how best to conduct the fieldwork In evaluation studies the evaluator will need to take into account the perspectives and interests of the primary intended users of the evaluation In either case interactions with those who control entry into the field are primarily strategic figuring out how to gain entry while preserving the integrity of the study and the investigators interests The degree of difficulty involved varies depending on the purpose of the fieldwork and the expected or real degree of resistance to the study Where the field researcher expects cooperation gaining entry may be largely a matter of establishing trust and rapport At the other end of the continuum are those research settings where considerable resistance even hostility is expected in which case gaining entry becomes a matter of infiltrating the setting Douglas 1976167 And sometimes entry is simply denied A doctoral student had negotiations for entry end abruptly in a school district where she had developed good relationships with school personnel and negotiations appeared to be going well She later learned that she was denied entry far into the negotiation process because of community opposition The local community had had a very bad experience with a university researcher more than 20 years earlier and still viewed all research with great suspicion A major difference between the entry process in anthropological or sociological research and the entry process for evaluation research is the extent to which fieldworkers are free to make up whatever story they want to about the purpose of the study In scholarly research the investigators represent only themselves and so they are relatively free to say whatever they want to say about why they are doing the research guided by the ethics of their discipline with regard to informed consent The usual crosscultural explanation is some variation of Im here because I would like to understand you better and learn about your way of life because the people from my culture would like to know more about you While anthropologists admit that such an explanation almost never makes sense to indigenous peoples in other cultures it remains a mainstay initial explanation until mutual reciprocities can be established with enough local people for the observation process to become established and accepted in its own right Evaluators and action researchers however are not just doing fieldwork out of personal or professional interest They are doing the fieldwork for some decision makers and information users who may be either known or unknown to the people being studied It becomes critical then that evaluators their funders and evaluation users give careful thought to how the fieldwork is going to be presented Because the word evaluation has such negative connotations for many people having had negative experiences being evaluated for example at school or work it may be appropriate to consider some other term to describe the fieldwork In our onlooker nonparticipatory observations for an implementation study of early childhood programs in Minnesota we described our role to local program participants and staff as follows Were here to be the eyes and ears for state legislators They cant get around and visit all the programs throughout the state so theyve asked us to come out and describe for them what youre doing That way they can better understand the programs they have funded Were not here to make any judgments about whether your particular programs is good or bad We are just here to be the eyes and ears for the legislature so that they can see how the legislation theyve passed has turned into real programs This is your chance to inform them and give them your point of view Other settings lend themselves to other terms that are less threatening than evaluator Sometimes a fieldwork project can be described as documentation Another term Ive heard used by communitybased evaluators is process historian In the wilderness education program I was a full participant observer and staff described my role to participants as keeper of the community record making it clear that I was not there to evaluate individual participants The staff of the project explained that they had asked me to join the project because they wanted someone who did not have direct ego involvement in the success or outcomes of the program to observe and describe what went on both because they were too busy running the program to keep detailed notes about what occurred and because they were too involved with what happened to be able to look at things dispassionately We had agreed from the beginning that the commu nity record I produced would be accessible to participants as well as staff In none of these cases did changing the language automatically make the entry process smooth and easy Earlier in this chapter I described our attempt to be viewed as educational researchers in evaluating a community leadership program Everyone figured out almost immediately that we were really evaluators and thats what participants called us Regardless of the story told or the terms used the entry period of fieldwork is likely to remain the first and most uncomfortable stage of field work Wax 197115 It is a time when the observer is getting used to the new setting and the people in that setting are getting used to the observer Johnson 1975 suggests that there are two reasons why the entry stage is both so important and so difficult First the achievement of successful entree is a precondition for doing the research Put simply no entree no research Published reports of researchers entree experiences describe seemingly unlimited contingencies which may be encountered ranging from being gleefully accepted to being thrown out on ones ear But there is a more subtle reason why the matter of ones entrance to a research setting is seen as so important This concerns the relationship between the initial entree to the setting and the validity of the data that is subsequently collected The conditions under which an initial entree is negotiated may have important consequences for how the research is socially defined by the members of the setting These social definitions will have a bearing on the extent to which the members trust a social researcher and the existence of relations of trust between an observer and the members of a setting is essential to the production of an objective report one which retains the integrity of the actors perspective and its social context pp 5051 While the observer must learn how to behave in the new setting the people in that setting are deciding how to behave toward the observer Mutual trust respect and cooperation are dependent on the emergence of an exchange relationship or reciprocity Jorgensen 198971 Gallucci and Perugini 2000 in which the observer obtains data and the people being observed find something that makes their cooperation worthwhile whether that something is a feeling of importance from being observed useful feedback pleasure from interactions with the observer or assistance in some task This reciprocity model of gaining entry assumes that some reason can be found for participants to cooperate in the research and that some kind of mutual exchange can occur Infiltration lies at the opposite end of the continuum from a negotiated reciprocity model of entry Many field settings are not open to observation based on cooperation Douglas 197616771 has described a number of infiltration strategies including worming ones way in using the crowbar to pry them open for our observations showing enough saintly submissiveness to make members guilty enough to provide help or playing the role of a spineless boob who could never possibly hurt the people being observed He has also suggested using various ploys of misdirection where the researcher diverts peoples attention away from the real purpose of the study There is also the phasedentree tactic by which the researcher who is refused entree to one group begins by studying another group until it becomes possible to get into the group that is the real focus of the researchers attention for example begin by observing children in a school when what you really want to observe are teachers or administrators Often the best approach for gaining entree is the known sponsor approach When employing this tactic observers use the legitimacy and credibility of another person to establish their own legitimacy and credibility for example the director of an organization for an organizational study a local leader elected official or village chieftain for a community study Of course its important to make sure that the known sponsor is indeed a source of legitimacy and credibility Some prior assessment must be made of the extent to which that person can provide halo feelings that will be positive and helpful For example in an evaluation using a program administrator or funders as a known sponsor may increase suspicion and distrust among program participants and staff The initial period of fieldwork can be frustrating and give rise to selfdoubt The fieldworker may be awake at night worrying about some mistake some faux pas made during the day There may be times of embarrassment feeling foolish of questioning the whole purpose of the project and even feelinngs of paranoia The fact that one is trained in social science does not mean that one is immune to all the normal pains of learning in new situations On the other hand the initial period of fieldwork can also be an exhilarating time a period of rapid new learning when the senses are heightened by exposure to new stimuli and a time of testing ones social intellectual emotional and physical capabilities The entry stage of fieldwork magnifies both the joys and the pains of doing fieldwork Evaluators can reduce the stickoutlikeasorethumb syndrome by beginning their observations and participation in a program at the same time that participants are beginning the program In traditional fieldwork anthropologists cannot become children again and experience the same socialization into the culture that children experience Evaluators however can often experience the same socialization process that regular participants experience by becoming part of the initiation process and timing their observations to coincide with the beginning of a program Such timing makes the evaluator one among a number of nov explores and substantially reduces the disparity between the evaluators knowledge and the knowledge of other participants Beginning the program with other participants however does not assure the evaluator of equal status Some participants may be suspicious that real difficulties experienced by the evaluator as a novice participant are phony that the evaluator is playacting only pretending to have difficulty On the first day of my participation in the wilderness education program we had our first backpacking experience The staff leader began by explaining that your backpack is your friend I managed to both pack and adjust my friend incorrectly As a result as soon as we hit the trail I found that the belt around my waist holding the backpack on my hips was so tight that my friend was making my legs fall asleep I had to stop several times to adjust the pack Because of these delays and other difficulties I was having with the weight and carriage of the pack I ended up as the last participant along the trail The next morning when the group was deciding who should carry the map and walk at the front of the group to learn map reading one of the participants immediately volunteered my name Let Patton do it That way he cant hang back at the end of the group to observe the rest of us No amount of protest from me seemed to convince the participants that I had ended up behind them all because I was having trouble hiking working out my friendship with my backpack They were convinced I had taken that position as a strategic place from which to evaluate what was happening It is well to remember then that regardless of the na ture of the fieldwork during the entry stage more than at any other time the observer is also the observed What You Say and What You Do Fieldworkers actions speak louder than their words Researchers necessarily plan strategies to present themselves and their function but participant reactions to statements about the researchers role are quickly superseded by judgments based on how the person actually behaves The relative importance of words versus deeds in establishing credibility is partly a function of the length of time the observer expects to be in a setting For some direct onlooker observations the fieldworker may be present in a particular program for only a few hours or a day The entry problem in such cases is quite different from the situation where the observer expects to be participating in the program over some longer period of time as anthropologist Rosalie Wax has noted All fieldworkers are concerned about explaining their presence and their work to a host of people How shall I introduce myself they wonder or what shall I say I am doing If the field worker plans to do a very rapid and efficient survey questions like these are extremely important The manner in which an interviewer introduces himself the precise words he uses may mean the difference between a firstrate job and a failure But if the field worker expects to engage in some variety of participant observation to develop and maintain longterm relationships to do a study that involves the enlargement of his own understanding the best thing he can do is relax and remember that most sensible people do not believe what a stranger tells them In the long run his host will judge and trust him not because of what he says about himself or about his research but by the style in which he lives and acts or by the way in which he treats them In a somewhat shorter run they will accept or tolerate him because some relative friend or person they respect has recommended him to them Wax 1971365 William Foote Whyte 19843763 has extracted and summarized entry strategies used in a number of groundbreaking sociological studies including the Lynds study of Middletown W Lloyd Warners study of Yankee City Burleigh Gardners fieldwork in the deep South Elliot Liebows hanging around Tallys Corner Elijah Andersons fieldwork in a Black neighborhood Ruth Horowitzs study of a Chicano neighborhood Robert Coles work in Japan and Whytes own experiences in Commerville They each had to adapt their entry strategy to the local setting and they all ended up changing what they had planned to do as they learned from the initial responses to their efforts to gain acceptance These examples from those who paved for way for modern fieldworkers demonstrate importance of careful attention to entry and the variety of approaches that are possible The next section presents a concrete example from an evaluation by Joyce Keller AN ENTRY CASE EXAMPLE THE PARTTIME OBSERVER Introduction The previous section contrasted the entry challenges for the oneshot onlooker observer with those of the longterm participant observer but a great deal of middle ground exists between these extremes In this section Joyce Keller a senior staff member of the Minnesota Center for Social Research at the time describes her entry into fieldwork as a parttime observer Because limitations of time and resources are common in evaluation many situations call for a parttime observer Joyces reflections capture some of the special entry problems associated with this now youre here now youre gone role One word can describe my role at least initially in a recent evaluation assignment ambiguous I was to be neither a participant observer nor an outsider coming in for a brief but intensive stint I was to allocate approximately six hours a week for seven months to observing the team development of a group of 23 professionals in an educational setting At first the ambiguity was solely on my side What really was I to do The team too busy in the beginning with defining their own roles had little time to consider mine Later on as I became accustomed to my task the teams curiosity about my function began to grow In their eyes I served no useful purpose that they could see I was in the way a great deal of the time inhibiting their private conversations On the other hand they appeared to be concerned about what I was thinking Some of them most of them began to be friendly to greet me as I came in to comment when I missed a team meeting They came to see me as I saw myself neither really part of the group nor a separate removed force Observing their interaction perhaps six hours a week out of their 40hour work week obviously meant that I missed a great deal I needed to develop a sense of when to be present to choose among group meetings subgroup meetings and activities when all the members were to come together At the same time I was working on other contracts which limited the amount of adjustable time available Flexible was the way I came to define my weekly schedule others not as charitable would probably have defined it as shifty A hazard that I encountered as I filled my ambiguous flexible role was that I soon discovered I was not high on the priority list to be notified in the event of schedule changes I would have firmly in mind that a subgroup was to meet on Tuesday at 1000 am in a certain place I would arrive to find no one there Later I would discover that on Monday the meeting had been changed to Wednesday afternoon and no one had been delegated to tell me At no time did I seriously feel that the changes were planned to exclude me on the contrary the members contrition about their oversight seemed quite genuine They had simply forgotten me Another area of sudden change that caused me difficulty was in policy and procedure What had seemed to be firm commitments on ways to proceed or tasks to be tackled were being ignored I came to realize that while a certain amount of this instability was inherent in the program itself other shifts in direction were outgrowths of planning sessions I had not attended or had not heard the results from after they had occurred Therefore keeping current became for me a highpriority activity Not to do so would have added to my feeling of ambiguity Also if I had not operated with a certain degree of selfconfidence I would have felt somehow at fault for coming to a meeting at the wrong time or place or assuming that a certain decision which the team had previously made was still valid I began my observation of this team in its formative stage Had I begun after the team was well established my difficulties would have been greater Nevertheless many of the team members were already well acquainted with each other all had been employees of the same school district over a period of time They were much better versed in what they had come together to accomplish than I whose only orientation was reading the proposal which upon acceptance had brought them together I found also that the proposal and the way they planned to proceed were in actuality far from identical With my observer role to continue over many months I realized that I must maintain the difficult position of being impartial I could not be thought of by the team members as being closely aligned with their leaders nor could I expect the leaders to talk candidly and openly with me if they believed that I would repeat their confidences to the group members Reluctantly for I discovered several team members with whom friendship could easily have developed I declined invitations to social activities outside of working hours When I met with the group for the first time I directed most of my energies to matching names and faces I would be taking notes at most of the sessions and it was essential that I could record not only what was said but who said it At the first session everyone including me wore a name tag But within a few days they were all well acquainted and had discarded their name tags I was the only one still fumbling for names While being able to greet each member by name was important so was knowing something about each ones background Coffee breaks allowed me to circulate among the group and carry on short conversations with as many as possible to try to fix in my mind who they were and where they came from which provided insights into why they behaved in the group as they did Team members at first expressed a certain amount of enthusiasm for minutes to be taken of their meetings This enthusiasm was shortlived for willing volunteers to serve as secretary did not emerge I was disappointed for had minutes been kept of the meetings and had I been able to rely on receiving copies I would have concentrated solely on observing the interactions and would not have had to keep track of what they were interacting about I noted and ignored a few passing suggestions that since I was obviously taking notes maybe I could I took copious notes before I began to develop a sense of what was or was not important to record When I relaxed more and aimed for the tone of the meeting my understanding of the group increased I had to realize that as a parttime observer it was impossible for me to understand all of what was said My decision frequently was to let this portion of the meeting pass or to jot down a reminder to myself to ask clarifying questions later Sidestepping sensitive questions from both leaders and team members had to be developed into a fine art As I became more finely tuned to the interactions and most became aware that I was I was frequently queried as to my perceptions of a particular individual or situation On one occasion I found a team member jumping into an elevator to ride two floors with me in a direction he didnt want to go so that he could ask me privately what I thought of another team member My response was I think shes a very interesting person or something equally innocuous and received from him a highly raised eyebrow since the woman in question had just behaved in a very peculiar manner at the meeting we had both just attended Indepth interviews with each team member began in the fourth month of my observation and was the mechanism which filled in many of the gaps in my understanding The timing was perfect I had gained enough familiarity with both personal and project by that time so that I was knowledgeable they had come to trust me and they still cared deeply about the project This caring diminished for some as the project year drew to a close without any real hopes of refunding for a second year My interview design was intentionally simple and openended What I wanted most was for them to talk about their experiences in terms of strengths and weaknesses The amount of new information diminished throughout the six weeks or so that was required to interview all team members My own performance unquestionably diminished too as the weeks went on It was difficult to be animated and interesting as I asked the same questions over and over devised strategies with which to probe and recorded perceptions and incidents which I had heard many times before Nevertheless the interviews appear in retrospect to have been a necessary tool of the parttime observer Bit by bit team members filled in holes in my information and their repeated references to particular situations and conditions reinforced for me what were sometimes at best only vague perceptions Team members who appeared to be passive and quiet when I saw them at group meetings were often referred to by their team members as hardworking and creative when they were out in the field The interviews also helped me become aware of misconceptions on my part caused by seeing only part of the picture due to time constraints The experience was a new one for me that of parttime observer Quite frankly this mode of evaluation probably will never be a favorite one On the other hand it provided a picture that no snapshot evaluation method could have accomplished as interactions changed over time and in a situation where the full participant observer role was clearly not appropriate Routinization of Fieldwork The Dynamics of the Second Stage What did you learn in your readings today asked Master Halcolm We learned that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step replied the learners Ah yes the importance of beginnings smiled Halcolm Yet I am puzzled said a learner Yesterday I read that there are a thousand beginnings for every ending Ah yes the importance of seeing a thing through to the end affirmed Halcolm But which is more important to begin or end Two great selfdeceptions are asserted by the worlds selfcongratulators that the hardest and most important step is the first and that the greatest and most resplendent step is the last While every journey must have a first and last step my experience is that what ultimately determines the nature and enduring value of the journey are the steps in between Each step has its own value and importance Be present for the whole journey learners that you are Be present for the whole journey Halcolm When fieldwork has gone well the observer grows increasingly confident that things make sense and begins to believe in the data Glaser and Strauss 1967 commenting on grounded theory as an outcome of fieldwork have described the feelings that the traditional field observer has as fieldwork moves to a close databased patterns have emerged and the whole takes shape The continual intermeshing of data collection and analysis has direct bearing on how the research is brought to a close When the researcher is convinced that his conceptual framework forms a systematic theory that it is a reasonably accurate statement of the matter studied that it is couched in a form possible for others to use in studying a similar area and that he can publish his results with confidence then he has neared the end of his research Why does the researcher trust what he knows They are his perceptions his personal experiences and his own handwon analyses A field worker knows that he knows not only because he has been in the field and because he has carefully discovered and generated hypotheses but also because in his bones he feels the worth of his final analysis He has been living with partial analyses for many months testing them each step of the way until he has built this theory What is more if he has participated in the social life of is subject then he has been living by his analyses testing them not only by observation and interview but also by daily living pp 22425 This representation of bringing a grounded theory inquiry to a close represents the scholarly inquiry ideal In the contracted deliverables world of program evaluation with limited time and resources and reporting schedules that may not permit as much fieldwork as is desirable the evaluator may have to bring the fieldwork to a close before that state of real confidence has fully emerged Nevertheless I find that there is a kind of Parkinsons law in fieldwork As time runs out the investigator feels more and more the pressure of making sense out of things and some form of order does indeed begin to emerge from the observations This is a time to celebrate emergent understandings even while retaining the critical eye of the skeptic especially useful in questioning ones own confident conclusions Evaluation Feedback In doing fieldwork for program evaluation in contrast to theoryoriented scholarly field research the evaluator observer must be concerned about providing feedback making judgments and generating recommendations Thus as the fieldwork draws to a close the evaluator observer must begin to consider what feedback is to be given to whom and how Giving feedback can be part of the verification process in fieldwork My own preference is to provide the participants and staff with descriptions and analysis verbally and informally and to include their reactions as part of the data Part of the reciprocity of fieldwork can be an agreement to provide participants with descriptive information about what has been observed I find that participants and staff are hungry for such information and fascinated by it I also find that I learn a great deal from their reactions to my descriptions and analyses Of course its neither possible nor wise to report everything one has observed Moreover the informal feedback that occurs at or near the end of fieldwork will be different from the findings that are reported formally based on the more systematic and rigorous analysis that must go on once the evaluator leaves the field But that formal systematic analysis will take more time so while one is still in the field it is possible to share at least some findings and to learn from the reactions of those who hear those findings Timing feedback in formative evaluations can be challenging When the purpose is to offer recommendations to improve the program the program staff will usually be anxious to get that information ASAP as soon as possible The evaluator observer may even feel pressured to report findings prematurely before having confidence in the patterns that seem to be emerging I experienced this problem throughout the evaluation of the wilderness education program During the first year we met with the staff at the end of each field conference program the three 10day field conferences were spread out over a year to discuss what we had observed and to share interpretations about those observations At the very first feedback session the staff reaction was I wish youd told us that in the middle of the week when we could have done something about it Whyd you hold back We could have used what youve learned to change the program right then and there I tried to explain that the implications of what I observed had only become clear to me an hour or two before our meeting when my coevaluator and I had sat down with our field notes looked them over and discussed their significance together Despite this explanation which struck me as altogether reasonable and persuasive and struck the staff as altogether disingenuous from that moment forth a lingering distrust hung over the evaluation as staff periodically joked about when wed get around to telling them what wed learned next time Throughout the three years of the project the issue of timing feedback surfaced several times a year As they came increasingly to value our feedback they wanted it to come earlier and earlier during each field conference During the second field conference in the second year when a number of factors had combined to make the program quite different from what the staff had hoped for the endoftheconference evaluation feedback session generated an unusual amount of frustration from the staff because my analyses of what had happened had not been shared earlier Again I found some distrust of my insistence that those interpretations had emerged later rather than sooner as the patterns became clear to me Evaluators who provide formative feedback on an ongoing basis need to be conscientious in resisting pressures to share findings and interpretations before they have confidence about what they have observed and sorted out important patternsnot certainty but at least some degree of confidence The evaluator is caught in a dilemma Reporting patterns before they are clearly established may lead program staff to intervene inappropriately withholding feedback too long may mean that dysfunctional patterns become so entrenched that they are difficult if not impossible to change No ideal balance has ever emerged for me between continuing observations and providing feedback Timing feedback is a matter of judgment and strategy and it depends on the nature of the evaluators relationship with program staff and the nature of the feedback especially the balance between what staff will perceive as negative and positive feedback When in doubt and where the relationship between the evaluator and program staff has not stabilized into one of longterm trust I counsel evaluator observers to err on the side of less feedback rather than more As often happens in social relationships negative feedback that was wrong is long remembered and often recounted On the other hand it may be a measure of the success of the feedback that program staff so fully adopt it that they make it their own and cease to credit the insights of the evaluator Once feedback is given the role of the evaluator changes Those to whom the feedback was presented are likely to become much more conscious of how their behavior and language are being observed Thus added to the usual effect of the fieldworker on the setting being observed this feedback dimension of fieldwork increases the impact of the evaluator observer on the setting in which he or she is involved Though this problem of reactivity is accentuated in evaluation it exists in any observational inquiry As the researcher prepares to leave the field and people react to that imminent departure the impact of the researchers presence on the setting may become visible in new ways Because those effects have been of such major concern to people who engage in naturalistic inquiry the final section in this chapter considers this question of how the observer affects what is observed 5 The Observer and What Is Observed Unity and Separation The question of how the observer affects what is observed has natural as well as social science dimensions The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that the instruments used to measure velocity and position of an electron alter the accuracy of measurement When the scientist measures the position of an electron its velocity is changed and when velocity is measured it becomes difficult to capture precisely the electrons position The process of observing affects what is observed These are real effects not just errors of perception or measurement The physical world can be altered by the intrusion of the observer How much more then are social worlds changed by the intrusion of fieldworkers¹ The effects of observation vary depending on the nature of the observation the type of setting being studied the personality and procedures of the observer and a host of unanticipated conditions Nor is it simply in fieldwork involving naturalistic inquiry that scientific observers affect what is observed Experimentalists survey researchers costbenefit analysts and psychologists who administer standardized tests all affect the situations into which they introduce data collection procedures The issue is not whether or not such effects occur rather the issue is how to monitor those effects and take them into consideration when interpreting data A strength of naturalistic inquiry is that the observer is sufficiently a part of the situation to be able to understand personally what is happening Fieldworkers are called on to inquire into and be reflective about how their inquiry intrudes and how those intrusions affect findings But thats not always easy Consider the case of anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon who did fieldwork for a quarter century among the isolated and primitive Yanomami Indians who lived deep in the rain forest at the borders of Venezuela and Brazil He studied mortality rates by dispensing steel goods including axes as a way of persuading people to give him the names of their dead relatives in violation of tribal taboos Brian Ferguson another anthropologist knowledgeable about the Yanomami believes that Chagnons fieldwork destabilized relationships among villages promoted warfare and introduced disease Chagnon denies these charges but acknowledges extracting tribal secrets by giving informants gifts like beads and fishhooks capitalizing on animosities between individuals and bribing children for information when their elders were not around He gave away machetes in exchange for blood samples for his genealogical studies The longterm effects of his fieldwork have become a matter of spirited debate and controversy within anthropology Geertz 2001 Tierney 2000a 2000b At the other end of the intrusion continuum we find those qualitative designs where intrusions are intentionally designed because the qualitative inquiry is framed as an intended form of desired intervention This is the case for example with collaborative and participatory forms of inquiry in which those people in the setting who become coresearchers are expected to be affected by participation in the inquiry The processes of participation and collaboration can be designed and facilitated to have an impact on participants and collaborators quite beyond whatever findings they may generate by working together In the process of participating in an evaluation participants are exposed to and have the opportunity to learn the logic of research and the discipline of databased reasoning Skills are acquired in problem identification criteria specification and data collection analysis and interpretation Acquisition of research skills and ways of thinking can have a longerterm impact than the use of findings from a particular evaluation study This learning from the process as an outcome of participatory and collaborative inquiry experiences is called process use in contrast to findings use Patton 1997c Chapter 5 1998 1999c While it is not possible to know precisely how collaboration will affect coresearchers or to fully anticipate how an observer will affect the setting observer both cases illustrate the need to be thoughtful about the interconnections between observers and observed It is possible however when designing the study and making decisions about the observers degree of participation in the setting the visibility and openness of fieldwork and the duration of fieldwork see Exhibit 61 earlier in this chapter to anticipate certain of the situations that may arise and to establish strategies for how those situations will be handled For example I have been involved as a participant observerevaluator in a number of professional development programs where participants were expected to exercise increasing control over the curriculum as the program evolved Had I fully participated in such participatory decision making I could have influenced the direction of the program Anticipating that problem and reviewing the implications with program staff in each case I decided not to participate actively in participantled decision making to the full extent I might have had I not been involved in the role of evaluator observer The participatory and empowering philosophy of these programs called for each participant to articulate interests and help make happen those things that he or she wanted to have happen In my role as evaluator observer I had to reduce the extent to which I acted out that philosophy so as to limit my impact on the direction of the group I aimed my involvement at a level where I would not appear withdrawn from the process yet at the same time attempted to minimize my influence especially where the group was divided on priorities Another example comes from evaluation of a community leadership program mentioned previously in this chapter As a threeperson team of participant observers we participated fully in smallgroup leadership excercises When the groups in which we participated were using concepts inappropriately or doing the exercise wrong we went along with what participants said and did without making corrections Had we really been only participantsand not participant evaluatorswe would have offered corrections and solutions Thus our roles made us more passive than we tended naturally to be in order not to dominate the small groups We had anticipated this possibility in the design stage prior to fieldwork and had agreed on this strategy at that time The role and impact of the evaluator observer can change over the course of fieldwork Early in the wilderness program I kept a low profile during participantled planning discussions Later in the program particularly during the final field conference of the second year I became more engaged in discussions about the future direction of the project Reporting on the relationship between the observer and the observed then and the ways in which the observer may have affected the phenomenon observed becomes part of the methodological discussion in published fieldwork reports and evaluation studies In that methodological discussion or the methods chapter of a dissertation the observer presents data about the effects of fieldwork on the setting and people therein and also the observers perspective on what has occurred As Patricia Carini 1975 has explained such a discussion acknowledges that findings inevitably are influenced by the observers point of view during naturalistic inquiry The observer has a point of view that is central to the datum and is is in the articulationin the revelation of his point of viewthat the datum of inquiry is assumed to emerge In effect the observer is here construed as one moment of the datum and as such the fabric of his thought is inextricably woven into the datum as he is assumed to be constituent of its meaning From this assumption it is possible to consider the relationship of the observer to the phenomenon under inquiry Relatedness can be stated in many ways opposition identity proximity interpenetration isolation to name only a few All imply that the way in which a person construes his relationship to the phenomenal world is a function of his point of view about it That is relationship is not a given nor an absolute but depends upon a personal perspective It is also true that perspective can shift the only necessity of a persons humanity being that he takes some stance in relationship to the events about him pp 89 Carini is here articulating the interdependence between the observer and what is observed Prior to data collection the fieldworker plans and strategizes about the hopedfor and expected nature of that interdependence But things dont always unfold as planned so observers must make some effort to observe themselves observingand record the effects of their observations on the people observed and no less important reflect on changes theyve experienced from having been in the setting This means being able to balance observation with reflection and manage the tension between engagement and detachment Bruyn 1966 in his classic work on participant observation articulated a basic premise of participant observation the role of the participant observer requires both detachment and personal involvement p 14 To be sure there is both tension and ambiguity in this premise How it plays out in any given situation will depend on both the observer and the phenomenon being observed Thus we may observe at the outset that while the traditional role of the scientist is that of a neutral observer who remains unmoved unchanged and untouched in his examination of phenomena the role of the participant observer requires sharing the sentiments of people in social situations as a consequence he himself is changed as well as changing to some degree the situation in which he is a participant The effects are reciprocal for observer and observed The participant observer seeks on the one hand to take advantage of the changes due to his presence in the group by recording these changes as part of this study and on the other hand to reduce the changes to a minimum by the manner in which he enters into the life of the group Bruyn 196614 Whether one is engaged in participant observation or onlooker observation what happens in the setting being observed will to some extent be dependent on the role assumed by the observer Likewise the nature of the data collected will to some extent be dependent on the role and perspective of the observer And just as the presence of the observer can affect people observed so too the observer can be affected The Personal Experience of Fieldwork The intersection of social science procedures with individual capabilities and situational variation is what makes fieldwork a highly personal experience At the end of her book Doing Fieldwork Rosalie Wax 1971 reflected on how fieldwork changed her A colleague has suggested that I reflect on the extent to which I was changed as a person by doing field work I reflected and the result astonished me For what I realized was that I had not been greatly changed by the things I suffered enjoyed or endured not was I greatly changed by the things I did though they strengthened my confidence in myself What changed me irrevocably and beyond repair were the things learned More specifically these irrevocable changes involved replacing mythical or ideological assumptions with the correct though often painful facts of the situation p 363 Fieldwork is not for everyone Some like Henry James will find that innocent and infinite are the pleasures of observation Others will find observational research anything but pleasurable Some students have described their experiences to me as tedious frightening boring and a waste of time while others have experienced challenge exhilaration personal learning and intellectual insight More than once the same student has experienced both the tedium and the exhilaration the fright and the growth the boredom and the insight Whatever the adjectives used to describe any particular individuals fieldwork of this much we are assured The experience of observing provides the observer with both experience and observations the interconnection being cemented by reflection No less an authority than William Shakespeare gives us this assurance Armand How hast thou purchased this experience Moth By my penny of observation Loves Labours Lost A Part of and Apart From the World Observed The personal perspectivedependent nature of observations can be understood as both a strength and a weakness a strength in that personal involvement permits firsthand experience and understanding and a weakness in that personal involvement introduces selective perception In the deep engagement of naturalistic inquiry lies both its risks and its benefits Reflection on that engagement from inside and outside the phenomenon of interest crowns fieldwork with reflexivity and makes the observer the CHANCE DISCOVERY OR THE RESULT OF CAREFUL DISCIPLINED OBSERVATION In 1949 an obscure Australian psychologist John Fall Cade noticed that the urine of his manic patients was highly toxic to guinea pigs and he began looking for the toxic chemical which he suspected was uric acid He began experimenting with lithium urate not because of any psychiatric properties of lithium but because lithium urate was the most soluble salt of uric acid To Cades surprise far from being toxic the salt protected guinea pigs against the animal effects Cade found were due to the lithium He immediately tried other lithium salts on himself and when they proved safe on ten hospitalized manic patients one of whom recovered some almost miraculously Cades discovery is often characterized as serendipitous However the discovery of lithium as an antimanic agent resulted from one mans curiosity and powers of observation and deduction Kramer 198344 observedeven if only by oneself So we repeat Hakolms refrain that opened this chapter Go out into the world Live among the peoples of the world as they live Learn their language Participate in their rituals and routines Taste of the world Smell it Watch and listen Touch and be touched Write down what you see and hear how they think and how you feel Enter into the world Observe and wonder Experience and reflect To understand a world you must become part of that world while at the same time remaining separate a part of and apart from Go then and return to tell what you see and hear what you learn and what you come to understand Summary Guidelines for Fieldwork A reader who came to this chapter looking for specific fieldwork rules and clear procedures would surely be disappointed Looking back over this chapter the major theme seems to be What you do depends on the situation the nature of the inquiry the characteristics of the setting and the skills interests needs and point of view that you as observer bring to your engagement Yet the conduct of observational research is not without direction Exhibit 66 lists a modest list of 10 guidelines for fieldwork not please notice commandments just guidelines by way of reviewing some of the major issues discussed in this chapter Beyond these seemingly simple but deceptively complex prescriptions the point remains that what you do depends on a great number of situational variables your own capabilities and careful judgment informed by the strategic themes for qualitative inquiry presented in the first chapter Exhibit 21 Having considered the guidelines and strategic themes for naturalistic fieldbased research and after the situational constraints on and variations in the conduct of fieldwork have been properly recognized and taken into account in the design there remains only the one commitment of qualitative inquiry to reaffirm That core commitment was articulated by Nobel laureate Nicholas Tinbergen in his 1975 acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in physiology EXHIBIT 66 Summary Guidelines for Fieldwork 1 Design the fieldwork to be clear about the role of the observer degree of participation the tension between insider emic and outsider etic perspectives degree and nature of collaboration with coresearchers disclosure and explanation of the observers role to others duration of observations short vs long and focus of observation narrow vs broad See Exhibit 61 2 Be descriptive in taking field notes Strive for thick deep and rich description 3 Stay open Gather a variety of information from different perspectives Be opportunistic in following leads and sampling purposefully to deepen understanding Allow the design to emerge flexibly as new understandings open up new paths of inquiry 4 Crossvalidate and triangulate by gathering different kinds of data observations interviews documents artifacts recordings and photographs Use multiple and mixed methods 5 Use quotations represent people in their own terms Capture participants views of their experiences in their own words 6 Select key informants wisely and use them carefully Draw on the wisdom of their informed perspectives but keep in mind that their perspectives are selective 7 Be aware of and strategic about the different stages of fieldwork a Build trust and rapport at the entry stage Remember that the observer is also being observed and evaluated b Attend to relationships throughout fieldwork and the ways in which relationships change over the course of fieldwork including relationships with hosts sponsors within the setting and coresearchers in collaborative and participatory research c Stay alert and disciplined during the more routine middle phase of fieldwork d Focus on pulling together a useful synthesis as fieldwork draws to a close Move from generating possibilities to verifying emergent patterns and confirming themes e Be disciplined and conscientious in taking detailed field notes at all stages of fieldwork f In evaluations and action research provide formative feedback as part of the verification process of fieldwork Time that feedback carefully Observe its impact g Be as involved as possible in experiencing the setting as fully as is appropriate and manageable while maintaining an analytical perspective grounded in the purpose of the fieldwork 9 Separate description from interpretation and judgment 10 Be reflective and reflexive Include in your field notes and reports your own experiences thoughts and feelings Consider and report how your observations may have affected the observed as well as how you may have been affected by what and how youve participated and observed Ponder and report the origins and implications of your own perspective Constructivist Rashomon heaven Multiple and diverse perspectives and medicine watching and wondering Tinbergen explained that it was by watching and wondering that he had despite being neither a physiologist nor a medical doctor discovered what turned out to be a major breakthrough in our understanding of autism His observations revealed that the major clinical research on autism did not hold up outside clinical settings His watching and wondering allowed him to see that normal individuals those not clinically labeled as autistic exhibited under a variety of circumstances all of the behaviors described as autistic in clinical research He also noted that children diagnosed as autistic responded in nonautistic ways outside the clinical setting By observing people in a variety of settings and watching a full range of behaviors he was able to make a major medical and scientific contribution His research methodology watching and wondering Notes 1 Excerpt from Little Gidding in the Four Quartets by T S Eliot Copyright 1942 by T S Eliot renewed 1970 by Esme Valerie Eliot Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Inc 2 Excerpt from The Elephants Child from Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling Used by permission of A P Watt Ltd on behalf of The National Trust for Places of Historical Interest or Natural Beauty Original publication 1902 3 From Traveling Light Collected and New Poems Copyright 1999 by David Wagoner Used with permission of the University of Illinois Press 4 Used with permission of Joyce Keller BetweenChapters Interlude