LI Course
CE Hours: 6 contact hours

Statement of Purpose and Institute Overview: The purpose of this Institute is to provide participatory experience with ethnographic analysis and model construction, using field data on health issues elicited from rural communities. Participants will receive instruction in ethnographic analysis (field notes; interview transcripts) and will participate in model construction (qualitative analysis). Whereas quantitative methods emphasize relationship analysis and hypothesis testing through design-structured collection of data, qualitative methods in contrast focus on model building from field materials collected through formal interviews (e.g., life story; focus group) and informal interviews that become field notes, based on a research question (field-mediated data collection) or research plan to test a pre-fieldwork hypothesis (planned data collection). Emergent findings in ethnographic research often occur in response to field-specific contingencies that generally result in richer data and, ultimately, improved analysis. Analytic methods influence the theoretical model we derive, however robust our data, representative the sample, knowledgeable the respondents, or cooperative the people or community. Grounded in Anthropology, this Workshop considers expanding research interests that include hidden-isolated populations and communities such as agricultural workers in general and migrant workers in particular. Through a review of “lessons learned” from ethnographic research in these rural areas, we can improve analytic methods as well as the way we conduct our field research. Interactive (audience will share expertise) and participatory (audience will engage in exercises related to ethnographic analysis and model development). Given the nature of Ethnography as a field-active research method, this Workshop brings to the learning process an engaged style of learning.

Session Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to: Describe analytic frameworks one can use in conducting ethnography Identify-apply techniques for developing and analyzing field notes Identify-apply transcription techniques appropriate to a desired analysis Build a model based on a completed analysis, from either field notes or transcripts, or both

CE Credits: CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing