Glossary

• Active Listener – Someone who is visibly engaged through eye contact and body language, pays attention to the subtleties in tone and word-selection the informant and take notes that will lead to follow-up questions based on the responses of the interviewee.
• Anonymity—a research subject has anonymity when there is no way to connect them to the specific data they supplied.
• Autoethnography—A reflective process that engages the personal stories of the researcher to understand the larger context
• Bias – Bias is defined as any tendency which prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question. In research, bias occurs when “systematic error [is] introduced into sampling or testing by selecting or encouraging one outcome or answer over others.”
• Building rapport – You build rapport when you develop mutual trust, friendship and affinity with someone.
• Code – The marking of patterns, commonalities and differences between events described by an individual, or in comparison to other narratives collected.
• Code of ethics—A code of ethics directs people or organizations in making decisions that are in line with their values
• Confidentiality—a research subject has confidentiality if their identities are known by the researchers but protected from exposure
• Cultural Norms– the shared expectations and rules of behavior and practice within a particular culture or society
• Cultural Relativism– the concept that people’s beliefs and practices should be understood based on their own cultural norms and not judged based on those of another culture
• Debriefing—following the end of a research project, debriefing is recommended or required to ensure no harm has come to research subjects
• Deception—not revealing the true nature, purpose or process of a research study
• Empathy– the ability to deeply understand and share the feelings of another through their perspective or point of view
• Epiphanies—some event or occurrence that changes the perspective, direction or understanding of the person to whom it occurs
• Ethnocentrism– using the cultural norms of your own culture to evaluate and judge the beliefs and practices of another culture
• Ethnographer – A researcher who studies a phenomenon with first-hand experience through methods of survey, interviews, observation, mapping, among others. This is done over a longer period of time.
• Ethnographic methods – Techniques used for data collection in research projects that can be qualitative or quantitative. Ethnographic methods include interviews, participant-observation, focus groups, mapping, or surveys.
• Ethnography – A research method that employs a strategy that includes both active participation and passive observation. Ethnography is writing about people over time.
• Field notes the notes created by the researcher to remember and record the behaviors, activities, events, and other features of an observation
• Field sites –the location or environment an ethnographer is studying
• Formal Interviews –Interviews where an interviewee is asked a list of prepared, generally open-ended questions to gather details and anecdotes that provide depth to respective projects.
• Hawthorne effect—When people often change their behavior when they know they are being watched as part of a study
• Ideal Culture – The way a group hopes others perceive their community or society.
• Immersion– the research method in which ethnographers completely surrounds themselves in a culture they are studying to gain in depth knowledge about it
• Informal Interviews – Casual exchanges with informants to gather background information for your project and often in preparation for a formal interview.
• Informed Consent Forms – Forms designed to give the interviewee an opportunity to declare in what context they are comfortable with their oral history being used.
• Informed consent—research participants must have an understanding of the research project before giving their consent
• Institutional Review Board—the group of people who review research to ensure that it the benefits outweigh the risks to human subjects
• Interview Guide/Schedule/Frame – A list of questions prepared beforehand to organize an interview.
• Jottings notes that are taken in the field that then get developed into fieldnotes
• Key Participants – The object or persons under investigation.
• Mapping – In qualitative market research, mapping involves asking interviewees or group participants to sort or ‘map’ objects (or representations of objects) according to how they are seen or thought of.
• Objective stance – Researchers must make sure to keep an open and objective mind and not bring any preconceived outcomes or notions to the study.
• Objectivity – the quality or character of being objective: lack of favoritism toward one side or another.
• Observer bias—When researchers unconsciously skew their observations to fit their research goals or expectations
• Open-Ended Questions – Questions that avoid yes/no responses by seeking stories or the “why and “how”.
• Participant Observation: When researchers join people and participate in a group’s routine activities for the purpose of observing them within that context
• Participant-observer – A participant-observer is a researcher who utilizes ethnography as a way to document data. They become both an active participant and a passive observer.
• Participant-observer – A participant-observer is a researcher who utilizes ethnography as a way to document data. They become both an active participant and a passive observer.
• Qualitative Interviews – Organized by open-ended questions that seek in-depth explanations of traditions, experiences and perceptions. They provide space for follow-up questions and illuminate the “why” and “how” of a participant’s experience.
• Real Culture – The way a group, community or society actually functions.
• Research strategy – A step-by-step plan of action that gives direction to a researcher’s thoughts and efforts and enables them to conduct research systematically and on schedule to produce quality results and detailed reporting.
• Research subjects – A research subject is a person who decides to participate in a research study.
• Semi-Structured Interviews – An interview that flexibly follows a list of open-ended questions, while providing space for follow-up questions that illuminate the “why” and “how” of a particular participant’s unique experience.
• Social or cultural awareness – Researching a culture prior to beginning the study, if possible.
• Time commitment – Ethnography requires the research study to happen over a longer period of time. Hence, making ethnography a less desirable method when conducting single incident research topics.
• Transcribing – A typed-up version of the interview that either you, or someone else creates by listening to the recording.
• Triangulation using a variety of methods to gather data in one field site to study to same thing.
• Unstructured Interviews – Interviews that allow the discussion to freely venture from subject to subject, often without a written list of questions to guide the conversation
• Validity—The data the researcher is collecting is a true representation of the information he or she is measuring
• Value neutrality—not allowing your biases to have an effect on the outcomes of your research
• Value-centered—allowing personal values to dictate which direction is taken
• Western/Non-Western– refers to cultures with belief systems and societal structures that originate from or are influenced by Europe (including, broadly, the United States)/refers to cultures with belief systems and societal structures that did not originate through European influence (NOTE: these are general terms and no society is completely Western or non-Western in a globalized world)

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