Investigating the Social World
Practice Exercises
1. Select a public setting in which there are many people on a regular basis, such as a sports venue, a theater lobby, a coffee shop, or a popular public park. Observe as an ethnographer for 30 minutes on one day and then write up your notes. Before your next visit, a day later, develop a systematic observation schedule on which to record observations in the same setting in a structured manner. Record observations using the structured observation form on another day, but in the same place and at about the same time of day. Compare the data you collected with your ethnographic notes and with your systematic observation notes.
2. Read one of the four SAGE mixed-methods research articles on this site. What would have been lost if this study had been a single-method study?
3. Complete the Interactive Exercise for Chapter 12.