Question

What are the advantages and disadvantages to using an ethnography study versus a quantitative experiment? Also, what is the ethnographic fallacy, and why should scientists be wary of it?

Answer 1

Ethnography is the recording and analysis of a culture or society ,usually based on participant - observation and resulting in a written account of a people,place or institution. Ethnographies are likely to focus on a particular aspect of contemporary social life such as new reproductive technologies, the meanings of the veil,virtual communication. The concept of ethnography has been developed within social anthropology with aims to analyze humans ways of life or culture holistically,relativistically and comparatively.

Whereas quantitative research is the process of gathering observable data to answer a research question using statistical computational or mathematical techniques.It is often seen as more accurate or valuable .

While ethnography research looks at opinions concepts,characteristics, and descriptions. It focuses on gathering non numerical data..

A good ethnography will provide hundreds if not thousands of data points and most importantly quantitative approaches are usually better at answering very tactical questions, whereas ethnographic approaches are often better at answering more strategic ,open ended questions.

Quantitative approaches provide a wide angled picture of a phenomenon while ethnographic approach provide a telephoto picture .

Some of the strengths and weaknesses of ethnographic research in comparison of quantitative research are:

Strengths:

(1)Use multiple methods of collecting data.

(2) can provide rich data.

Weaknesses:

(1) Assessor is assesment tool ,subject to subjectiveness.

(2) Time consuming for data collection.

(3) Time consuming for analysis.

(4) May be difficult to gain access to group.

Ethnographic fallacy is the assumption that we can make inferences about society based on individuals in reality other forces than the ones we are studying may be determining aspects of society

Scientists should be wary of these fallacies because they can make researchers assume that a tool used by physical scientists is the only legitimate way to do research.

Example of the scientific method fallacy:"Experiments are the only way you can really know anything. "You really dont have a clear theory unless it is expressed mathematically.