Is Ethnography Terrestrial ? A consideration of the concept of ‘virtual ethnography’ and the implications for educational research.
Ann Lahiff,
School of Post Compulsory Education and Training, University of Greenwich.
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Conference, University of Sussex, at Brighton, 2-5 September, 1999.
Introduction
The central question to be addressed in this paper is whether an ethnography of the computer mediated learning environment is possible. It is a relevant question if we take into account the growth of ‘flexible learning’ and the consequent advancement, in some areas, of a totally on-line learning experience in Post Compulsory Education and Training (PCET). The desirability of an ethnographic approach, should it be possible, is not however, discussed, per se.
The background for this paper is provided by experiences gained whilst evaluating a European - funded vocational guidance project for people with disabilities. To provide a context for the ideas discussed in this paper, I start by providing a brief overview of the project and reflections on the process of evaluation. [1]
The Experience
The project was part of a European-funded network which focused on the needs of people with disabilities in relation to vocational guidance, training and employment. The local (UK) network running the programme was multi-agency and included Further and Adult Education, Health providers and Social Services. It was led by the City Council of a large UK conurbation. Towards the end of the project’s life, the curriculum, which had been delivered at a distance, was re-designed to be mediated via Computer - a CMC (Computer-mediated communication) delivery at a distance - and my role was that of an external evaluator of this (CMC) part of project.
The Process of teaching and learning
All activities involved in the learning process were mediated through the computer. Therefore, all materials to be used in the process of teaching and learning were located in a virtual ‘resource centre’ to which students (and tutors) had access once they ‘logged-on’. Likewise, all studentgroup-tutor communication was conducted in virtual classrooms using a ‘conference’ facility. One-to-one communication between individual students and the tutor or between students was facilitated through Email. Students would produce work and send it electronically too. The software used for this project meant that users worked ‘asynchronously’..i.e independent of time. This particular project also included two face-to-face periods - at induction, (15hrs over the first 3 weeks) and during the final week.
The student group
The project targeted adults with physical disabilities and/or mental health problems who were unemployed or under-utilised in the employment market. There were two student groups - one based at an FE college and one in a secure unit for people with mental health problems.
The process of evaluation
With respect to the method of eliciting responses, the process concurred with Norris’account (1990) where he states that :
‘Many evaluation theorists would agree that the form of an evaluation should reflect the nature and circumstances of the project or programme.’ (p101)
Whilst this approach could not be adopted fully, the spirit of the approach was advocated and accepted by participants.
Given that the maximum number of tutors and students involved would be six and twenty respectively, depending on take-up, feedback was to be gathered from all the participants in the study. Students were in two groups - based on their location at the FE College or Clinic; tutors were attached to modules, irrespective of location.
Method of eliciting feedback
Given the format of the curriculum and seeking to mirror the delivery, the feedback was to be elicited through face-to-face means during the induction period and final week, and by e-mail and computer conferencing throughout the programme. I had access to the tutors’ conference, but the students’ conference was for confidential meetings between themselves and their mentor. It was agreed that I would have no access to that. E-mail was used for confidential one-to-one contact between the tutors/students and the Evaluator.
Reflections on the Process
In the event, feedback was received first, f2f, at the end of the induction block with the group of students based at the clinic (six students). Logistics meant I was not able to conduct this f2f induction evaluation with the other, FE-based group. (six students)This f2f meeting was construed initially (by me at least) as very important. Given my role as ‘external’ evaluator, I was keen to establish a relationship with the students, so that they would, at the very least, trust me and feel able to talk frankly about their experiences. Being unfamiliar with using CMC with learners, I was unsure how to establish confidentiality and trust other than through f2f contact. I had, after all, established a rapport with the tutors through f2f contact too and I was, therefore, anxious about not being able to meet f2f with the other FE - based students.
However, what proved to be more important, for me at least, was the insight I was given into the ‘circumstances of the project’ (Norris, 1990). I had not hitherto been inside a medium secure unit for adults and I was able to both observe the setting as well as the nature of the relationship with the course tutor and mentor at the clinic. For instance, whilst I had been briefed about the nature of the student group, I became aware, first hand, of the difficulties most of the students had with f2f encounters; the potential of a volatile situation erupting when I was issued with a panic buzzer; the rehabilitative aims of the clinic; the nature of social interaction between participants; the importance of confidentiality...... and so on. Perhaps because of the richness of this first f2f experience with the students based at the clinic, I was more concerned that the lack of personal, f2f contact with the FE-based students would have an effect on the feedback I received.
I was to be proved wrong in this respect.
Feedback received
The feedback received from students throughout the project was via E-mail communication. There was no significant difference between either the quantity or quality of the feedback received from the students I had met f2f and those I had not.
The tutors’ conference which had been established during the curriculum planning period and used extensively, became the site for on-going feedback . The intention had been to create a separate ‘feedback zone’, but in the event, because the existing tutors’ conference facility provided the space for the circulation of opinion, expression of feelings and support, it was used by me (with tutors’ agreement) to collect feedback relevant to the criteria for evaluation..
Lessons learned - building a case for ‘virtual ethnography’..
From this experience, I was led to the following conclusions regarding the medium I was using to evaluate this project and the implications this might have for educational research
Firstly, assisted, enabled, even empowered by the medium, these students were more able to share their experiences through CMC than f2f. The data generated was detailed and ‘rich’. From my f2f experiences with these students, I believe I would not have generated these reflections either through f2f interview or questionnaire. Using CMC in this way led me to reflect on the absence, in Educational Research, of attention paid to the process of generating data from adults with mental health problems or, indeed, students with learning difficulties. For these students with mental health problems, the medium provided a space for them to express their experiences of learning. The ethos of confidentiality, so clearly established in their therapeutic environment, could be replicated through e.mail and this also increased the communicative potential of the medium for the students. For the minority of students with physical disabilities, the medium had served, throughout, as one which opened up access to education and training.
Secondly, separated by time and space, the tutors’ conference was the natural environment to share experiences, express anxieties, thoughts and reflections. What had been so powerful about the tutor’s conference was that tutors engaged naturally in formative evaluation. As mentioned above, the conference had been established prior to the course itself, and its use as a feedback zone emerged in the first week of the course. Interestingly, when asked by me to provide summative comments, these were less forthcoming. In retrospect, it may have been the artificiality of this request that presented barriers to tutors. However, I was also conscious of the role I was performing as ‘outsider’ evaluating the project. Whilst I did contribute to the conference, I was not engaging with tutors - only perhaps seeking clarification. On reflection, this was probably rather unnerving...However much I tried to communicate the formative potential of the evaluation, the ‘judgement’ associated with evaluation may have been a feature in the relationship with some tutors.
In summary, both the experience of the text-based CMC and the reflections on the evaluation process in relation to the tutor conference in particular (e.g. the nature of the interventions that could have been made,) enabled me to identify the potential for educational research.
A key question thus emerged for me as a result of this project. Could the space (thecyberspace)constructed by the tutors’ and students’ conferences and Email be seen as the ethnographic context ? Could a researcher conduct an ethnographic study of the tutors’ and students’ experiences of teaching and learning using the medium in the way I had done for the evaluation ? In a more generic sense a question emerged : How can these learning environments be researched ethnographically ? Indeed can they be ?
To begin to answer this question, clarification of the concept of ethnography is needed and this, of course, is contentious. Given the various philosophical approaches that serve to underpin ethnographers’ work , and, as Hammersley, puts it :
‘...because it has been subjected to the influence of a variety of recent philosophical and political trends...’ 1992:22
...gaining agreement on ethnography’s fundamental assumptions/characteristics will not be a simple matter. Indeed, Denzin (1997) suggests in his text about ethnographic writing in the ‘twilight years’ of the twentieth century, that as ethnography moves into what he calls its ‘sixth moment’, .... ‘interpretive ethnography faces a crossroads’.
Whilst recognising the complexity of discussions around both carrying out an ethnography and writing an ethnographic account, there are, however, areas of apparent agreement, (or so it seems) and it is to these I will now turn.
Characteristics of Ethnography
- Research conducted in ‘real life settings’
This involves the participation , overtly or covertly, in the ‘field’. Avoiding disruption of the ‘naturalness’ of the setting is significant for some.
- Intensive engagement with the subjects
How this is achieved (conversations, observations, interviews, ) is of secondary concern. ‘Fidelity to the phenomenon under study’ (Hammersley & Atkinson,1995:7) is paramount.
- Sustained Presence - Time - doing fieldwork.
For many this is a crucial element, as insights, relationships change over time..(cf Skeggs 1994)
- Recognition of the reflexivity of social inquiry
‘Given the reflexivity of social enquiry, it is vital to recognise that ethnographers construct the accounts of the social world to be found in ethnographic texts, rather than those accounts simply mirroring reality’
Hammersley & Atkinson (1995: 239)
‘Ethnography is that form of inquiry and writing that produces descriptions and accounts about the ways of life of the writer and those written about’
Denzin (1997:xi)
Other characteristics could be included here, but will be less widely accepted. The importance of ethics i.e. whether due respect to the rights of those being studied has been achieved is highlighted by some, while the issue of ‘negotiated access’ is raised by others. And, for some, covert observation is never acceptable. Other areas under discussion concern the ‘legitimate’ spaces ethnographers can inhabit...Is that which was spoken privately, intimately, fair game for the ethnographer ? and issues of the ‘ownership’ of data are discussed too....As Feminist Ethnographers rightly debate, can a truly unexploitative relationship be established in the field by seeking the agreement of participants to the ethnographer’s account? (for more discussion of this see Beverley Skeggs’ (1994) retrospective account of her ethnographic work of young women on Caring courses in FE)
Can ethnographies be conducted in on-line environments ?
Sustained Presence
If these characteristics are to be applied to the virtual world, then a consideration of what is meant by sustained presence in the virtual world is necessitated. As Thomsen et al (1998:2) ask :
‘when the researcher selects an on-line community as the focus of his (sic) study...where does he (sic) actually go and what is he really observing ?’
Clearly, sustained presence in the virtual classroom is going to mean something entirely different to sustained presence in the terrestrial world. Whilst accepting the inherent selectivity in using auditory, visual and tactile senses in the ‘real’ world, the senses are commonly available for the able-bodied researcher to draw upon. In the education and training environment, observing the real classroom/workshop is a powerful sensory experience. In the CMC environment, sustained presence is only achieved by logging on and entering some text... ‘saying something’ is the only way to be ‘heard’ and ‘seen’ by others. The sustained nature of this presence can of course be recorded by the researcher in much the same way as the terrestrial researcher records their presence through the field note book (There is no imperative that it needs to be electronic !)
So the researcher has to establish presence in the computer mediated learning environment in the same way as other participants and there is nothing to lead to the assumption that this could not be sustained, say, to the length of a programme of study (examples in other on-line internet communications talk of periods in excess of one and two years) However, the nature of that presence needs to be examined and leads onto a consideration of the nature ‘intensive engagement’ in the CMC world.
Intensive Engagement
The researcher’s presence can of course be concealed though ‘lurking’ : the CMC environment’s equivalent of covert observation, (should this be considered to be acceptable) But if the researcher is to engage intensively with the subject, then communication needs to be established and in the CMC learning environment, communication is entirely text-based. The researcher’s engagement has to rely on what they and the participants enter - as text - in the conferences or via Email. Much has been written about the nature on such text-based discussions (Reid, 1995; Baym, 1995) and detail would be beyond the scope of this presentation. However, one or two points are particularly important here.
Cerulo (1997) according to Thomsen et al argues that a :
‘..closer examination of much of the interaction taking place among members of on-line communities contradicts the standard that physical co-presence is necessary for intimate quality interactions.’ Thomsen (1998:3)
They go onto cite examples of self-disclosure and intimacy from various newsgroups in their studies and argue these are no less ‘real’ than equivalent social interaction in the terrestrial world. Certainly my experience of eliciting data from students, and from their own comments about their own self-disclosure in the (virtual) classrooms, concurs with this assertion. However, I think it important to recognise the function of the on-line newsgroup/learning environment, or the motivations of the participants before generalisations can be made. In my experience, the therapeutic/support ethos was an important variable existing prior to the on-line life and the programme itself had rehabilitative aims, particularly for those with mental health problems, so the emphasis was essentially psycho-social. Nevertheless, following Cerulo, it may be necessary to challenge the assumption that physical co-presence .. ‘is the determining factor in judging the significance and quality of a communication exchange.’ (in Thomsen, 1998:3)
So, if participants can engage on-line ‘effectively’, there is no reason to assume the researcher cannot develop the skills to do so too. But what the researcher has to deal with as data at the end of the day is text . As Thomsen et al have argued :
‘On-line communities present the researcher with nothing but text. The ethnographer cannot observe people, other than through their textual contributions to a forum. All behavior is verbal in the form of text. There are no other artefacts to analyze other than text.’
Thompsen et al (1998 : 8)
Textual analysis or ethnography? It can be quite persuasive to conclude that what the researcher could be doing in CMC environments is not ethnography, but ‘simply’ textual analysis. Indeed Thomsen et al review various quantitative and qualitative forms of content analysis and discourse or narrative analysis techniques by way of suggesting approaches to analysing text. But they see that textual analysis alone .... ‘without interaction by the ethnographer with the observed community,’ is insufficient - thus re-emphasising the importance of intensive engagements in an ethnographic study.
The other issue from the literature around text-based discussions in CMC that I’d like to turn to, albeit briefly, is the nature of language use. According to Paccagnella (1997), Reid (1995) notes in her discussions of interaction through CMC, that the language of CMC can be described as more ‘ephemeral’ than ordinary texts...Additionally those describing on-line communities demonstrate a plethora of forms and signs apparently unique to the virtual world. Often the language used is described as written speech or say writing and, in common with language use per se, the text carries meaning for its members beyond the words themselves. Thus, educational researchers need to be as in tune with the context in which language is constructed, as they aspire to be in the terrestrial world
The Real Life setting
This final characteristic is perhaps the most difficult to apply to CMC environments - literally ! What is meant by ‘real life’ in the CMC environment ? As with the other characteristics of ethnography, this characteristic emerged in the terrestrial world. Is it enough to simple qualify the descriptor with a ‘virtual’ tag, in the fashion of virtual personae, virtual community and call it the ‘virtual setting’? Where, indeed, is the setting?