Conducting Interpretive Research in Engineering Education Using Qualitative and Ethnographic Methods

Abstract

Introduction This chapter provides an overview of conducting interpretive research using qualitative and ethnographic methods. The chapter complements Chapters 27 by Case and Light and 26 by Moskal, Reed-Rhoades, and Strong in this volume, which respectively provide an overview of the different qualitative and mixed method approaches to engineering education research. The primary purpose of this chapter is to provide entry-level researchers with background information on how to conduct interpretive research. Because every researcher has his or her own “tricks of the trade,” this chap-ter necessarily presents methods and ap-proaches found useful by this author, and represents an individual perspective on interpretive research. The number of references has been limited to around fifty to avoid overwhelming the target audience; this chapter is not intended as a comprehensive review of interpretive research or of qualitative and ethnographic methods. Interpretive Research in the Human Sciences Social scientists currently distinguish interpretive research from other research traditions in that the researcher is taken to be a critical part of the process. The primary goal of the research is to understand participants’ meaning-making, with less emphasis on the typical flow of the scientific method followed in other research methodologies. This type of research requires an investigator to include his or her own perceptions, becoming more of a sense-maker than an objective reporter: Interpretive research is an umbrella term used to describe studies that endeavor to understand a community in terms of the actions and interaction of the participants, from their own perspectives” (Tobin, 1999, p. 487).