Stages Of Fieldwork Research Articles

The Profile of Communication Mathematics and Students’ Motivation by Joyful Learning-based Learning Context Malay Culture

This research was a descriptive qualitative study conducted in three phases, namely the pre-court stage, the stage of field work and data analysis stage. Subjects in this study were six students of class VII MTs Yaspi Medan Labuhan with two subjects capable of good mathematics communication, two subjects capable enough communication, and the two subjects capable of communication was less, the selection of subject by using purposive sampling. The research results were obtained: 1) There was a positive change in the students' ability to communicate mathematics after being given a context-based joyful learning the Malay culture; 2) The responses of the students showed subjects could communicate more math problems after being given a contextbased joyfullearning the Malay culture; 3) Students' motivation had to experience a positive change because this learning is a new thing for students and fun for students. Recommended by the teachers can use context-based joyful learning culture by presenting issues related to local culture as an alternative learning.

Epilepsy prevalence in Al-Manial Island, Egypt. A door-to-door survey

BackgroundEpidemiologic studies of epilepsy are lacking from the majority of the Arab countries; although there are significant needs for such studies. This study was conducted on a sample of Al-Manial Island, Cairo city, one of the highest cities in population density in the world. Participants and methodsA community-based, door to door, cross-sectional study using multistage random sample including 512 families (1751 individuals). The study extended from March 2009 to September 2012 and involved three main stages; the preparatory stage, the field work stage and the stage of establishing epilepsy diagnosis and classifying confirmed epileptic patients. ResultsThe lifetime point prevalence of epilepsy among inhabitants of Al-Manial island was 6.9/1000 inhabitants while the prevalence of active epilepsy was 5.1/1000 inhabitants. The age distribution showed bimodal peaks in adolescents and in elderly with equal sex ratio (6/855 vs 6/896). Focal seizures were the commonest type (58.3%) and the treatment gap was 66.7%. ConclusionThe prevalence of epilepsy among inhabitants of Al-Manial Island go in agreement with most global studies. High treatment gap detected in our study indicates that proper management of epilepsy requires a multi-factorial approach.

Key problems of the eastern part of the Crimea Mountain stratigraphy. New micropaleontologic information for dating of flysh rocks

On the base of French-Ukrainian collaboration (DARIUS program), in the eastern part of the Crimea Mountain the first stage of field work was performed, during which the samples of flysch rocks were taken for micropaleontological analysis (Nanofossilsdating). It made possible to plot the first variant of structural geological map of this area and refresh the age of flysh products on it up to Early Cretaceous. The results obtained allow us to revise tectonic evolution of the East Crimea casting away the Cimmerian orogenesis.

Concept Analysis of Developmental Care for Preterm Infants: Hybrid Model.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to define and clarify the concept of developmental care for preterm infants.METHODS: The hybrid model method was used to identify the main attributes and indicators. In the field work stage, data were collected in Seoul and Cheonan, Korea. The participants were 5 nurses working in the NICU.RESULTS: The concept of developmental care was found to have six attributes and ten indicators in 2 dimensions. For the nursing practice dimension, four attributes were derived.They were being like intrauterine state, individualization, interaction, and integrative care with awareness of development. For the family centeredness dimension, supporting parental attachment and professional alliance were attributes of developmental care.CONCLUSION: Developmental focused care can facilitate the identification of behavioral responses of newborns and provide individualized interventions for fostering growth and development. This concept analysis could provide guidelines for "developmental care" nursing practice and be useful for research in the neonatal field.

Mediating messiness: expanding ideas of flexibility, reflexivity, and embodiment in fieldwork

This article aims to help researchers think about some big-picture challenges that occur in the early stages of fieldwork. In particular, we address the transition from a clear, concise research proposal to the often complicated, messy initiation of a project. Drawing on autobiographical accounts of our own PhD research projects, we focus on dilemmas that may arise for researchers guided by feminist epistemology and methodology. First, we discuss parameters regarding acceptable changes to original research plans and questions. Noting that the carefully planned proposal may dramatically change as fieldwork begins, we draw on feminist literatures to expand and concretize the notion of flexibility in the research process. Second, we puzzle out the relationship between theory, epistemology, and method as the researcher delves into her fieldwork. As logistical challenges may take priority, theoretical and epistemological concerns may temporarily wane. Third, we consider the many ways in which the researcher's personal and field life bleed into each other to shape the conduct of research. We emphasize the importance of considering – prior to research as well as during – what the concepts of reflexivity and embodiment mean in fieldwork, especially for the researcher in terms of personal needs and logistical realities. Finally, while we suggest that there are certain unique pressures that shape the early stages of the field research period for PhD students, we conclude the article by focusing on ways in which lessons learned during our own experiences might be broadly useful for any researchers in the beginning stages of fieldwork.

Elite interviewing and the role of sector context: an organizational case from the football industry

PurposeElite individuals and groups constitute a distinctive, upper echelon and social grouping. In various shapes and forms, elites have been an enduring feature of many societies and in the contemporary era, the concept of elites and the related notion of celebrity have seen fresh interconnected developments. The purpose of the paper is to consider the literature on elite interviewing both generally and more specifically against a backdrop of an organization and management disciplinary setting. Importantly the paper examines and surfaces the role of context in relation to elite interviewing. In order to consider and illustrate this phenomenon the argument engages with the organizational environment and behaviours of the English professional football industry with the intention of offering fresh perspectives into the form and function of context in elite interviewing.Design/methodology/approachThe paper's examination of the literature feeds into the fieldwork stage which employs an inductive and interpretivistic methodology. The key method employed within the methodology is semi‐structured interviews tailored for elites and conjoined with participant observation. The approach is applied within an elite interviewing process in the specific organizational context of the professional football industry.FindingsThe paper concludes that in relation to elite interviewing, there is scope to consider a contextualisation and recontextualisation of elite interviewing processes through the development of a potential range of novel conceptual and theoretical models. By engaging with interview frameworks, the paper draws heightened attention to the possibility of generating typologies for, and categorising elites operating within, those given contexts. The paper underlines the established notion of inter‐differences between elites in different sectors, and, more importantly, surfaces intra‐differences in elites within sectors. This issue of diversity of elites is currently not a factor that is clearly acknowledged or addressed in the extant literature. In the case of the present study this novel analysis and illustration are undertaken within the English professional football industry. Therein, the argument exemplifies how elites and elite interviewing may be understood in this specific context through the concepts of process, power and “positionality” and “knownness” identifying, for example, issues of arrogance, amateurism and the phenomenon of insider‐outsider.Social implicationsElites and celebrities constitute longstanding phenomena that have endured into the twenty‐first century and, as a consequence, merit on‐going close analysis. Equally replete in contemporary life are the multifarious organizational and managerial domains and contexts in which given elites reside and operate. Given the potential impact of elites and their actions on people, it would seem worthwhile and important to seek heightened understanding of them. The professional football industry is one particular instance for study given that it is high profile, represents a substantial business sector in its own right, and, plays a central role in the lives of many members of the public.Originality/valueThe work is an original study of the contextual issues surrounding interviewing elites in the organizational and management setting of the English professional football industry. In a more specific sense, the paper contributes insights into the issue of typologies within elite interviewing, the role of elites in English professional football and makes progress in redressing a general paucity of commentary on elite in the overall business and management research methodology literature.

Conflicts and Allies: Historic Battlefields as Multidisciplinary Hubs — A Case Study from Towton AD 1461

Scientifically analysing important artefacts from the site of historic battles is vital if the best information is to be retrieved from the field. A detailed knowledge of the specific equipment that was available to the combatants from a known battle is also required at a high level so that artefacts and fragments resulting from an historic battlefield archaeological survey can be recognised when found. Access to specialists from all walks of life is required throughout each battlefield-related project, from the fieldwork stages to the dissemination of information. The following paper discusses the importance of working alongside museums and specialists and gives examples of how the Towton Battlefield Archaeology Project has successfully worked with the staff at the Royal Armouries Leeds.

La gestión social de un bien común: los Comités de Agua Potable en Nicaragua

El artículo se basa en una investigación realizada como proyecto de tesis para la Maestría en Estudios Urbanos (2007-2009) realizada en el Colegio de México (D.F). Se presenta un análisis comparado de la gestión social del agua que realizan los Comités de Agua Potable en Nicaragua. Estas son organizaciones que satisfacen a un 23% de la población, trabajando para llevar agua a las comunidades en sectores rurales y de la periferia urbana.La gestión social de los Comités se estudia desde la perspectiva de gestión común basada en el planteamiento de Elinor Ostrom, donde es la acción colectiva de los pobladores -a través de la construcción de normas comunes para desarrollar estrategias en relación a otros actores- lo que les permite llevar a cabo su labor.Se retoman dos casos significativos en el país: el Comité de Agua El Edén en un contexto periurbano en la capital, dentro del área de amortiguamiento de la Reserva Natural Chocoyero-El Brujo; y el Comité de Agua Potable El Chompipe en un contexto rural, organizado en una Red de Agua a nivel municipal.En la investigación es de interés analizar si la gestión se realiza de una manera colectiva, y cómo esto se ve influido por el contexto geográfico en que se encuentran los Comités. Para ello se llevaron a cabo dos etapas de trabajo de campo en Nicaragua, en el que se realizaron entrevistas con actores gubernamentales y no gubernamentales a nivel nacional y de las localidades seleccionadas.

Sorry not today: Self and temporary consumption denial

AbstractThis research investigates the temporary involuntary loss of symbolically important, meaningful possessions and how consumers manage self identity in this situation. The losses explored occurred within the context of air travel and included where people accustomed to flying in business class had to travel in economy and where high status in a frequent flyer program was lost. Three stages of fieldwork were conducted; participant observation involving 50 international and domestic flights covering 110,000 miles, depth interviews and engagement online with a range of frequent flyer discussion communities. The short‐term, concealable nature of the losses allowed consumers to manipulate private and public meaning to avoid, where possible, the consequences of the loss on self identity. This study contributes by showing that both private and public meanings of lost possessions can be used in identity construction and how identity negotiation can be avoided. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Representation and transfer of geological knowledge in IT-supported projects

Information Technologies (IT) have the capability to improve the clearness and the usefulness of scientific information, and related applications in earth sciences could allow to make geological data more sharable among different users. This paper illustrates an approach to represent the knowledge paths followed by field geologists involved in assessment and description of complex structuralgeological settings and processes, through the use of specific IT applications. The proposed approach is based on three working steps: i) building of a conceptual map (cMap) that defines the project approach to the study matter, drives the acquisition of field data and gives rules for GIS representation of interpreted geological features (prefieldwork stage); ii) capturing of data directly in the field by means of digital devices, in a way suitable to retrace the acquisition data steps and to separate the observed features from the interpreted ones (fieldwork stage); iii) management of information in relational GIS databases by means of «geological» metadata that could define the «weight» of data and explain the adopted interpretations (postfieldwork stage). An application of these working steps is given in a case study of the stability evaluation of a quarry rock mass. In the example, different conceptualizations and investigation methods are combined so that they are sharable among field geologists and engineering geologists in order to allow crucial decision in characterization and modelling of the quarry slope. Besides, ITbased approaches should get retraceability of decisional processes possible

The ‘Staffordshire Hoard’: the Fieldwork

AbstractThe Staffordshire Hoard was found by a metal detectorist on arable land in the parish of Ogley Hay in south Staffordshire in July 2009, and was recovered by archaeologists from Staffordshire County Council and Birmingham Archaeology. More than 3,940 pieces were retrieved, mostly of gold or silver alloy and mostly representing what appear to be martial battle goods. The date of the material has yet to be ascertained but the artefacts appear to range from the late sixth to the early eighth centuries AD. The reasons for burial remain, as yet, largely unknown. The choice of location, on the north-western spur of a prominent ridge, could have been intended to facilitate its rediscovery, unless the locale held a symbolic significance within the wider landscape. The second stage of fieldwork, in March 2010, identified a number of undated field boundaries and undated palisade trenches perhaps associated with a small farmstead of pre- or post-Roman date, unlikely to be associated with the hoard.

O carro como um lugar: Perspectivas de territorialidades e representações na cidade de Curitiba

A presente pesquisa qualitativa, inserida no âmbito da Geografia Cultural, teve o objetivo de mapear as motivações e perceber as relações que existem entre as visões de mundo, os contextos domésticos e profissionais, que levaram alguns dos proprietários de carros que circulam em Curitiba, a escolherem combinações de letras e números em suas placas, de modo a veicularem mensagens. Para dar conta da pesquisa de campo, foi utilizado um cruzamento entre diferentes aportes teórico-metodológicos: a Teoria das Representações Sociais, a Etnometodologia, a Fenomenologia e o conceito de Cultura Transversal de massa. Os conceitos de “lugar” e “território” concorreram como categorias analíticas, a partir da sistematização e descobertas da análise das entrevistas, realizadas com trinta proprietários de veículos de Curitiba, cujas placas de carro foram escolhidas. As placas escolhidas dos carros foram os elementos que permitiram ampliar o entendimento sobre a constituição do carro como um “lugar” e sobre as territorialidades envolvidas nas práticas que se dão, especialmente, nas ruas de Curitiba.
 
 Abstract 
 
 THE CAR AS A PLACE: PERSPECTIVES OF TERRITORIALITIES AND REPRESENTANTIONS IN CURITIBA 
 
 This work translates the results of a qualitative research which employed the theoretical tennets of Cultural Geography. One of its research goals was to map the motivations of 30 car owners, in the city of Curitiba, who vehiculated personal messages on their car plates through the combinations of letters and algarisms. The plates were chosen for this research as elements which allowed the researcher to understand the construction of the object Car as a “place”, and of the related territorialities developed by them on the streets of Curitiba. The data collected and generated during the fieldwork stage, in which the above mentioned cars’ owners were interviewed, led to the use of diverse theoretical approaches, such as the Social Representation Theory, Ethnometodoly, Phenomenology, and also the concept of Transverse Mass Culture. For the analysis of the results, the concepts of “place” and “territory” were employed as the necessary tools to systematize, understand, and present the data obtained under the guidance of the discipline of Cultural Geography.

Metodología y logística de campo de un estudio multinivel sobre la influencia en España de las características medioambientales en la salud mental de población autóctona y ecuatoriana inmigrante

The methodological design, characteristics and fieldwork stage of a multilevel research study on the impact of the environmental characteristics on mental health in an autochthonous and immigrant population are described in this paper. Individual data were obtained using a core questionnaire 40 minutes length from home interviews of Spanish and Ecuadorian adults from September 2006 to January 2007. A random sample of 1186 people aged 18-55, with equal distribution of gender and nationality was obtained from Civil Registers of 33 areas (municipalities or neighbourhoods) of Madrid, Alicante, Almeria and Murcia, chosen by ethnic density and socioeconomic criteria. Previously, a pilot study was carried out. Socioeconomic indicators of neighbourhoods and selected communities were obtained from Municipal Registers and other secondary sources. Finally, 1144 people were interviewed (96%). Each person was contacted at home at two different times. The global response rate was 61%, higher among Ecuadorians (69%), who presented more problems of localisation (34%). Analyzing methods and fieldwork process the conclusion is that sample strategies for this type of population studies should be evaluated using feasibility criteria given time and money constraints, against the need to obtain representative samples of the target populations. There were serious shortcomings in the availability of social integration indicators at the neighbourhood level.

Theatre and Seduction: the Politics of Aesthetic Judgements in Thailand

This paper is presented in honour of Doug Miles, who taught me as an undergraduate student, supervised my Honours thesis on Balinese kinship and encouraged me to do fieldwork on theatrical forms in Thailand. Doug was my supervisor in the initial stages of fieldwork in Bangkok and stimulated my interest in theatre as an anthropological enterprise that could reveal the fundamental dimensions of South and Southeast Asian cultures. The present paper explores the seductive appeal of likay, a popular Thai theatre genre that can be appropriated to ensure commercial, ritual and political gain. Drawing on some of the arguments made in my doctoral dissertation on likay, I demonstrate how the very qualities that make it attractive as a political and religious strategy, its sensuous appeal and crowd-drawing capacity, make it vulnerable to negative aesthetic, ideological and moral evaluations by those in power. Following Doug, I stress that theatre, like any other form of cultural production, must be situated within its historical and political context. My fascination with the concept of charisma, which I use to illuminate the seductive aspects of likay, also reflects Doug's influence.

How does reactivity affect police behavior? Describing and quantifying the impact of reactivity as behavioral change in a large-scale observational study of police

Critics have challenged the face validity of police observational data by arguing that officers will react to the presence of the observer. This article examines the descriptive accounts of reactivity from the Project on Policing Neighborhoods (or POPN) to: (1) describe reactivity as behavioral change (i.e., officers who are more or less proactive), (2) identify why officers react in this manner, and (3) specify officer behavior susceptible to this form of reactivity. Additional analyses indicate that officers are 5.3 times more likely to be more versus less proactive. Officers are also more proactive during early stages of fieldwork and when accompanied by female observers. Finally, there is evidence of an interaction effect between time in the field and observer sex where officers are 4.5 times more likely to be more proactive during early stages of fieldwork when accompanied by female observers. The more general implications of the findings are also discussed.

Introduction. Threatening communication: The discomfort of proximity

As convenors of the Younger Scholars' Forum for the 2004 EASA Conference in Vienna, we were charged with devising an international panel that would address the general theme ‘Face-to-face. Connecting distance and proximity’. Our panel, originally entitled ‘When communication ends …’, was thus a provocation to think ethnographically about the relationships through which anthropologists habitually conduct fieldwork. In particular we wanted to provoke discussion on what we termed ‘the discomfort of proximity’ and to think further about fieldwork circumstances in which anthropologists might actually seek to establish ‘distance’ rather than ‘proximity’ while in the field. Anthropologists tend to assume that the quality of their ethnographic evidence depends on the quality of interaction and communication with their interlocutors. This after all is why we continue to fight for the chance to carry out long-term fieldwork and insist on the necessity of proficiency in local languages. There is furthermore a common disciplinary assumption that close and intense relationships enable a sense of identification (albeit partial and vicarious) with those with whom we carry out the research. Our ethnographic understandings thus depend on finding ways of overcoming distance as we strive to transform the mutual ‘strangeness’ of the early stages of fieldwork into a more cosy proximity through which some degree of mutual understanding might be achieved. After all, the quality of our ethnographic knowledge is fundamentally based on the relationships between the researcher and those individuals she or he is living with.

Potential sources of observer bias in police observational data

Much of our knowledge about police behavior “on the street” is based on in-person observation of the police. However, little research has examined how the observers can potentially bias observational data. In this paper, anecdotal accounts from a variety of field settings are categorized into four potential sources of observer bias. Secondary analyses of data from a large-scale observational study of police are used to assess the impact of three out of the four type of observer bias (reactivity, going native, and burnout). There is evidence of reactivity for arrest, but not use of force behavior and little support for going native and burnout. More generally, observer bias is categorized as: (1) threats to the validity of observational data collected at different stages of fieldwork; and (2) the potential for human error implicit in observational data. The incorporation of a semi-structured field diary is suggested to more systematically document all four types of observer bias in future research.

Analytical review applications among large audit firms in Hong Kong

Considerations for time, cost, and audit comfort in completing audit engagements have gradually led to extensive use of analytical review (AR) in external audits by large accounting firms in Hong Kong. AR is now being used by auditors as “attention‐directing” at the planning stage, “test‐reducing” at the fieldwork stage, and an overall reasonableness check in arriving at the true‐and‐fair decision at the final review stage. Greater reliance on AR has long been predicted in the auditing literature as an inevitable future trend. Empirical findings on auditors attesting to the extensive use of AR in Hong Kong are simply visible manifestations of the profession’s adjustment to the global movement.

Some preliminary results of the project 'Small Business Training and Competitiveness: Building Case Studies in Different European Cultural Contexts'

This paper attempts to describe the fieldwork stage of a research project on organizational learning.It starts with an overview oftheproject'Small Business Training and Competitiveness'. It goes on to explain some conceptual aspectsthat serveasguidanceto theempirical research. Furtheron, it focuses on thedescription of the fieldwork that is being carried out at ESADE and concentrates on the way interviews have developed. Finally, we illustrate some preliminary results of a pilot case.

The Social Construction and Reconstruction of the Other: Fieldwork in El Barrio

Anthropologists speak of ethnography as both product and process of fieldwork yet have tended to be overly concerned about product In this article I argue that by making process of fieldwork more participatory, we make product more policy oriented The case presented here suggests that visual methods can be valuable in process of validating anthropological interpretations with study populations and of submitting ethnographic renditions to general publics. Visual methods help study populations to project their views and engage them in dialogue that validates fieldwork while helping them to construct their own and joint visions of and I suggest use of visual instruments at three different stages of fieldwork (conversations around photos, artifacts, and opinion books) involving informants and general publics. Using dialogues on, with, and about study population produced a multifaceted, richer, and more reflective construction of the other. Interview instruments that engage in their own constructions of otherness are particularly useful in ethnographic research on multicultural and socially stratified contemporary urban societies. [ethnographic research, visual interview instruments, participatory fieldwork elderly, Hispanic] The Social Construction of Poverty The urban poor have received a great deal of attention, whether defined as marginal, a reserve labor force, suffering from a culture of poverty or, most recently, as an underclass. Focusing on differences between us and them, academic analysts have made basic assumptions about society which are then passed on to policy makers. Looking at them, analysts and policy makers continue to debate whether poverty is caused by deficient integration within stratification system or by intrinsic characteristics that can be measured to add up to dysfunctional units (such as in culture of poverty traits or in underclass indicators). We agonize over establishing differences, in identifying borders, in isolating brokers in academic circles, and providing information on differences to program planners. This article focuses on similarities to discover common features, within within other, in order to view New York as urban space containing stratified enclaves. To do that, we need to include in academic assumptions about society assumptions that other hold about themselves and us. Rather than using poverty as an explanatory construct or as a worldview, which are unidirectional analysts' constructions, I suggest problematizing social construction of poverty to understand articulation between and within social classes. Instead of using poverty as an epithet or as a view of poor from mainstream (which, whether we use this term or not, we continue to think about), I am focusing on poor's view of their own life circumstances in context of structural inequity. The people I studied - other - embodied various representations: on a first representation they were Hispanics, as defined on basis of census categorizations by National Institute on Aging, which funded my project. On a second representation, they were located in a real place and had a story to tell, that of migration. On a third representation, they were depicted in photos of a space-place constructed by me. A fourth representation was their feedback on my representation of them through our conversations; and a fifth was exhibit that I curated in collaboration with museum staff. This exhibit in turn elicited a variety of representations in responses of audience. What follows is a critical reflection on process that uncovered these representations. Ethnographic Fieldwork: Product and Process A central concern of contemporary ethnography of other in United States (Clifford and Marcus 1986; Van Maanen 1988) has been product. Reflection on process has focused on understanding interviewer's role in production of social knowledge of other, and on distinguishing between anthropological self and anthropologized (Cohen 1992) both in product and in conduct of a fieldwork study (for recent examples, see Anderson 1995; Raybeck 1996). …