Despite recent methodological advances in saturation, guidelines for its estimation in more complex research designs--such as ethnographic studies--have been lacking. We present an accessible, step-by-step approach to empirical assessment of data saturation, tested on a moderately sized ethnographic study with 109 combined direct observations and…

Ethnography offers a holistic approach to qualitative researchers in educational contexts and appeals to scholars who wish seek to reveal rich narratives through their immersion in specific domains. This review paper examines the mobilization of the ethnographic research approach reported in studies from two distinctive learning contexts: an…

Rooted in traditional anthropology, agile ethnography is an interactive form of participant-observation implemented and bounded within the workplace. The essence of agile ethnography is the triumvirate of research agility representing an agile process, environment, and researcher. This qualitative approach to inquiry emanated from the descriptive…

Consultation relies on story. This is true for researchers, for practitioners, and for clients. Given this fact, qualitative and mixed methods (QMM) research are particularly well suited to listening to the stories that compose the clinical practice of consultation in order to extend understanding and to support improvement and innovation. In this…

This paper discusses ethical issues surrounding Netnography, an innovative methodology, relatively unusual in Education research. It explores the ethical approach developed for a study of UK mother perspectives on primary school homework found on open-access parenting websites, reviewing issues considered at the project's outset and examining…

Intended to guide scholars who are new to qualitative research, this methods brief focuses mostly on what reviewers look for in manuscripts submitted for publication. The author acknowledges that reviewers' preferences likely reflect their theoretical perspectives, research-oriented coursework, mentors, and research and writing experiences. The…

In this article, we introduce participant viewpoint ethnography (PVE), a phenomenological video research method that combines reflexive, interview-based data with video capture of actual experiences. In PVE, participants wear a head-mounted camera to record the phenomena of study from their point of view. The researcher and participant then review…

This paper introduces institutional ethnography (IE) as a useful and systematic process for examining organizations and work data through the lens of stakeholders, at different levels, and considering the different forces at play. Drawing from ethnomethodology, IE focuses on how everyday experience is socially organized. Ideological shifts have…

Research in schools entails a journey of mutual recognition and trust between the researchers and the teaching staff, and a negotiation of give-and-take. The most effective reward for both parties is engaging in a mutually satisfying project in which both the researchers and the teachers occupy complementary spaces--rather than asymmetrical…

Researchers' "reflexivity" about how they shape the phenomena that they study within the data collection process is often presented as a crucial component of ethnographic research methodology. Nevertheless, academic literature about ethnography is mostly silent around whether researchers' dreams are relevant to the research process and…

The author raises questions about ethnographic methodology through exploring the implications of using observations produced by his colleagues about his office as data for his research. This process blurred the boundaries between researcher, method and the object and subject of research. It meets some criteria for ethnography and not others, and…

Social practice theory addresses both theoretical and method/ological agendas. To date priority has been given to the former, with writing on the latter tending often to be an afterthought to theoretical expositions or fieldwork accounts. This article gives sustained attention to the method/ological corollaries of a social practice perspective. It…

This chapter aims to answer some of the questions that emerge when carrying out educational ethnography in a blended learning environment. The authors first outline how Virtual Ethnography (VE) has been developed and applied by other researchers. Then, to better illustrate the approach, they describe a doctoral research project that implemented…

The article reports on a study of methodological innovation involving occupational therapy (OT) students in higher education (HE). It is based on an original project which examined the experiences and outcomes of non-traditional entrants to pre-registration OT education. A feature of the original project was the application of the epistemological…

Focused ethnographies can have meaningful and useful application in primary care, community, or hospital healthcare practice, and are often used to determine ways to improve care and care processes. They can be pragmatic and efficient ways to capture data on a specific topic of importance to individual clinicians or clinical specialties. While…