Measurement as a Rigorous Science: How Ethnographic Research Methods can Contribute to the Generation and Modification of Indicators

Abstract

This article begins with a brief reading of the state of the practice of empirical social science research on measurement before proceeding to the discussion of an exemplary instance of this researcher's ethnographic effort to improve indicators of social capital formation. Given the central role measurement plays in social science research, it is appropriate, that a volume on methodological innovations in ethnography would contain a chapter about the relationship of ethnography to measure development. However, it is worth acknowledging that the line of argumentation advanced in this chapter is unconventional. The central tenant of this chapter – that ethnography has much to offer to the field of measurement and that ethnographers ought to take the contribution that they have the potential to make to the field of measurement seriously – at present might be thought to have little agreement either among those researchers whose primary focus is measurement or among ethnographers. This chapter contends that the features and strengths of ethnography specifically, and qualitative research more generally, makes it uniquely suited to contribute to the development of new indicators and the improvement of existing indicators. This chapter modestly hopes to encourage discussion of this contention and illustrate how this author sees his own ethnographic research into indicators of social capital formation as an attempt to address a pressing methodological dilemma within the field, more general of social scientific measure development.

Citation

Tucker, E. (2007), "Measurement as a Rigorous Science: How Ethnographic Research Methods can Contribute to the Generation and Modification of Indicators", Walford, G. (Ed.) Methodological Developments in Ethnography (Studies in Educational Ethnography, Vol. 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 109-135. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1529-210X(06)12007-0