|
"A mid-sized state college spent a small fortune on a new recruitment project that went horribly wrong. You have been hired as a consultant to determine what happened in order to prevent a similar failure in the future. You visit the college administration and obtain a list of key personnel involved with the project. You interview these people, and also interview others named by them. You ask all of them what went wrong. You then put together a composite picture (weighing some people’s account more than others based on your judgment of the accuracy of their reports) and you present the results to management.
Is this a good methodology given the research objective?
Where would you place the attitude toward the interviewees along the continuum of subject— respondent—informant—expert?
In general, when is an emic and when is an etic study called for? --What other qualitative method could you have used? Describe it in detail."
| 