Market Research: Foundations to Practice · Qualitative Research Methods
Ethnography and Contextual Inquiry
What people say they do and what they actually do often diverge, sometimes substantially. This chapter covers the observational methods designed specifically to close that gap.
Ethnographic research and contextual inquiry involve observing participants in their natural environment, at home, at work, or in a store, rather than relying solely on what they report in an interview or survey, specifically because people's self-reported behavior and their actual behavior frequently diverge, sometimes because of memory limitations and sometimes because people unconsciously present a more favorable account of their own habits than reality reflects.
Key Takeaways
- Ethnography and contextual inquiry observe behavior in its natural environment because self-reported behavior often diverges from actual behavior.
- Contextual inquiry combines observation with real-time questioning, capturing reasoning that a delayed interview would lose to memory decay.
- These methods are resource-intensive and produce data from very few participants, sharpening the generalization caveat that applies to interviews.
- The investment is worthwhile when a reported-versus-actual behavior gap is suspected, or physical/social context is essential to the research question.