Qualitative Methodology and Ethnographic Research Method

Yoo, Eun Kwang

Abstract

This paper presents methodological paradigms: quantitative positivistic (logical empiricism) as the received tradition in the scientific inquiry and qualitative naturalistic (post-positivism or nataralism) as a new paradigm in the Kuhnian sense. Various kind of qualitative methods under the umbrella term, qualitative inquiry, were briefly introduced. Details on the definition, epistemology, naming of subject, field technique (participant observation and ethnographic interview) of ethnographic research method as an adequate method for studying on the unique nursing phenomena in Korean culture were done. Besides, the concept of triangulation, issues on the methododogical paradigm, a criteria for rigor of qualitative naturalistic inquiry were mentioned.