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Business Research Methods, Chapter 17: Ethnography and Participant Observation

Instructions: For each question, click on the radio button beside your answer. When you have completed the entire quiz, click the Submit my answers button at the bottom of the page to receive your results.

Question 1:


a) The researcher immerses him-or herself in a social setting for an extended period of time
b) The researcher observes behaviour
c) The researcher listens in on conversations
d) All of the above

Question 2:


a) Friends, colleagues, academics can help gain access
b) Offer something in return
c) Obtain the help of someone within the organization
d) All of the above

Question 3:


a) Participants behave naturally because they don’t know they are observed
b) Researchers have a harder time gaining access to the situation they’d like to observe
c) It provides the participants with the opportunity to consent to the research
d) All of the above

Question 4:


a) Someone who directs an ethnographer to situations , events, or people who might be helpful for the research
b) Somebody who is very interested in gossip
c) The only person the researcher is allowed to talk to
d) The researcher themself

Question 5:


a) Participant-as-observer
b) Complete participant
c) Quantitative researcher as participant
d) Complete observer

Question 6:


a) Participant-as-observer
b) Observer-as-participant
c) Complete participant
d) None of the above

Question 7:


a) The ethnographer loses his/her sense of being a researcher and is wrapped up in the worldview of the people being studied
b) The ethnographer observes a group in their natural environment
c) The ethnographer behaves naturally in the group, while continuing to research
d) None of the above

Question 8:


a) Because they don’t care about the generalization of their results, they only want to understand the results
b) Because they are forced to gather information from wherever it is available
c) Because it is impossible to map the population from which a sample will be taken
d) All of the above

Question 9:


a) This occurs when a researcher has to admit that he or she didn’t find any useful results
b) This occurs when a theory is repeatedly tested under different observation settings
c) This is the point at which a concept is so well-developed that no further data collection is needed
d) This is the point at which the company does not allow further observations to occur