On the relevance of qualitative methods for ergonomics

Abstract

The application of qualitative methods to ergonomics research and practice offers us a new window on the nature of the interaction between humans and technology. The method discussed by Hignett and Wilson (2004) exemplifies this potential by applying their method to explicate the attitudes of practitioners and academic researchers toward qualitative methodology itself. Their specific findings, however, may be due in part to differences between the institutional structures in which they work as well as the attitudes of the specific individuals surveyed. Here, we offer a commentary on their work and reinforce the importance of qualitative research in ergonomics, while discussing the philosophical empirical, and theoretical issues raised by the introduction of these methods. We conclude that the fundamental problems inherent in qualitative approaches are limitations on quantitative methods also, being inherent to all forms of observation. While supportive of the general thesis proposed and especially appreciative of the authors’ focus on purpose, we point to the problem of integrating different orders of knowledge as a significant barrier to future progress towards a comprehensive theory for ergonomics.

Keywords:

• Qualitative methods
• ergonomics
• ethics
• human factors
• intention
• science of purpose

Acknowledgements

This research was facilitated by a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program grant from the Army Research Office, Dr. Elmar Schmeisser, Technical Monitor (Grant # DAAD19-01-1-0621). The research was also facilitated by grants from the Army Research Laboratory, Mr. John Lockett, Dr. Michael Barnes, and Dr. Jessie Chen, Technical Monitors (Grant # DAAD 19-01-C-0065), and from a DARPA-funded program under Grant NBCH1030012, CMDR Dylan Schmorrow, Technical Monitor. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the US Government.

About the authors

Peter A. Hancock is Provost Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Psychology, the Institute for Simulation and Training, and at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Central Florida. He is currently the Director of the Minds in Technology, Machines in Thought Laboratory at UCF. In his previous appointment, he founded and was the Director of the Human Factors Research Laboratory at the University of Minnesota. At Minnesota he held appointments as Full Professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Psychology, and Kinesiology as well as at the Cognitive Science Center and the Center on Aging Research. He currently holds a courtesy appointment as a Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and as an Adjunct Senior Research Scientist at the Transportation Institute of the University of Michigan. Professor Hancock is the author of over four hundred refereed scientific articles and publications as well as editing numerous books including: Human Performance and Ergonomics in the Handbook of Perception and Cognition series, published by Academic Press in 1999 and Stress, Workload, and Fatigue, published in 2001 by Lawrence Erlbaum. He is the author of the 1997 book, Essays on the Future of Human-Machine Systems. He has been continuously funded by extramural sources for every year of his professional career, including support from NASA, NIH, NIA, FAA, FHWA, the US Navy and the US Army as well as numerous State and Industrial agencies. He is the Principal Investigator on the recently awarded Multi-Disciplinary University Research Initiative, in which he will oversee $5 Million of funded research on stress, workload, and performance. In 1999 he was the Arnold Small Lecturer of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and in 2000 he was awarded the Sir Frederic Bartlett Medal of the Ergonomics Society of Great Britain for lifetime achievement. He was the Keynote Speaker for the International Ergonomics Association and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society at the 2000 combined meeting in San Diego. In 2001 he won the Franklin V. Taylor Award of the American Psychological Association as well as the Liberty Mutual Prize for Occupational Safety and Ergonomics from the International Ergonomics Association. In association with his colleagues Raja Parasuraman and Anthony Masalonis, he was the winner of the Jerome Hirsch Ely Award of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society for 2001, the same year in which he was elected a Fellow of the International Ergonomics Association. He was awarded a Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) degree from Loughborough University in December, 2001. In 2002, he was awarded the Jastrzebowski Medal of the Polish Ergonomics Society for contributions to world ergonomics and in the same year was named a Fellow of the Ergonomics Society of Great Britain. He has recently been elected to a three-year term as a Member of the National Research Council's Committee on Human Factors and which will run concurrently with his membership of the Executive Council of the Human Factors and Ergonomic Society. His current experimental work concerns the evaluation of behavioral response to high-stress conditions. His theoretical works concerns human relations with technology and the possible futures of this symbiosis. He is a Fellow of and past President of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. He collects and studies antique maps and is a committed Ricardian.

James L. Szalma is a Senior Research Scientist in the Minds in Technology, Machines in Thought Laboratory at the University of Central Florida. His previous appointment was assistant professor in the psychology department at SUNY Farmingdale. He received his Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of Cincinnati, where he investigated the performance, workload, and stress of monitoring tasks, and the use of feedback in training for vigilance performance. In addition to vigilance, his current research efforts are aimed at testing theoretical models of stress and performance. As part of this work, he is investigating the individual differences related to stress and coping strategies. he is also conducting studies to empirically test a novel modification of Signal Detection Theory, Fuzzy Signal Detection Theory.

Notes

 William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) who devised the Kelvin (ratio) scale of temperature, asserted that ‘when you measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it, but when you cannot express it in numbers your knowledge about it is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind (D MacHale, Comic Sections)’.