Epistemology in ethnography: assessing the quality of knowledge in human factors research

Abstract

Quality measures are often used to judge research. This paper looks at what measures have been used in the human factors community to evaluate qualitative research and suggests some alternatives. Using ethnography as a test case, the paper raises the question of whether it is appropriate to use measures derived from quantitative and experimental research to judge the quality of qualitative studies, regardless of the subject and problem domain.

Keywords:

• human factors
• epistemology
• quality of knowledge
• ethnography

Acknowledgements

Part of the time devoted to the writing of this paper was financed by The Region Västra Götaland, Sweden. We gratefully acknowledge the reviewers of previous drafts of this paper – especially Professor Emerita Gunnela Westlander for her help with a very early version. Furthermore, the first reviewers for this journal helped us realise that we were actually writing not one but two papers.