Cognitive Ethnography Projects

Overview

The projects in this class will give you experience using a variety of methods from simple observation, to photo documentation, interviewing, transcription, cultural models content analysis, and finally the analysis of videotape records of collaborative activity. These are useful tools, and you will have to put in some effort to master their use, but you should also have fun doing these projects. They are your license to look at your world in a new way. The later projects in the course require you (possibly together with other students in this class) to make contact with a community of people on campus or in the local community (see projects 3, 4, 5, and 6 below). If you are planning to take CogSci 102c “Cognitive Engineering” next quarter, you should begin thinking very early in the course about a community to work with and a small team of other students to work with. The Professor and the TAs will be happy to talk to you about potential field sites.

You will write a short paper for each project. Here are some tips on how to write a paper for this class.

Project 1. Documenting the Everyday Cognitive Ecology of Time Keeping

Goal

To begin documentation of the cognitive ecology of an everyday technology.

Instructions

1. Take an inventory of your own time keeping technologies: clocks, calendars, day planners, postmarks, expiration dates, etc.

2. Create a list of the main cognitive activities associated with the use of these technologies. (Hint: this is a big job. Allow some time to do it right.)

3. Bring your list of activities to class on Thursday, January 10. We will spend some time in class learning how to write questions that can be used in an interview.

4. Do an interview in class.

5. Write up your field notes from the interview.
What to turn in at class on Tuesday, January 15.

This assignment is worth 50 points.

 

Project 2. Cognitive Diary and Everyday Task Description

Due January 24, 2008

Goal

To see some part of your own life through the cognitoscope.

Instructions

1. Keep a "cognitive diary" for an entire day. Whenever you do a task that requires thinking or remembering, try to notice it and jot it down (or dictate to tape recorder). This will give you some idea of the cognitive texture of everyday life, and give you a collection of cognitive activities to choose from. You are not required to turn in the diary itself. But DO record one.

2. Choose an everyday cognitive activity from your diary to describe in detail. Keep it small and simple. It may be part of your job, or part of a recreational activity, or part of your everyday routine. It should be something that you would have done even if you were not taking this class. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DESCRIBE A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP, OR A PRIVATE ACTIVITY, OR YOUR REASONING ABOUT IT. Do NOT attempt to design an "experiment". DON'T WORRY ABOUT HOW REPRESENTATIVE THE ACTIVITY IS.

3. Describe the cognitive activity as carefully as you can. Some of the questions you might be able to answer include the following: What knowledge seems required to do the task? How does that knowledge take advantage of or interact with structure in the environment? If the activity is engaged in frequently, is there evidence that it has become "routine "? Look for cognitive shortcuts - ways of making a complicated computation into a simple one. You may speculate on the nature of the psychological processes involved ONLY IF you can show relations to established results in psychology OR if you can link the processes to observable phenomena.

Format: Your name. Project 2. Cognitive Diary and Everyday Task Description

The Activity: What is the activity being described?

Description: Your careful and detailed description of the activity.

Maximum 4 pages of text. Normal margins and font size, please. Additional figures, sketches, images and so on, e.g. structure that was used in the environment, are not included in the page count.

Your job is to produce a document that makes it easy for us to see that you did the reading, thought about the issues, and did some real research. Work on making it concise. Please proofread your papers. Use a dictionary!.

Basis of grade: 100 points total. 20 for clarity of presentation, writing, formatting of material; 20 for relevance to the readings; 60 for quality of research, concept for research, and execution.

 

 

Project 3. Photo Documentation of an Everyday Activity

Due February 7, 2008

Goal: To learn how to attend to the details of the everyday world.

Instructions

  1. In this project you are going to take photos of an everyday activity. First, choose an activity. It should be something that interests you and something to which you have access. It could be something you do with your family or with your roommates or friends. It could be an activity at your workplace, or in someone else’s workplace (see below). You should choose an activity in which you can get close to the action. If you are unsure about your choice, send email to the Professor or TAs. They will be happy to consult with you on the choice of activity. You must obtain the informed consent of participants in the activity before you take photos. The procedures for obtaining informed consent are described on the informed consent page. While you are obtaining that consent, also find at least one participant in the activity who will agree to talk to you about the activity later.
  2. Look ahead in the course. This could be a good time to make contact with a working community that will provide the data for the remainder of the class projects.
  3. If you don’t already have access to a camera, buy a disposable camera. If the activity you have chosen takes place indoors or at night, be sure your camera has a flash.
  4. Take pictures of the activity. Try to capture interesting aspects of the activity and the social and material environment in which it takes place. Shoot an entire roll of film - at least 15 frames.
  5. Get the film processed. Use a quick turn-around service, so you can get on to the fun part of the assignment.
  6. Carefully look at your pictures and choose 2 of them that you find most interesting.
  7. Carefully describe what you see in the two photos. Stick close to the data and pay attention. Look for evidence of cognitive activity. Hopefully, you will see things in the study of your photos that you did not see while observing the event live.
  8. Write up your description.

Maximum 4 pages of text. Normal margins and font size please. Your signed informed consent forms and copies of your two photos must be attached to the paper. Additional figures and tables (if they contribute to the description) are not included in the page count.  Note: NO INFORMED CONSENT = NO GRADE.

Basis of grade: 125 points total. 25 for clarity of presentation, writing, formatting of material and relevance to readings; 100 for quality of research, concept for research, and execution.

 

Project 4. Photo-Based Interview

Due February 14, 2008

Goal: To learn how to conduct an interview, and transcribe an audio recording.

Instructions

  1. For this project you will need an audio tape recorder and a blank tape.
  2. Contact a participant in the activity who is willing to talk to you about the activity.
  3. Set up a time and a quiet place to talk to your informant.
  4. Obtain informed consent for audio tape recording from your informant using either the oral procedure described on the informed consent page or using the standard audio recording consent form.
  5. Turn on the tape recorder and interview your informant about the activity you took photos of. Start with the photos you used in project 3, but feel free to use other photos as prompts in the interview. Ask your informant to explain what is going on in the activity. You should consult our list of interviewing tips and potential interview questions before you schedule the interview.
  6. Record at least 30 minutes, but no more than one hour of interview.
  7. Listen through your interview and make an index of what it contains. This should be a list of topics discussed or events in the conversation with some indication of where they appear on the tape. Then choose one or two passages to transcribe.
  8. Transcribe about 1500 words using relaxed transcription techniques. For this, you should just try to get all of the words that are said, including false starts and other disfluencies.
  9. Then choose a small but interesting section of your interview for detailed transcription. Transcribe a passage of about 100 words using the notation for doing detailed transcription. Professor Emmanuel Schegloff at UCLA provides a transcription tutorial that will allow you to listen to some talk and see the detailed transcription of it. I recommend you visit this site.
  10. Write up the index for your interview. Be sure to indicate on the index which sections of the interview were transcribed in relaxed and in detailed form. Type up the relaxed and the detailed transcription in clean form.
  11. Turn in your index, your two transcripts (relaxed and detailed), and your signed informed consent forms.
Here is an example of an excellent project 4 paper done by Navdeep Dhillon in 2007.
Note: NO INFORMED CONSENT = NO GRADE.

Basis of grade: 75 points total. 25 for appropriate use of the detailed transcription notation system; 50 for quality of the interview and relaxed transcription.

 

Project 5. Cultural Models in Your Interview

Due February 21, 2008

Goal: To find and document cultural models used in the construction of meaningful passages in your interview.

Instructions

  1. Search: Look through your interview transcript for evidence of cultural models. It may be necessary to go back and listen to your whole interview again to find passages that contain clear cultural models. Choose a passage that makes it easy for you to find and document the cultural models involved.
  2. Analysis: Describe the cultural models that are required to make sense of, or establish the meaning of, the passage. Make sure that your description is accurate and clear. You might consider expressing it in a diagram or some other notation. Show how these models are used in the passage and how the passage relies on the listener having access to these models. Describe any inferences that the passage suggests. How is the listener expected to go beyond what is literally present in the passage? If possible, provide other evidence (beyond the inference or interpretation that is to be explained) in support of the claim that these models are cultural models.
  3. Write it up including all of the above. Attach the portion of the transcript that you use to the end of the paper. When you make a claim about the presence of a model, you may wish to include brief excerpts from the transcripts in the body of the paper in support of your claims. Many of the papers we have read so far include examples of this.

Maximum 5 pages of text. Normal margins and font size please. Then additional figures and tables if they contribute to the description.

Here is an example of an excellent project 5 paper done by Navdeep Dhillon in 2007.

Basis of grade: 150 points total. 25 for clarity of presentation, writing, formatting of material, 25 for relevance to readings; 100 for quality of research, concept for research, and execution. A checklist to help you ensure you did everything correctly.

 

Project 6

Project 6. Transcription of Activity in Video from Your Setting: Due March 6, 2008

General project guidelines

video consent form

Goal: The goals of this project are to document how real people on campus or in the local area engage in some meaningful activity.  You should have already made contact with the people in an interesting activity setting for projects 3 through 5.  If those contacts are still working, collect your video there.  If, for some reason you cannot, or choose not to, collect video in that setting, you should quickly find another setting where you can collect video data.    The work done on this project may be the basis for design projects that will be performed in Cognitive Science 102c (Cognitive Engineering) in the spring quarter.

6 Instructions

  1. Remember that you cannot collect any video data until you have obtained informed consent.
  2. Make observations: You may already have observed, photographed, and interviewed some members of the community. In this project you should conduct a more systematic study of the ways that people make meaning in everyday activity. Talk to the users and observe them in the activity. Take notes on their activities, describe their tasks, and videotape a person or, preferably, persons interacting with their environment or with one another. Collect at least 15 minutes of video.
  3. Create an index and select clips for analysis: Using the method introduced in project 4, create an index for your video.  Select clips totaling at least 30 seconds duration for analysis.
  4. Transcribe clips: Make a detailed transcription of the activity in your selected clips.  Use the transcription conventions presented in Project 4 to transcribe talk.  Use the assigned readings and the example provided by Professor Hutchins for models of ways to transcribe non-verbal aspects of on-going activity.
  5. Turn in the informed consent form, index, and the transcription on Wednesday, March 7.  Note: NO INFORMED CONSENT = NO GRADE.

Basis of grade: 100 points total. 25 for clarity of presentation, writing, formatting of material; 25 the index and choice of clips; 50 for transcription of clips.

 

Project 7. Analysis of Activity in Video: Due March 13, 2008

  1. Analysis: Analyze the recorded activity using the concepts presented in the readings.
  2. Write up the analysis. Be sure your analysis makes use of the concepts in the readings. 
  3. Please also turn in a copy of your index and transcription.  It is expected that you will have made changes to these during the course of your analysis.   Even if you did not make changes to the index and transcription, turn them in again attached as appendices to your analysis paper. 

Maximum 6 pages of text for your analysis. Normal margins and font size please. Then attach the index, transcript, and any additional figures and tables.

Basis of grade: 150 points total. 25 for clarity of presentation, writing, formatting of material; 25 for relevance to readings; 100 for quality of research, concept for research, and execution.

Here's an example of a pretty good project 7 paper from 2007. Three students worked together on this one. If you are working as a team, contact Professor Hutchins or your TA before going ahead.