Qualitative Assignment
The purpose of this exercise is to give you experience reflecting on qualitative data. Spend a half hour observing some situation. For example, you might observe workers at McDonalds, fellow students in the dorm, parents at a ball game, or people at a shopping mall. Take copious notes during your observation period. Record everything you see, hear, smell, etc. After you have finished your observation, use the Description Question Matrix to write a paragraph for each heading. Within each paragraph address each of the cells. A sample is provided below. At the end of the assignment, list some questions you have about what you observed. Since this is intended to be short research experience, you do not need to provide more than one example for each cell of the Description Question Matrix.  The matrix is one qualitative researcher's method of analyzing data. 

Note: Qualitative researchers often refer to the people they study as actors.

Sample Qualitative Assignment
Created by Summer 2001 EPSY 341 student Jamie L. Wright

Description Question Matrix

Space:        The space was a circular brick courtyard between the library and the business administration building, within sight of the UConn Coop.  The space was organized by the surrounding buildings (objects), as well as light poles.  Activities in the space include lunching, survey-taking, bicycling, conversation, and lots of walking.  The space varied over time, in terms of how crowded or empty it was with actors and vehicles.  The space was used by most actors to travel through, although some paused and commandeered particular corners.  In terms of goals, the space served primarily as a passageway to someplace else; it didn’t seem to be much of an end in itself for the majority of actors.  The open space and school banners attached to the light poles might inspire feelings of pride or contentment in passersby.

Objects:                The buildings were on the edges of the courtyard, and light poles formed a ring around the circle.  Two bike racks were near the library entrance, and one near the business building.  The poles were about twelve feet tall and topped with clear plastic coverings shaped like the head of the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz.  The poles were painted a dark, stale, green-gray, with vertical ridges.  UConn banners fly near the tops of the light poles, and  yellow fliers with ragged phone numbers were taped to their mid-sections.  The cement ledges around the circle were used in activities for seating during lunch and surveys, but their occupation varied over time.  The actors used the ledges for seating, the bike racks for parking, and the buildings for entering and exiting, but they all ignored the light poles.  The only objects used to meet goals within view were the cement ledges, where some lunchers and survey-takers sat.  Presumably, there were goals met inside the buildings, such as studying and learning.  The objects do not observably evoke feelings in any of the actors, although the banners on the light poles might inspire school pride, and the sun shining in the open space might elicit calm or relaxation.

Activities:                The activities of walking, biking, and driving occured across the brick space, and the lunches and surveys took place around the edges of the circle.  The concrete ledges were objects used for lunches and survey-taking, and the bike racks were used for people entering buildings in the area.  The survey-taking activity involved actors approaching and/or calling out to other actors, who paused for brief discussions, and mostly moved away quickly without taking the offered pamphlets.  The survey-taking varied over time, because a pair of actors approached people in the circle area, then moved on, and a new survey-taker took a spot on a ledge and called out to passersby.  The goal of the survey-taking activity was to get information.  The feelings involved in the activity of survey-taking was apparent disinterest on the part of some interviewees, and persistence on the part of the survey takers.

Time:      Time periods occured in terms of variance in actor’s schedules who appeared in the circular courtyard space.  Time affected objects because the lightpoles had different shadows at 11:45 than at 12:30, and the lights weren’t on in the day time.  Activities fell into time periods in terms of numbers of people needing to move across the space according to their schedules. There were more actors moving across the courtyard to go to the Coop at 12:15 than at 11:45.   Actors were constantly onstage, but none of the actors I observed were there for the full observation time, so they constantly changed over time.  Goals were related to time periods insofar as actors planned their schedules toward achieving those goals; people taking classes toward the goal of a degree might get out of class at noon, and move across the courtyard to the library to do research for assignments at 12:15.  Feelings were constantly present during the observation period, but some were more observable than others—some actors were obviously jovial, some determined, some lonely.  I did not observe a change in the feelings of the same actor during the time they were present in the observation area.

Actors:                 The actors placed themselves along the outside edges of the courtyard, and moved across the center in varying directions.  The actors used bicycles, bike racks, concrete ledges, and doors to buildings to accomplish varying goals related to going somewhere, and studying, shopping, eating, or going to class.  Unseen actors used the light poles in this space to advertise services and events.  The actors were involved in the activities of eating, survey-taking, and going from one place to another.  The actors constantly changed over time in this space; the longest a single actor stayed in the space was fifteen minutes.  The survey-taker was a woman in her thirties, who tapped her heel against the brick, drinking juice, calling out to people and asking if they were students.  She skipped people who looked over fifty.  She is linked to the goal of survey-taking.  She was observably upbeat, even though no one participated in her survey, and her true feelings might have been different.

Goals:                   Goals were sought and achieved where actors enter the library (presumably toward the goal of studying), or finished their lunches on the circle’s edge.  Actors used buildings as objects toward their goals—presumably to meet people, to study, to take classes, to buy snacks and souvenirs.  Eating lunch is an activity related to the goal maintaining physical health and energy, and survey-taking is an activity related to the goal of gaining information.  The goal of eating/maintaining health is related to time in terms of an actor’s schedule, and to some extent, what the actors ate was dictated by the time of day.  Survey-taking appeared to encourage some travelers to move to their destinations faster, since they moved away quickly.  The goal of moving from one place to another was accomplished uncertainly by a woman draped in long clothing with a covered head, who moved toward the library door, entered, and came out again a minute later, walking in a different direction from the one she had come.  The goal of getting from one place to another is accomplished by actors who displayed different kinds of feelings, from confusion to confidence.

Feelings:                Feelings occur on the edges of the circle, and were observable from actors as they moved through and across the circle.  Feelings of desperation, self-efficacy, or curiosity might have instigated the use of buildings as objects.  The feelings of the people moving across the circle may have dictated whether or not they were interested in participating in the survey; if they felt hurried, they might not have wanted to participate in that activity.  Actors’ schedules changed their feelings of urgency about where they needed to be and how fast.  Actors who walked alone looked down more; perhaps they were feeling uncomfortable.  Actors in pairs and groups looked around more, displayed more confidence, and were more likely to make eye contact.  The strength of feeling of needing to be somewhere affects how fast actors accomplished their goals of reaching destinations.  A feeling of companionship was evident in a family of five, who walked casually out of the library, talking about their lunch plans.  The littlest girl was on the big man’s shoulders, and the boy and older girl were walking slightly ahead of the other three, but not next to each other.

Questions Related to the Observations:

1)            Does the fact that younger males walking alone tend to walk across the exact center of the seal mean that they are more confident than females walking alone who tend to walk toward the edges of the circle?

2)           How did the University decide which school banner to hang on which light pole, and does the color of each have any particular significance?

3)           Why do women walking in groups seem so much louder than men walking in groups?

4)           Why do women walking alone tend to have such apologetic demeanor?

5)           What was the survey-taker gaining by attempting the surveys, in terms of salary and course credit, or was it purely to gather information?

6)           Do people feel guilty if they refuse to participate in surveys, and does guilt make them move away from the person they rejected faster than if they had not had any contact with each other?

7)           Are there any special traffic rules for vehicles when they’re driving on campus?