Importance of qualitative research in anthropology

journal article

The Use of Quantitative Observational Techniques in Anthropology [and Comments and Replies]

Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, T. M. Caro, James S. Chrisholm, Jean-Paul Dumont, Roberta L. Hall, Robert A. Hinde and Ryutaro Ohtsuka

Current Anthropology

Vol. 26, No. 3 [Jun., 1985]

, pp. 323-335 [13 pages]

Published By: The University of Chicago Press

//www.jstor.org/stable/2742731

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Abstract

The measurement of human activity is discussed in relation to anthropological methods and to observational techniques borrowed from the field of animal behavior. When observational techniques are used, a number of sources of bias emerge: choice of subjects, time of day, seasonal, demographic, and spatial effects, and the presence of the observer. Such biases can be circumvented. Use of a system of recording that describes both physical and purposeful aspects of activity preserves objective information about behavior; it can also be used to reveal cross-cultural and intracultural variation in the way tasks are performed, in work density, and in job responsibility and delegation. The ability of the observer to communicate verbally with subjects does not set observational studies on humans apart from animal studies but only adds another tier to anthropological investigation.

Journal Information

Current issues are now on the Chicago Journals website. Read the latest issue.Current Anthropology is a transnational journal devoted to research on humankind, encompassing the full range of anthropological scholarship on human cultures and on the human and other primate species. Communicating across the subfields, the journal features papers in a wide variety of areas, including social, cultural, and physical anthropology as well as ethnology and ethnohistory, archaeology and prehistory, folklore, and linguistics.

Publisher Information

Since its origins in 1890 as one of the three main divisions of the University of Chicago, The University of Chicago Press has embraced as its mission the obligation to disseminate scholarship of the highest standard and to publish serious works that promote education, foster public understanding, and enrich cultural life. Today, the Journals Division publishes more than 70 journals and hardcover serials, in a wide range of academic disciplines, including the social sciences, the humanities, education, the biological and medical sciences, and the physical sciences.

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Anthropology is a research method of combining qualitative and quantitative research data. It is concerned with exploring connections simultaneously, amidst cultural Differences, Alternatives and Identity. In the contemporary academic, socio-cultural and political climate these concepts have immense symbolic overtones.

Why is quantitative research important to anthropology?

Quantitative research methods are important because they provide an objective [intersubjective] basis for evaluating claims of causal relationships. Based on probability theory, they provide a superior measure for evaluating claimed causal relations and for choosing between two or more competing theories.

Quantitative assumes an objective observer that is gathering empirical evidence that explains an objective reality. Quantitative analysis strives to replicate the objectivity of the hard sciences, and is more often found in Sociology and the social sciences. …

What is the importance of anthropology?

Social anthropology plays a central role in an era when global understanding and recognition of diverse ways of seeing the world are of critical social, political and economic importance. Social anthropology uses practical methods to investigate philosophical problems about the nature of human life in society.

What is the importance of research in anthropology?

Anthropologists study the concept of culture and its relationship to human life in different times and places. They study other societies to gain a clearer perspective on our own. They study the past to help interpret the present.

What is the importance of quantitative research in history?

The purpose of quantitative research is to generate knowledge and create understanding about the social world. Quantitative research is used by social scientists, including communication researchers, to observe phenomena or occurrences affecting individuals. Social scientists are concerned with the study of people.

Why quantitative research is important to these fields?

Quantitative research is used to populate statistics from a high volume sample size to gain statistically valid results in customer insight. … It’s important to ensure a suitable sample size is used to gain accurate and trustworthy results.

What is the importance of quantitative research in education?

Education research often relies on the quantitative methodology. Quantitative research in education provides numerical data that can prove or disprove a theory, and administrators can easily share the number-based results with other schools and districts.

What are the 5 methods of anthropology?

Some of the more common types of anthropological research methods include [1] immersion in a culture, [2] analysis of how people interact with their environment, [3] linguistic analysis, [4] archaeological analysis, and [5] analysis of human biology.

What is the importance of quantitative research and communication?

Written for communication students, Quantitative Research in Communication provides practical, user-friendly coverage of how to use statistics, how to interpret SPSS printouts, how to write results, and how to assess whether the assumptions of various procedures have been met.

Studying anthropology gives you an insight into what makes people tick and the centrality of culture in motivating social action. … Anthropologists compare how people live in different societies at different times and places and come up with theories about why people behave in particular ways.

What makes anthropology unique?

These include its: cross-cultural or comparative emphasis, its evolutionary/historical emphasis, its ecological emphasis and its holistic emphasis. … A cross-cultural or comparative approach is central to anthropological understanding. This emphasis also makes anthropology unique among the social sciences.

Why is culture important in anthropology?

Culture is an important concept in anthropology. … Human beings use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which they live.” [LS:512]. Culture has been used in anthropology to understand human difference, but within this understanding there have been benefits and drawbacks to the ideas of culture.

Applied anthropologists work to solve real world problems by using anthropological methods and ideas. For example, they may work in local communities helping to solve problems related to health, education or the environment. They might also work for museums or national or state parks helping to interpret history.

What are the four major fields of anthropology?

There are now four major fields of anthropology: biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology.

What is the main emphasis in the study of anthropology?

Anthropology is the study of people, past and present, with a focus on understanding the human condition both culturally and biologically. … In a general sense, anthropology is concerned with determining what humans are, how they evolved, and how they differ from one another.

Why is qualitative research important in anthropology?

Qualitative research enables us to make sense of reality, to describe and explain the social world and to develop explanatory models and theories. It is the primary means by which the theoretical foundations of social sciences may be constructed or re-examined.

What is the importance of quantitative research on anthropology?

Quantitative research methods are important because they provide an objective [intersubjective] basis for evaluating claims of causal relationships. Based on probability theory, they provide a superior measure for evaluating claimed causal relations and for choosing between two or more competing theories.

What is qualitative research in anthropology?

Qualitative research is in-depth research that seeks to understand why something happens the way it does. In anthropology, qualitative research includes participating as well as observing. It often crosses disciplinary boundaries and strays from a single subject, or variable being studied.

What is the importance of research in anthropology?

again, the great thing about anthropology's subfields is that we can use each other's knowledge and research techniques to better understand why we act the way we do, and how it affects our physical, cultural, social, and political environments. This is how anthropology affects the world we live in.

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