Paper short abstract:

When COVID-19 made in-person data collection unsafe, we faced the problem of doing ethnographic research without access to a field site. We altered our cognitive ethnographic study using collaborative autoethnography, remote interviews, digital artifact analysis, and virtual participant observation.

Paper long abstract:

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, all in-person research at our institution was halted. Our research team was conducting a cognitive ethnography study of learning in the engineering research lab and was forced to stop all in-person data collection. Our primary method of participant observation in the field site was suddenly impossible. We made several alterations to continue our ethnographic research remotely. Unlike most virtual ethnography studies that observe online activities, however, we had to observe activities that do not take place online. First, we adopted a collaborative, autoethnographic approach. Participants in the field site were asked to write short reflections describing their situation, thoughts, and activity. We analyzed those narratives and used them to conduct follow-up interviews remotely. Second, we collected and analyzed artifacts such as presentation slides and written paper drafts as records of lab meetings—a locus of major social interactions as revealed by our earlier in-person observation. Third, online chats and email exchanges became everyday social activities in the lab, and our ethnographer participated in and recorded those activities. During the initial phase of complete lockdown, all field site activities were conducted online, and we conducted virtual participant-observation of those activities. In the later phase, lab members had limited access to the laboratory and essential activities resumed under safety restrictions. The lab activities were no longer completely online, but our research still was online-only. This presents a new challenge to participant observation methods as well as an opportunity to test our approach to online participant observation.