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determine similarities and differences in the ways people see the world. Open-
and closed-ended questions help the ethnographer discover and confirm the
participant's experiences and perceptions. (See sections on permission and
institutional review boards presented in Chapter 7.)
Survey or Grand Tour Questions
A survey question—or what Spradley and McCurdy (1989) call a grand
tour question—is designed to elicit a broad picture of the participant's or
native's world, to map the cultural terrain. Survey questions help the ethnogra-
pher define the boundaries of a study and plan wise use of resources. The par-
ticipant's overview of the physical setting, universe of activities, and thoughts
help focus and direct the investigation.
In a study about a university, a typical survey question would be the follow-
ing: Could you show me around the university? In responding to this question,
the individual would teach about the different academic and business depart-
ments, the hospital, the church or synagogue or both, the student union, the
library, the fraternities, and so on. The quality of a grand tour question determines
its usefulness. The narrower the survey question, the narrower the response and,
in turn, the resulting overview of a culture. At the same time, the scope of the
study determines the scope at which a survey question is useful. For example,
if the study includes an entire university, then the previous grand tour question
would be a good survey question. If the study comprises the whole of American
culture, asking an individual to show the ethnographer around verges on the
ridiculous; in limited settings, this approach can be highly misleading.
In my study of a university library, I asked one individual to show me
around. I took a tour of familiar grounds: the reference desk, the electronic and
hard-copy catalog files, special collections, and various graduate and under-
graduate collections. I also saw the behind-the-scenes places: administrative
offices, basement rooms of uncataloged topics, cataloging rooms, rooms filled
with computer hardware and software, and other unfamiliar locations. This
information helped me refine the scope of my study; at the same time, it pro-
vided a context within which to frame my investigation. This grand tour helped
me understand how topics and people flow through the library system. Parts of
the library operated like a production line: others followed the model of a com-
munity of medieval scholars and illuminators. Once I had a good grasp of how
much I did not know, I developed somewhat narrower survey questions. For
example, I realized that I did not know what librarians did on a daily basis—
so I asked.
Survey questions led to information that allowed me to construct a basic
map of the place, develop a model of how it worked, and isolate preliminary
