Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
these divisions?” Participants explained that catalogers and conservationists
work in separate departments within one division, and curators work in a com-
pletely different division. For greater generalizability, I compared perceptions
of several individuals to identify similarities and differences in perspective
resulting from power, status, and role differences. I also called and visited
other research libraries to learn whether this structural pattern was typical of
research universities throughout the country. (Telephone and written question-
naires are useful tools for determining how representative the particular
patterns are within an organization and across organizations.) Structural ques-
tions provide the similarities that exist across the conceptual spectrum—in the
native's head. (See Spradley & McCurdy, 1989, for additional information
about the construction of taxonomic definitions. See also Clair, 2003.)
Attribute questions—questions about the characteristics of a role or a
structural element—ferret out the differences between conceptual cate-
gories. Typically, the interview will juxtapose structural with attribute ques-
tions. Information from a structural question might suggest a question about
the differences between various newly identified categories. For example,
after learning about the various divisions and departments that constitute a
research library, I could logically ask about the differences between them
using the following attribute question: “What is the difference between
librarians who work in technical services and librarians who work in public
services?” In addition to learning the functional differences between these
two positions, I learned much about perceived discrepancies in status
between catalogers who work in the “bowels of the library”—in near sweat-
shop conditions, unseen by the rest of the university—and curators, who
work with students, staff, and faculty in plush, air-conditioned, carpeted
offices with plenty of space and light. To discover more about each division
and department, I followed this response with the following structural ques-
tion: “What are the departments in technical services?” Librarians eagerly
taught me about the various departments in that division, including acquisi-
tions, cataloging, serials, binding and finishing, and conservation. The fol-
lowing attribute question was then useful in clarifying my understanding of
the library's organization: “What is the difference between acquisitions and
cataloging?”
1
The response to this question gave me a clearer idea about the
production flow of the topics in this system. (See Spradley & McCurdy,
1989, for a discussion about componential analysis).
Structural and attribute questions derive from a cognitive theory (symbolic
interactionism) about how the world works (Blumer, 1969). Clearly, however,
these question types are valuable in almost any theoretical approach because
they help organize the fieldworker's perception of how others define reality.
