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Introduction
Chapter Three
Research methods and their use
Chapter One ended with two questions, one about the nature of the gap in knowledge of
learning groups, and the other about the gap in ways of investigating such gaps in
knowledge. Chapter Two Part One examined the literature for concepts and findings
about learning groups and potential ways of investigating them that circumscribe and
begin to fill these gaps. Chapter Two Part One also set out some examples of
investigations in a range of disciplines. Aspects of this assembled material were then
synthesised in Chapter Two Part Two into the methodology of Group-Analytic
Ethnography, as a set of principles underpinning the research methods and their
rationale, in relation to the research questions and to the theoretical approach as a
whole. This third chapter is aimed to complete the elucidation of this methodology, by
outlining compatible research methods, that is, how data are produced and analysed, and
by discussing issues relating to these methods and how they have been specified and
deployed in the study. (Other possible deployments of this novel methodology and its
methods are considered in Chapter Twelve, and a series of illustrations of its possible
use are contained in Appendix Two).
It seems important to begin with some background on the development of the study, in
order to put into context the issues to be considered in this chapter.