Resources

The following resources will help you learn more about QE.

Suggested Readings

Shaffer, D. W. (2017). Quantitative ethnography. Madison, WI: Cathcart Press.

This book is an introduction into the field of Quantitative Ethnography and covers, among others:

Integration of quantitative and qualitative research methods
Taxonomy of observations (thick and thin descriptions)
Issues related to data collection, coding, segmentation and modeling
The rationale behind Epistemic Network Analysis

Irgens, G. A., & Eagan, B. (2023). The Foundations and Fundamentals of Quantitative Ethnography. In International Conference on Quantitative Ethnography. Springer, Cham.

This paper outlines 10 steps in the iterative QE modeling pathway and 5 main practices in a QE analysis.

Bressler, D. M., Bodzin, A. M., Eagan, B. & Tabatabai, S. (2019). Using epistemic network analysis to examine discourse and scientific practice during a collaborative game. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 28(5), 553-566.

This paper is an example of a QE analysis of middle school STEM learning.

Shaffer D.W., Ruis A.R. (2021). How we code. In Ruis, A.R. & Lee, S.B. (Eds.), Advances in Quantitative Ethnography: Second International Conference, ICQE 2020, Malibu, CA, USA, February 1-3, 2021, Proceedings (pp. 62-77). Springer.

This paper offers an overview of qualitative coding in a QE framework.

Hod, Y., Katz, S., & Eagan, B. (2020). Refining qualitative ethnographies using epistemic network analysis: A study of socioemotional learning dimensions in a humanistic knowledge building community. Computers & Education, 156.

This paper provides an example of the benefits of conducting a QE analysis on data from a previous qualitative or ethnographic study.

Csanadi, A., Eagan, B., Shaffer, D. W., Kollar, I., & Fischer, F. (2018). When coding-and-counting is not enough: Using epistemic network analysis (ENA) to analyze verbal data in CSCL research. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 13(4), 419-438.

This article demonstrates the benefits of using ENA compared to more traditional methods of assessing learning.

QE Resources

General Quantitative Ethnography

Foundational resources on the field of Quantitative Ethnography and links to the Zotero repository and QE YouTube channel.

Data Coding and Segmentation

Important QE papers on data coding, coding validation & segmentation, and resources on the nCoder webtool (an automated text coding tool), nCodeR (R package for automated text coding), and Open Science and the Reproducible Open Coding Kit (ROCK), a text segmentation tool.

Epistemic Network Analysis

Resources on Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA), the ENA webtool, and rENA.

QE Tools

A selection of QE tools.

The QE Zotero Library

QE Zotero library provides a comprehensive bibilography of publications that use QE methods or practices.

Acknowledgments

If you would like to add an acknowledgment to a publication based on the support you received from the institute for your work, please use the following language:

This work was funded in part by the National Science Foundation (DRL-2225240, DRL-2526678) and supported by the Quantitative Ethnography Fellows Institute at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. The opinions, findings, and conclusions do not reflect the views of the funding agencies, cooperating institutions, or other individuals.