Research in healthcare settings and medical education has relied heavily on quantitative methods. However, there are research questions within these academic domains that may be more adequately addressed by qualitative inquiry. While there are many qualitative approaches, ethnography is one method that allows the researcher to take advantage of relative immersion in order to obtain thick description. The purpose of this article is to introduce ethnography, to describe how ethnographic methods may be utilized, to provide an overview of ethnography's use in healthcare and medical education, and to summarize some key limitations with the method.
This thesis was an experimental research project designed to identify the impacts of negative and positive political advertising on voting behavior. The research also focused on how negative and positive political advertising affects the character image of a candidate. Additionally, the research asked questions to determine if opinions on current political issues make a difference in voting behavior. The subjects (N=134) watched a series of commercials from an actual primary congressional election. The subjects viewed different combinations of advertisements to determine the different impacts. The results of the research suggest that there is a significant difference when comparing the reactions to negative and positive political advertising. Negative advertising can be informative to voters whereas positive advertising attracts more votes.
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