Robots can be used as helpful tools in qualitative research to understand human beings. This paper describes the methodology and significance of robot–mediated participant observation through our practice in communication therapy for children. The following are our major claims here. (1) Simple robots help children understand the robots’ “intentions” and “emotions.” (2) Remotely controlling a robot, the researcher can socially interact with children by exchanging intentions and emotions, through which (3) the researcher can elaborate the intersubjective understanding of the children. (4) Recording the interaction from the robot’s first–person perspective allows other researchers to re–experience the interaction; this enables the collaborative construction of understanding of the children. We concluded from the discussions that robots serve as helpful tools for qualitative research of human communication.

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This article reviews the Electronically Activated Recorder or EAR as an ecological assessment tool for real–world (acoustic) observations of daily behavior. Technically, the EAR is an audio recorder that intermittently records snippets of ambient sounds while participants go about their lives. Conceptually, it is a naturalistic observation method that yields an acoustic log of a person’s day as it unfolds. The power of the EAR lies in unobtrusively collecting authentic real–life observational data. In preserving a high degree of naturalism at the level of the raw recordings, it resembles ethnographic methods and lends itself to a qualitative research approach. Through its sampling and quantitative behavioral coding, it also enables empirical studies. This article provides an overview of the EAR method and reviews its validity and utility for studying psychological phenomena directly in everyday life.

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The video observation tool CAVScene archives an observer's marking and segmentation of a critical scene from background data. Using previously recorded observational data on toddlers' peer play, we analyzed the trends in clip segmentation and the recorded play interactions to investigate aspects of toddlers' peer play. Both long and short video clips showed how toddlers continue their peer play in a fluid manner. In play that continued at the same place, toddlers enjoyed the change brought about by outsiders, although the theme of the play was not shared by all. In play that continued with the same people, toddlers expressed their intentions in various ways. This behavior was more predominant among 2–year–old toddlers. The short clips, which more often included 1–year–old toddlers, captured spontaneous cooperation and children's fascination with peers' play. These results were derived by expanding the media using this new video observation tool.

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This study explored robot vacuum cleaners' meaning to humans as moving artifacts in the environment. We visited households where robot vacuum cleaners were used and observed and accompanied robots as they cleaned. We recorded the robots' movements, contact with the environment, and human actions. The organization and analysis of the data indicated the following. (1) Robots contact objects, especially light and movable objects, and humans as natural objects and create a new environment. (2) Robots' environment consists only of the physical environment, whereas the human environment consists of physical and psychological factors. (3) Robots are included in the human-home system, which develops human consideration of the human-robot-home system. We have discussed possible methods of understanding humans by observing robots.

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In this paper, we discuss the methodological possibilities of conducting ethnographic research as a team. First, we discuss the Rashomon effect and the collaborative research problem while performing team ethnography. Next, we determine that there are three forms of teams in existing team ethnography, and then we deal with cases in which we observe the same objects at the same time or different objects at the same time. Specifically, the ethnographies describe the process of developing activities in the field, forming a team prior to the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes. Finally, based on these examples, we discuss that team ethnography has four possibilities: (1) to motivate to listen to new ‘narratives’; (2) to raise new questions by becoming aware of assumptions that have become self–evident in the field; (3) to have the potential to break down the asymmetric relation of ‘investigator–object’; and (4) to change the community by bringing new norms.

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This is a self-directed study exploring the challenges experienced by the authors, both of whom are hearing relatives to deaf family members: a child of deaf adults and a sibling of deaf children. We are bicultural members of both hearing and deaf cultures, but we can be considered invisible minorities, as our participation in deaf culture remains hidden. This research aimed to externalize our challenges by objectifying our own experiences as invisible minorities. We used collaborative autoethnography to investigate the social and cultural structures underlying the challenges we face. Our autoethnographies show that we face a dilemma: do we embrace deaf culture as being part of us or acculturate to the hearing culture and society? Moreover, the findings suggest that we are in a situation of cognitive incongruity where conflicting messages from hearing and deaf cultures occur. Moreover, we experience internalized stigma as individuals who have family members with disabilities, which can be understood as structural stigma experienced not only directly from the other hearing people but also indirectly from deaf family members.

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This article aims to clarify the sense of identity of students with mild intellectual disabilities (MID) by analyzing how they represent themselves in social contexts such as interactions with students without disabilities. Two inter– school exchanges between a special education institution for students with intellectual disabilities and a general high school were targeted, and two students with MID were selected for specific attention. The ethnographic method was utilized to collect visual data pertaining to the social interactions of the students, oral data of their conversations, and narrative data compiled through stimulated recall interviews with the two focal students with MID. The lived experiences of the two selected students as represented by the data were examined using the descriptive phenomenological method. Three major findings were revealed: first, the students with MID related in detail their exchanges with others based on specific events; second, the students with MID did not identify themselves as disabled; rather, they thought they were interesting to others; and third, the sense of identity of the students with MID exhibited developmental coherence through the past, present, and future.

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Identity is perceived not only by the self but also by others. When exploring the identity development of an individual with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), it is essential to focus on the individual’s interactions with their family and community, namely the relational system. This study’s purpose was to delineate the developmental process of identity and the common relational systems through three case studies. It was found that identity development was influenced by individuals, families, and social systems. Five common factors supporting identity development were: 1) a positive change in the parent-child relationship after the diagnosis of ASD; 2) exploration of the identities of both the parent(s) and child, and the emergence of the child’s autobiography; 3) cooperation with the school and the formation of a network leading to a secure psychological foundation beyond the parents; 4) development of friendships leading to sharing of interests and feelings, and alleviation of loneliness; and 5) a shift in the parents’ viewpoint of their child in adolescence. It was also identified three stages of transformation that support the developmental of identity.

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This study explores the subjective effect on the narrator by changing the grammatical subject from the first–person pronoun to the second–person pronoun in recounting a narrative. The participants (n = 28) were asked to recount their own past experience using either the second–person pronoun ‘you’ or the third–person pronoun ‘s/he’ instead of ‘I’. They were then interviewed about their experience. Using these data, the researchers conducted a qualitative analysis to compare and contrast the characteristics of using the alternative person pronouns. The findings indicate that by using the second–person pronoun in their recounts, the narrators came to perceive their listener as ‘you’, rather than they themselves. This created a specific form of projection of one’s own experience becoming that of the listener. This way of recounting carries with it a sense of care and consideration for ‘you’ (the listener), which promotes in turn a strong sense of reflexion within the narrator. This phenomenon seems to be the specific effect of using the second–person pronoun.

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