Quantitative Ethnography – by David Williamson Shaffer

"David Williamson Shaffer is … ringing the bell to announce the revolution is coming to education and the social sciences…."

JAMES PAUL GEE
Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies
Arizona State University

"In this groundbreaking and incredibly engaging book, David Williamson Shaffer gives researchers the tools they need to focus on human sensemaking in the age of big data."

LESLIE HERRENKOHL
Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development
University of Washington

"This extraordinary book manages to achieve the impossible: integrating ethnographic and statistical methodologies without compromising the integrity of either."

ADAM LEFSTEIN
Associate Professor of Education
Ben Gurion University of the Negev

"Quantitative Ethnography… may be the next revolution in scientific inquiry."

ALLAN COLLINS
Professor Emeritus of Learning Sciences
Northwestern University

"Quantitative Ethnography is an exceptionally readable book: remarkably thoughtful, useful, literate, and humane."

MATTHEW BERLAND
Associate Professor of Curriculum & Instruction
University of Wisconsin–Madison

"Quantitative Ethnography is wonderfully instructive for learning analytics researchers. A great book for both undergraduate and graduate students in the field."

JAMES FOLKESTAD
Professor and Director, Center for the Analytics of Learning and Teaching
Colorado State University

"David Williamson Shaffer has written a must-read book about research methodology in the age of Big Data."

AROUTIS FOSTER
Associate Professor of Learning Technologies
Drexel University

"This book beautifully exemplifies Alan Kay’s idea that a change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points."

CHRIS DEDE
Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Learning Technologies, Innovation, and Education
Harvard University

"This is not your standard research methods book! ... A fascinating exploration of topics at the nexus of learning research, pragmatics, and data science."

PETER REIMANN
Professor of Education
University of Sydney

"Introductions to research methods rarely invite page turning or bring smiles to the reader, but David Williamson Shaffer manages to achieve both!"

SIMON KNIGHT
Lecturer, Connected Intelligence Centre
University of Technology Sydney

"Quantitative Ethnography sounds like an oxymoron, but so is Jumbo Shrimp, and they are delicious. This book is too."

DR. KRISTINE LUND
Senior Research Engineer in Cognitive Science, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Chief Science Officer, Cognik, The personalization and recommendation engine for multimedia content

"Quantitative Ethnography is the book to read for anyone who wants to bridge the gulf between qualitative and quantitative research."

ART GRAESSER
Professor, Department of Psychology and Institute for Intelligent Systems
University of Memphis

"This book makes a compelling case for quantitative ethnography in the social sciences. Shaffer’s argument unfolds in a most engaging writing style, without compromising on scholarship."

CHARLES CROOK
Professor of Information and Communication Technologies and Education
University of Nottingham

"Quantitative Ethnography is a must read for researchers and scientists--and anyone who wants to have a relationship, whether in-depth or fleeting, with complex data."

CARLA M. PUGH
Susan Behrens Professor of Surgical Education and Industrial and Systems Engineering
University of Wisconsin

"In his stellar new book, David Williamson Shaffer shows how oil and water can be mixed.... [A]n exciting textbook that reads like a novel."

DRAGAN GAŠEVIĆ
Professor and Chair in Learning Analytics and Informatics
University of Edinburgh

"A compelling philosophical and intellectual journey for anyone looking for a way to understand learning, culture and behaviour in the age of Big Data."

MORTEN MISFELDT
Professor of Education, Learning and Philosophy
Aalborg University

"Here is how the realms of Big Data and Thick Data can be brought together to create a power tool for miners in any discipline working at the new coalface of data science, society and ethics."

SIMON BUCKINGHAM SHUM
Professor of Learning Informatics, Connected Intelligence Centre
University of Technology Sydney

From Quantitative Ethnography

"This is a book about understanding why, in the digital age, the old distinctions between qualitative and quantitative research methods, between the sciences and humanities, and between numbers and understanding, limit the kinds of questions we can ask, in some cases, and lead us accept superficial answers in others. Quantitative Ethnography is a research method that goes beyond those distinctions to help us understand how to make sense of our increasingly data-rich world..."

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David Williamson Shaffer

David Williamson Shaffer is an internationally recognized expert on teaching and assessing 21st Century skills through educational games. He is best known for the development of Virtual Internships for students in high school and college and for corporate training and assessment, as well as his work using quantitative ethnography to measure complex thinking. Dr. Shaffer is a highly sought-after speaker, teaching a course at the University of Wisconsin on making effective presentations. He is currently the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Game Scientist at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Before coming to the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Shaffer was a teacher, teacher-trainer, curriculum developer, and game designer, including work with the Asian Development Bank and US Peace Corps in Nepal and as a 2008-2009 European Union Marie Curie Fellow. His Ph.D. is from the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of How Computer Games Help Children Learn and Quantitative Ethnography.