Introspective interviewing for work activities: applying subjective digital ethnography in a nuclear industry case study

Cognition, Technology & Work (2021) 23:625–638 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-020-00662-9 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Introspective interviewing for work activities: applying subjective digital ethnography in a nuclear industry case study Philippe Fauquet‑Alekhine1,2,3 · Martin W. Bauer4 · Saadi Lahlou4 Received: 15 November 2019 / Accepted: 8 December 2020 / Published online: 5 January 2021 © The Author(s) 2021, corrected publication 2021 Abstract Subjective Evidence-Based Ethnography (SEBE) is a family of methods developed in digital ethnography for investigation in social science based on subjective audio–video recordings using first-person perspective. Recordings are used for self-confrontation (collect subjective experience, discussion of findings and final interpretation). Several studies applying SEBE methods mentioned “introspection” as a process occurring during self-confrontation and discussed it without providing evidence of its occurrence. This article aimed at clarifying introspection and its occurrence in SEBE. After a literature review addressing introspection, the process of introspection in SEBE was analyzed, depicted and illustrated by a case study. Conditions for introspection to occur in SEBE and the related mechanisms were proposed: it was found that indirect introspection could actually occur but not frequently and could go unnoticed without lessening the quality of the analysis. A refined analysis of introspection during or after the interviews was not identified as an added-value for the activity analysis. Keywords Activity analysis · Cognition · Digital ethnography · Introspection · Memory · Self 1 Introduction Accessing subjects’ action during activities inevitably refers to activity analysis and thus to the cognitive task analysis paradigm which regroups methodologies for job or task design and analysis. Two reviews attempted to provide an exhaustive state of the art (Wei and Salvendy 2004; TofelGrehl and Feldon 2013) and a categorization of the methods. * Philippe Fauquet‑Alekhine ; Martin W. Bauer Saadi Lahlou 1 SEBE‑Lab, Department of Psychological and Behavioural Sc., London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton St., London WC2A 2AE, UK 2 Lab. for Research in Science of Energy, H. Sc., Avoine, France 3 INTRA Robotics Lab, NPP Chinon, BP61, 37420 Avoine, France 4 Department of Psychological and Behavioural Sc., London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton St., London WC2A 2AE, UK Among them, process tracing methods have developed with the recent progress of miniaturized camera. Process tracing is capturing expertise during activity performance through audio and/or video recording, followed by an analysis phase of the recordings. When using miniaturized cameras, process tracing methods may be referred to as Subjective EvidenceBased Ethnography (SEBE) as defined by Lahlou (2011). The SEBE is a family of methods developed in digital ethnography for investigation in social science based on subjective audio–video recordings or subfilms (the first-person perspective: Pea 1994; Omodei et al. 2005; Knoblauch et al. 2006; Goldman et al. 2007; Petitmengin 2009; Rix-Lièvre and Lièvre 2010; Lahlou 2011) using miniature video cameras (usually worn at eye-level by subjects: the subcam). Subfilms are then used for self-confrontation with subjects to collect their subjective experience, discussion of findings and final interpretations between researchers and subjects. Self-confrontation was developed by Von Cranach et al. (1982), and then, on the basis of this work, by Theureau (2002) as a method of investigation of human activity in the framework of his theory of goal-oriented activity. Von Cranach identified three inter-dependent levels of action, each being recoverable by a specific method: (1) the ongoing behavior (acts) are recoverable through audio–visual observation techniques; (2) the cognitive guidance of 13 Vol.:(0123456789) 626 action is recoverable by a self-confrontation of the actor; (3) the organization of social action is recoverable through the confrontation with other actors (social representations). Self-confrontation is a deferred examination of the dynamics of structural coupling subject situation supported jointly by means of reproduction of behavior (e.g., video) and by the researcher as both observer and interlocutor (Theureau 2002). Rieken et al. (2015: 255) applying self-confrontation during digital ethnographic studies for day-work analysis (image-recording of an activity with post-analysis during interviews with subjects) mentioned “introspection” as a process occurring during self-confrontation. Similarly, (Lalhou 2011; Lalhou et al. 2015) and Le Bellu (2011, 2016), also applying digital ethnography for activity analysis, mentioned “introspection” when describing psychological processes during interviews. However, the authors did not characterize the process of introspection and did not provide evidence of its occurrence. The aim of this article is to clarify two points. First, the notion of introspection is not simple and introspection takes different senses from one research to another; furthermore, “introspection is often viewed with suspicion and seen as an expression of flawed thinking” (Weger et al., 2018: 206): a literature review clarifies this notion in “Literature background”. Second, specialists of digital ethnography seem to ask for introspection during the self-confrontation phase of their SEBE-based studies, but it is not clear which forms of introspection occur during these interviews. The research question is thus: does introspection actually occur during SEBE interviews and if yes, in what form? A method for the characterization of introspection during SEBE interviewing is proposed and applied to a case study. Finally, we discuss the added-value of introspection in SEBE. 2 Literature background 2.1 Main streams and controversies For Danziger (2015: 702), in a first approach, introspection may simply refer to “the self-observation of mental events”. Stated in other words by Vermersch (1994: 203), “the access to knowledge of one’s own cognitive functioning may be in a general manner considered as an act of introspection”. Written this, any attempt to access and additionally to understand what happens or has happened in a subject’s flow of conscious mind ‘as experience’ is introspection. When understood in this way, psychoanalysis is introspection, meditation, as well as is self-confrontation. Introspection in this sense of supported reflecting on one’s life is part of a long tradition of techniques of self-improvement, religious enlightenment and life change or conversion experiences. 13 Cognition, Technology & Work (2021) 23:625–638 We refer to this type of introspection as “macro-introspection”, and this will not be our main focus here. However, for a large part of the scientific community, introspection addresses a more specific psychological process. In his 2006 (...truncated)