Ethnographic Study:

sustainable transportation

Goal:
To assess the Sustainability of Transportation on SJSU Campus as a team project.

Process:

Formulated an overarching research question:

Is the current transportation system used by students and staff at SJSU sustainable for the years to come?

Data was systematically collected:

•Literature review oriented towards sustainability and campus parking issues.

•Fieldwork to observe patterns and behaviors of participants in the parking structures as well as at the Transportation Solutions.

•A short survey to assess student perceptions of alternative modes of transportation.

•Fifteen ethnographic semi-structured interviews with convenience sampling. 

We analyzed the data by creating:

•Affinity diagrams to cluster emerging codes and identify research gaps.

•Coded all the interviews with preset codes.

•Formulated domains and emergent themes.

•Analyzing results from the interviews, domains and provided summaries to findings. 

Key Findings:

-We found that 47% students and staff who drove alone did not have enough incentives to use alternative methods of transportation. 

-The drawbacks of driving alone do not impose restrictions and do not necessitate the need to carpool.

-Studies were negatively impacted for 25% of our survey participants due to issues with commuting.

Product

•A technical ethnographic report presented to the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS)

•Paper presented at The Annual Western Departments of Anthropology and Sociology Research Conference (April 2016).