The Use of Ethnography in Computer Science Research: a Systematic Literature Review

Ethnography is a qualitative research method frequently used in social science. We performed a Systematic Literature Review to know better its use in Computer Science research. We selected 273 papers published at ACM Digital Library in 2015 and 2016, and extracted information about their research goals, characteristics of the samples, investigation period, data collection and data analysis procedures. The main contribution of this work is to provide researchers with a pragmatic understanding of the method, presenting references for specific situations such as small samples, studies that applied specific types of ethnography or used research instruments different from observation and interview.