ABSTRACT
To start, researchers use semi-structured interviews to collect qualitative data on people's decision-making process and then use qualitative methods to identify decision criteria. As with any binary outcome, yes-no decisions can be modeled and tested with logistic regression and there are computer programs for modeling decisions, but crucially, ethnographic decision models illuminate how choices are made from the perspective of those making those choices. To generate and test EDMs, researchers use a multi-staged approach to combine many of the exploratory data collection and preliminary model building techniques used in grounded theory with the confirmatory and validating techniques used in classic content analysis. Typically, EDMs are built and tested on small, ethnographic samples of interviews with 20-60 people with one sample being used to build the model and another independent sample used to test the model.
