ABSTRACT
Often ethnographic research studies result in an abundance of raw data and important events can be lost within the noise. Furthermore, the sheer amount of data can be overwhelming to analyze for new researchers. One way to address this is to use the ethnographic-inspired approach termed “peak events”. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the use of peak events to identify significant events during extended social interactions. A description of the use of peak events will be provided and an example from an authentic engineering setting will demonstrate the application of peak events, including data collection and data analysis methods.
