There are several distinctions between these two sorts of study designs. These discrepancies stem from the techniques taken to the study's target research topics. First, phenomenological research seeks to get a deeper knowledge of the experiences, subjective beliefs, and viewpoints of the population under study by the researcher (Flint & Woodruff, 2015). This sort of research focuses on a person and attempts to examine the unique characteristics of the person employed in a study. A phenomenological study provides the researcher with enough information on the specific person.
In contrast, ethnographic research focuses on the collective experiences of a certain ethnic community (Flint & Woodruff, 2015). This type of research focusses on studies that involve observation of a certain group of people with shared traits and behavior over an extended period. A researcher documents the collected information from this group and interprets it to understand these features. As the researcher observes this group for a long time, they attempt to study and comprehend some of the shared, specific and common experiences possessed by these groups. Unlike the phenomenological research where the researcher is not required to stay with the person under the study, a researcher using an ethnographical research design is forced to live with the community under the study while observing their behaviors. Besides, it takes time to establish any unique behavior of their study population due to their large number.
Despite all these numerous differences, these two research designs are used in the field of human sciences. The degree of coexistence between them seems to have increased since all qualitative research designs are currently used together to reduce the amount of workload in this type of study.
Reference
Flint, D. J., & Woodruff, R. B. (2015). Issues in a grounded theory study of customer desired value change: Resolutions using phenomenology, ethnography and holistic transcript readings. In Proceedings of the 1997 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 134-139). Springer, Cham.
