1.6 Participant Observation Flashcards
Overt Observation
this is where the group being studied know they are being observed.
overt research is obviously more ethical because
of the lack of deception
Covert research may be the only way to gain access to………………..However ethically it involves
deviant groups, it may enable you to gain fuller ‘immersion’ into the host culture and avoids the ‘Hawthorne Effect’.
However, ethically it involves deception and can be very stressful for the researcher.
Theoretical Advantages
You can observe what people do, not what they say they do?
In contrast to most other methods, participant observation allows the researcher to see what people do rather than what people say they do.
Theoretical Advantages
Participant Observation takes place in natural settings?
this should mean respondents act more naturally than in a laboratory, or during a more formal interview. This should mean the Hawthorne effect will be less, especially with covert research. You also get more of a feel for respondents’ actions in context, which might otherwise seem out of place if in an artificial research environment.
Theoretical Advantages
Digging deep and gaining insight?
the length of time ethnographers spend with a community means that close bonds that can be established, thus enabling the researcher to dig deeper than with other methods and find out things which may be hidden to all other means of enquiry.
Theoretical Advantages
Verstehen/empathetic understanding?
participant observation allows the researcher to fully join the group and to see things through the eyes (and actions) of the people in group. Joining in allows the researcher to gain empathy through personal experiences. This closeness to people’s reality means that participant observation can give uniquely personal, authentic data.
Practical Advantages
but participant observation might be the only methods for gaining access to certain groups. For example, a researcher using questionnaires to research street gangs is likely to be seen as an authority figure and unlikely to be accepted.
Practical Advantages
but participant observation might be the only methods for gaining access to certain groups. For example, a researcher using questionnaires to research street gangs is likely to be seen as an authority figure and unlikely to be accepted.
Ethical Advantages
Interpretivists prefer this method because it is respondent led – it allows respondents to speak for themselves and thus avoids a master-client relationship which you get with more quantitative methods.
Theoretical Disadvantages
lack reliability ?
It would be almost impossible for another researcher to repeat given that a participant observation study relies on the personal skills and characteristics of the lone researcher.
Theoretical Disadvantages
low degree of representativeness?
Sociologists who use quantitative research methods study large, carefully selected, representative samples that provide a sound basis for making generalisations, In contrast, the groups used in participant observation studies are usually unrepresentative, because they are accessed through snowball sampling and thus haphazardly selected.
Theoretical Disadvantages
method lacks objectivity?
It can be very difficult for the researcher to avoid subjectivity and forming biased views of the group being studied. Also researchers decide what is significant and worth recording and what’s not, therefore, it depends on the values of the researcher. In extreme cases, researchers might ‘go native’, where they become sympathatic with the respondents and omit any negative analysis of their way of life.
Theoretical Disadvantages
Lacks objectivity - Positivists would say..
becuase researcher is immersed in a social situation they are subjective and biased impressions made by observer
Practical Disadvantages
Hawthrone effect
The presence of the observer - will make the group act differently this can happen if the researcher is to carry out covert or overt obser
