participant observation

Question 1

what are the practical advantages of this method?

Question 2

what are the practical disadvantages of this method?

Answer 2

difficult to gain access into the social groups - research into education - gatekeepers

Question 3

what are the theoretical advantages of this method?

Answer 3

valid - participants are in their natural setting so their behaviour is going to be authentic and rich detailed data can be collected because the researcher is interacting with the participants

Question 4

what are the theoretical disadvantages of this method?

Answer 4

lacks reliability - the procedure is difficult to replicated because research is subjective and open ended
lacks validity - risk of the Hawthorne effect because participants are interacting with a stranger also a risk of researchers going native by which data may be bias