Participant Observation Flashcards
Research Methods- Lesson 12
What are some advantages of Participant Observation?
1) Validity (by observing in person you can gain rich qualitative data, provides a picture of how they truly live and what they do vs what they say they do)
2) Insight (can gain verhesten, see a group’s meanings and values, can gain a closeness to get a deeper understanding)
3) Flexibility (not a fixed hypothesis, the researcher can remain open-minded to what they might find, the sociologist can change direction with questions, good especially with new topics of research)
4) Practical (can gain rapport with a group, some groups may be wary of authority so would say no to normal interviewers)
What are some disadvantages of Participant Observation?
1) Practical (time-consuming e.g Whytes study took 4 years, researcher needs to be trained, stressful, personal characteristics may restrict access to the group)
2) Ethical (covert may include deceiving people or participating in illegal or immoral activities)
3) Representativeness (the sample studied is often small and selected haphazardly, therefore can’t make generalisations, plus the data may be internally valid but not externally valid in wider society)
4) Produces qualitative data, difficult to analyse
5) Lack of objectivity (going native)
What are some more disadvantages of PO?
4) Reliability (PO depends on personal skills which other researchers may find hard to replicate, produces qualitative data which is hard to make comparisons with)
5) Bias/lack of objectivity (risk of ‘going native’, could conceal sensitive information)
6) Validity (Positivists say that the findings are the subjective and biased impressions made by an individual researcher, only record things they believe to be important based on their own prejudices, Hawthorne Effect)
What would an interactionist say about PO? And who may disagree?
Favour PO as they like to focus on face-to-face interactions that structure society, it is a useful tool for investigating micro-level interactions and meanings first-hand.
Marxists and Functionalists disagree, say it ignores wider structural forces that shape our behaviour such as class inequality or norms and values.
What type of Participant Observation to Interpretivists favour? And why?
They prefer unstructured PO as it helps achieve their main goal of validity, where the researcher becomes an insider, can get verhesten and get an authentic account of the actor’s world.
Sociologists can gain a true picture of their samples’ actions and can gain first hand insights into their meanings and behaviour.
What type of Participant Observation do Positivists favour? And why?
They favour structured non-participant observation as it helps achieve their main goals of reliability, generalisability and representativeness.
Reliable, quantitative data can be produced to help identify behaviour patterns and establish cause-and-effect relationships, plus, it takes less time so a larger sample can be studied.
With the other methods, the findings are subjective and up to the researcher’s interpretation, plus, influenced by prejudices.
What are some Practical advantages of Participant Observation?
-may be the only way to access a group
-participants may be unaware of their own behaviour/assumptions (no point asking them about it)
