Qualitative: Participant Observation (Primary) Flashcards
What are the 2 types of observation?
- Non-participant observation - researcher observes the group without participating.
- Participant observation - researcher participates in the life of the group whilst observing it.
What is observation used for?
By observing people in their natural environment, we can try to observe what people actually do rather than what they say they do.
What is a developed definition of participant observation?
- Participant is used more often than non-participant.
- Favoured by interpretivists.
- Positivists can use structured non-participant observation. This will have a structured observation schedule (a predetermined list of behaviours that the sociologist is interested in). Each time the behaviour occurs, the observer records it on the schedule.
= This produces quantitative data from which patterns and correlations can be established.
What is the difference between overt and covert observation?
- Overt observation = The researcher reveals their true identity and purpose to those being studied and asks their permission to observe.
- Covert observation = The researcher conceals their true identity and purpose, usually posing as a genuine member of the group.
- Most observation used is unstructured participant observation, which offers an insight into a group’s way of life and therefore is often used by interpretivists.
How easy is ‘getting in’ in participant observation?
- Some groups are easier than others.
- Having the right skills to get in.
- Overcoming suspicion and gaining trust.
- Having to fit in: age, gender, class, ethnicity can be an obstacle if different from the group.
- Shouldn’t disrupt the group’s normal behaviour → it isn’t always possible to take a role that is non-disruptive and a good vantage point.
- Role may require to take sides in conflicts, meaning the researcher may be estranged from one faction to the other, making observation more difficult.
How easy is ‘staying in’ in participant observation?
- Researcher has to be involved in the group and its activities to understand it fully.
- However, must be detached enough to remain objective and unbiased.
- Too involved = risk going native.
- Too detached = risk not understanding what is observed.
- Need to strike a balance.
- Longer amount of time the researcher spends with the group = less strange its ways will appear.
- “I started as a non-participating observer and ended as a non-observing participator” - William F. Whyte (1955).
How easy is ‘getting out’ in participant observation?
- Usually less of a problem.
- Leaving a group you have become close to can be difficult as well as re-entering the researcher’s ‘normal world’. For example, strong friendships and partnerships can be made in the group.
- Can be worse if research is conducted on and off over a period of time.
- Loyalty to the group may prevent researchers from fully disclosing everything they have learnt.
P.E.T.
Practical issues: What insight is there?
(include verstehen)
- The best way to understand something is to experience it for yourself.
- It gives us insight into other people’s lives and how they live → we can put ourselves in their place (verstehen).
- Verstehen = german word meaning empathy or subjective understanding.
- PO allows sociologist to gain verstehen through first hand experience and can understand their life-world as they themselves understand it.
- PO produces large amounts of rich, detailed, qualitative data that gives us a feel of what it is like to be a member of the group.
Practical issues: How is the observation situation accessed?
PO may be the only suitable method for accessing and studying certain groups. For example:
- Groups who engage in deviant activities may be suspicious of outsiders who come asking questions, but are more willing to cooperate with someone who seeks to share their way of life.
- Where members of a group are unaware of the unconscious stereotypes behind their actions, observation may be the only means of uncovering them since it would be pointless asking questions about them.
Practical issues: How flexible is participant observation?
- PO is flexible in comparison to survey methods (questionnaires and structured interviews).
- Enter the research method open-minded and formulate hypotheses and research questions as and when we encounter new situations. This allows the researcher to discover new things that other methods miss.
- Whyste - “I learned answers to questions that I would not have had the sense to ask if I had been using interviews”.
- Polsky - “Initially, keep your eyes and ears open but keep your mouth shut”.
How are overt observations conducted?
- The researcher can behave normally and doesn’t have to put on an act.
- Because the researcher is known to be an outsider, they don’t need any special knowledge or personal characteristics to join.
- The group may refuse to let an outsider join them, or may prevent them witnessing certain activities.
- As an outsider, the researcher can ask naive but important questions.
- The researcher can take notes openly and doesn’t have to rely on memory.
- The researcher can use interviews or other methods to check insights derived from observations.
- The researcher can opt out of any dangerous or illegal activities.
- It risks creating the Hawthorne effect, where those who know they are being observed behave differently as a result.
How are covert observations conducted?
- The researcher must keep up an act. This can be stressful, especially if it involves staying in role for long periods.
- The researcher may need detailed knowledge of the group’s way of life before joining , and characteristics (e.g. gender) that allows them to fit in.
- It may be the only way to obtain information. The researcher may have more chance of being accepted and seeing things outsiders could not.
- The researcher cannot ask naive questions as this could blow their cover.
- The researcher usually has to rely on memory and write notes in secret.
- The researcher can’t combine observation with any ‘overt’ methods such as interviews.
- To maintain cover, the researcher may have to engage in dangerous activities.
- There is less of a risk altering the group’s behaviour because they don’t know they are being observed.
What are the negatives of practical issues?
- Fieldwork is very time consuming and may take years to complete. It produces large amounts of qualitative data, which can be hard to analyse and categorise.
- The researcher needs to be sociologically trained so that they recognize the aspects of a situation that are significant and worth investigating = expensive.
- It can be personally stressful and demanding, and sometimes dangerous.
- It requires observational and interpersonal skills that not everyone possesses.
- Powerful groups may be able to prevent sociologists from participating in them. This is one reason why participant observation often focuses on relatively powerless groups → they are less able to resist being studied.
Theoretical issues: How is interpretivism applied to participant observation?
- As PO produces qualitative data, it is liked by interpretivists.
- Produces detailed and authentic pictures of actors’ meanings and life-worlds in the following ways:
Validity.
Flexibility and Grounded Theory.
- Is PO high or low in validity?
- Sociologists have a high level of involvement in PO, which enables them to get close to people’s lived reality and gain a deep subjective understanding of their meanings.
- Therefore, uniquely valid, insightful, qualitative data is produced.
- PO provides us with a truer picture of how people live.
- What is the flexibility and grounded theory, and how does it relate to PO?
(Glaser and Strauss - 1968)
- Flexibility of PO produces valid data.
- Glaser and Strauss (1968) - by being able to enter the research without a pre-formed hypothesis or questions, the researcher can modify and develop their ideas during research to produce grounded theory.
- This means concepts, categories and hypotheses are grounded in the observed realities, rather than imposed on the data by the researcher.
- Being able to spend lengthy amounts of time with a group we can see how actors’ meanings develop over time = more valid picture than a snapshot in time.
How do positivists view PO?
- Reject the use of PO due to its unscientific method.
- Positivists don’t like PO for the following reasons:
Lack of representativeness.
Lack of reliability.
Bias and lack of objectivity.
Lack of validity.
Is PO high or low in representativeness?
- Groups studied are usually very small.
- ‘Sample’ is often selected haphazardly (unplanned/unorganised), for example, a chance encounter with someone who turns out to be a key informant.
- Therefore, the group that is studied is likely to be unrepresentative of the wider population and therefore we cannot really make generalisations.
- Downes and Rock (2003) - although participant observation may provide valid insights into the particular group being studied, it is doubtful how far these ‘internally valid’ insights are ‘externally valid’.
Is PO high or low in reliability?
- PO is not a standardised, scientific measuring instrument.
- Success depends on personal skills and characteristics of the lone researcher. The method may be unique to the researcher.
- Therefore, it is impossible for other researchers to check the original study by replicating it (= not replicable).
- Comparisons with other studies are difficult due to the qualitative nature of data produced.
Is there a bias and lack of objectivity in PO?
- Researcher’s close involvement = lack of objectivity.
- Involvement risks ‘going native’ = breeding loyalty to the group.
- PO appeals to sociologists who perhaps sympathise with the underdog - they may be biased in favour of the subject’s viewpoint.
Is PO high or low in validity?
- Positivists reject the interpretivist claim that PO produces valid data (argues there is a lack of validity).
- Findings are merely biased subjective impressions of the observer.
- The observer selects the only facts they think are worth recording, which are likely to fit in with their own values and prejudices.
How is the Hawthorne effect applied to PO?
- Undermine the validity of PO studies → the observer’s presence may make the subjects act differently.
- More of an issue for overt observation than covert.
- Interpretivists argue that over time the group generally gets used to the observer’s presence and behaves normally.
- Researchers can also try to adopt a less obtrusive (noticeable in an unpleasant way) role to minimise the threat to validity.
What are structure vs action perspectives applied to PO?
- PO normally associated with ‘action’ perspectives, like interactionism.
- Action perspectives see society as being constructed.
Methods in Context links.
In which ways is observation used in studies of education?
- Gender and classroom behaviour.
- Teacher expectations and labelling.
- Speech codes in the classroom.
- Pupil subcultures.
- Teacher and pupil racism.
- The hidden curriculum.