Participant Observation

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Participant Observation

Advantages

  • Validity - direct observation is effective to see how an individual behaves in real life. very valid as the behaviour will be true, especially if the participant is unaware of observation
  • Insight - verstehen (empathy) from participating or observing behaviours directly, can understand why an individual does certain things
  • Flexibility - ability to develop and change certain ideas being studied, can investigate with an open mind
  • Practical advantages - only way of investigating some groups, gain rapport and develop trust

Disadvantages

  • Practical disadvantages - time consuming, need training, stressful, interpersonal skills needed, access difficulties, limiting personal characteristics
  • Ethical issues - deception, researcher may be involved in illegal or immoral activity.
  • Representativeness - only able to study small groups, cannot generalise findings to society
  • Lacks reliability as method is specific to a single group
  • Biased and subjective
  • Validity - researcher’s views may be imposed on the group
  • Lacking in structure

Evaluation

Participant observations can be overt or covert. The researcher has to get in, stay in and get out, which may be difficult. Covert PO is unethical but more valid, whereas overt PO is more ethical but lacks validity due to the Hawthorne effect. Interpretivists favour PO, but positivists reject it due to the lack of reliability. 

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