Participant Observation Advantages and Disadvantages Essay

In the book Live and Let Live, one of the main research methods that was used, in my opinion, was participant observation. By definition, participant observation is a research method in which the researcher not only observes the participants, (in Evelyn Perry’s case, the participants were basically the whole community of Riverwest) but also engage in the same activities. As an example, Evelyn Perry attended a few festivals during her time in Riverwest. She attended Center Street Daze, in which she described as a “more local little

The examples provided by Rosaldo and Douglas highlight the modern necessity for anthropological research to evolve individually, experientially, and empathetically. In other words, the need for a more holistic understanding of cultural practices that goes beyond scientific objectivity, and instead, also emphasizes the inherent subjectivity of societal anthropology. As Rosaldo states, “The truth of objectivism – absolute, universal, and timeless – has lost its monopoly status. It now competes on more equal terms, with the truths of case studies that are embedded in local contexts, shaped by local interests and coloured by local perceptions.” (Rosaldo, 21)

‘Employing a qualitative methodology, underpinned by a constructivist world view, has provided the means to generate rich, deep and contextualised understandings of the research issue, and an appreciation of the socially constructed and experienced realities of the participants.’ (Highfield 2012)

It is first important to define what ethnography is because it is a prominent method that social scientists use in their research (Roy, lecture 4). Professor Roy defines ethnography as looking at culture – a methodological skill of observation in a natural setting. Chambliss was able to do this with his qualitative research at Hanibal. Qualitative research, compared to quantitative, is often characterized by a depth of information from a limited number of cases (Ragin & Amoroso 28). This type of study relies on the human component of interaction in the real world. Chambliss actively engaged with

The retrospective observational study was performed in Great Ormond Street Hospital. All admissions to the critical care services over a 9 year period (March 2003-December 2011) were included for analysis. Repeat admissions were excluded. The prevalence of 'extreme hypoxaemia' was explored. 'Extreme hypoxaemia' was defined as admission $PaO_{2}$ $< 2.67$ kPa (20 mmHg). This threshold was chosen from reported literature.\cite{Anonymous:2013vh}\cite{Grocott:2009jj}\\

In order to effectively research whether ethnicity, age, gender, and race have an effect on how an individual view a certain topic such as police brutality I will be observing the group as a participant: asking questions to the group about the topic, looking for reactions and in the end handing

Participant observation is defined as first hand experience. Participant observation is a method developed by Anthropologists in the early 20th century. When Anthropologists noticed that in order to fully understand the question, “Why” in culture. Why do a certain people do this, why is that important, or why do they all do it, are just some of the questions anthropologists use participant observation. The key to participant observation is fieldwork, where the anthropologist actively lives with the people of the culture they are studying for about a year or more. Where the anthropologist goes through culture shock by leaving all their possessions at home and starting a new. This technique of studying gets the anthropologist to become one

Participant Observation – The advantages are realism and natural behaviour, thus greater validity, new directions for research, and qualitative data. Conversely, there may be observer bias and effects, lack of quantitative data, difficulty in replicating or generalising, time consuming, and may raise ethical issues (Haralambos, et al., 2002).

As for the disadvantages, strong opportunity for social desirability from the participants. For whatever reason it may be,

Using this type of research method, I can understand what I would have used other type of research method Taylor et al (1995) ‘‘argued that participant observation offers the best opportunity to discover how people see the world in which they live. It also provides the kind of insight, fresh information and new directions for research which are less likely to come from other methods. ’’

I have figured out that attendant observation is beneficial to immerse myself into a community, in order to gain a better information about the intricacies and inner psychology which could not be obtained from literature or any other methods where information is simply provided. The selected informant is known as a sample and is highly important for the research that characterizes an ethnographic survey.

Anthropologists then, write ethnographies which are first hand detailed description of a living culture. Often anthropologists will find individuals within the society who are willing to become informants. Even though informants can be very helpfully, they often hold bias views about their culture. Some anthropologist must learn new and sometimes unwritten languages and this may require extra training. An anthropologist's class, race, gender, language, dress, religion, and age, all effect how he/she will be interpreted by the local people.(Cultural Anthropology pg31). Each step in anthropological research brings about dilemmas common to any human interaction, engagement versus detachment, subjectivity versus objectivity, particularization versus generalization, induction versus deduction(Fieldwork, Ethnography and Ethics in Anthropology). On many occasion's, the anthropologist will leave their projects, with a new found respect and begin to question their own cultures.

Epistemological criticism argues that all approaches are unlikely to produce consistent evidence because of the inherent property. It will generate a new viewpoint. However, through abundant reading, triangulation will enlarge width and depth in qualitative research and provide an analysis with security- a overall perspective. Participants can improve the validity of research. Bloor (1978) argues that sociologists can establish a correspondence with participants, in which participants can identify, give assent and judgement to sociologists.

As mentioned, the research method used for this study was participant observation. This was further divided into three different segments. Each of these segments featured its own distinct observation site and involved one hour of observation per site.

Qualitative research methods are utilized to study the social and cultural phenomena. So it includes observation, participant observation (field work), interview sessions, documents and texts and finally the researcher’s imitations and feedback. [Myers, 2009]