preview

Data Collection Method Participant Observation Essay

Better Essays

Data collection method participant observation
Introduction and Meaning of Observation
The most common method used for getting information about the various things around us, is to observe those things and also the various processes related to those things. Hence, it can be said that observation acts as an important, fundamental and the basic method of getting information about anything. But it must be kept in mind that observation is not just seeing things but it is carefully watching the things and trying to understand them in depth, in order to get some information about them related to what it is intended to. Observations sometimes act scientifically, when used by the researchers in various research works but it should be noted that all observations are not scientific in nature. Scientists and nonscientists both rely on observation to learn behavior. The difference between the scientific and nonscientific observation is the manner in which the observations are made. Non scientists don’t usually keep formal records of the things they have observed so they consequently depend on the memory for the information of that event. But unfortunately what one remembers about an event is not likely to be a literal record of what one experienced and hence memory can be affected by the information later added about the event experience (Bartlett, 1932; Loftus, 1997a, 1997b; Pezdeick, Finger, & Hodge, 1997) whereas scientific observation on the other hand is made under precisely

Get Access