Participant Observation Advantages and Disadvantages Essay

‘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)

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

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

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.

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

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}\\

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).

A qualitative methodological approach was the obvious choice in that it allows for the collection and interpretation of stories, narratives, interviews and other forms of non-quantifiable data. A qualitative approach also does not demand or strive for detached objectivity of the researcher but instead encourages the disclosure of researcher bias and the engagement of the researcher with the research and subjects, often in the role of participant-observer (Dade, Tartakov, Hargrave, & Leigh,

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.

First and foremost the participants must be voluntary. In all ethical research when conducting research there must be willing participants. Research has shown that when participants volunteer they shouldn’t feel coerced, threatened or bribed into participation. Second, informed consent must be described at the onset of the study. Participants are told about the procedures and informed of any potential risks; there also should be documented in written form, ensuring the participant know about the experiment and can make informed decisions about whether or not they want to participate. Meanwhile, this can present problems in cases where telling the participants the necessary details about the experiment might unduly influence their responses or behaviors in the study. However, it is stated in this article which allows in certain instances, but only if the study would be impossible to conduct without the use of deception, if the research will provide some sort of valuable insight and if the subjects will be debriefed and informed about the study's true purpose after the data has been collected searchers Must Maintain Participant Confidentiality. Finally, while guidelines can provide some ethical standards for research, each study can pose different unique challenges. Likewise, confidentiality is a part of any ethical research. Participants need to be guaranteed that

Culture differs from one location to another because of the different population in those areas. A population is an entire group of individual persons, objects, or items from which the sample are being drawn. The cultures in neighborhoods are different because neighborhoods rise and fall, and this often brings about changes in the population. A method called participant observation can answer questions about the culture of the population being observed. Participant observation is a qualitative research method that aims to uncover the meanings people give to their own social actions by observing their behavior in practice. By hanging out in a community observing the population over a long period of time, participant observers are able to capture

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.

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. ’’

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]