Participant observation

Observers may take different roles in research. The participant observer observes from within the activity.

“The participant observer gathers data by participating in the daily life of the group or organization he studies. He [sic] watches the people he is studying to see what situations they ordinarily meet and how they behave in them. He enters into conversation with some or all of the participants in these situations and discovers their interpretations of the events he has observed." (Becker, 1958: 652)

Becker, H. S. (1958). Problems of Inference and Proof in Participant Observation. American Sociological Review, 23(6), 652-660. doi: 10.2307/2089053

The observer may be an existing member of a group prior to taking on a researcher role (and so be a participant-as-observer). Alternatively, the researcher may join the group for the purposes of observation (and be an observer-as-participant). If other members of the group were not aware of the observer role, this would amount to covert observation.

The decision whether observation should be participant observation must relate back to the purposes of the research and the paradigmatic assumptions underpinning the study.

In positivist research, which often follow the model of the natural sciences, it may be felt that the researcher needs to be distinct from the observed (the object of research).

However, in interpretivist research, it is often considered that collecting insightful data depends upon intersubjectivity, and that the research is the key data collection instrument: a unique human instrument. Whilst the present of the observer will have an effect on the activity being observed, this is considered necessary to collect the kind of data sought. 

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