Observations

Observations

1. Covert

   • Ethical - deception, lack of informed consent
   • Practical issues
     • requires researcher to know how group acts, mistake can lead to being exposed
       • shown in Patrick study, bought suit with cash instead of credit, gang would never have done so + fastened middle button instead of top one.
     • researcher can't make notes openly has to rely on memory.
   • may be only viable option to study secretive groups (covert)
   • valid

2. Overt

   • researcher can ask questions that would not be able to in a covert study e.g why do you steal
     • however, Hawthorne effect
   • no ethical issues
   • group may refuse to be observed

3. Participant

   • Issues: getting in, staying in, getting out of group being studied
     • getting in - acceptance depends on skills, connections or chance
       • Patrick - joined Glasgow gang as looked young and knew one of the members
       • age, gender, class, ethnicity can cause difficulty in acceptance
     • staying in - can lead to over involvement and identifying with group, creating bias, removing objective observer status
       • Punch - study of Amsterdam police, striving to be accepted he acted like a policeman. Chasing suspects, searching houses.
       • however, not identifying may mean researcher doesn't truly understand events they are observing

4. DISADVANTAGES OF PARTICIPANT OBSERVATIONS

   • time consuming
   • requires training to recognise aspects that are sociologically significant
   • age, race, gender, ethnicity, class may exclude researchers from certain groups of study
   • unrepresentative data, cant make generalisations and large scale hypothesis
   • unreliable data, cant be replicated with same results
   • loyalty to group, over involvement and bias, not objective

5. Interactionists favour, structuralist e.g marx, func do not as it focuses on individuals

6. METHODS IN CONTEXT

   • positivists - structured observation
     • FIAC - Flanders system of interaction analysis categories. Used to measure pupil-pupil and pupil-teacher interaction quantitatively
       • observer uses standard chart to record interactions at 3 second intervals, placing each observation in 1 of 10 pre determined categories and then quantified
         • reliable but not valid
   • interprevists - unstructured observation
     • valid but not reliable, more flexible
       • however, power dynamic between pupils and adults may lead to lower validity + hawthorne effect
     • usually has to be overt as young people seen as vulnerable, can't do overt observations due to ethical issues
     • practical - easier to gain access to school by observation rather than interviews.
     • age, gender, race may affect results
       • Wright - few black teachers and she found that African Carribbean ethnicity produced antagonistic results from some White teachers,
         • + black pupils held her in high regard and would ask her for support