RESEARCH TIPS
Participant observation
Tarja Moles looks at how to embed yourself in a group for research purposes
Tarja Moles
Participant observation is a useful method if you want to research groups of people and their behaviours and views. It’s similar to observation, except there’s one significant difference: while observation is done from a distance, participant observation requires you to immerse yourself in the group you’re studying and to become part of it.
Although the term ‘participant observation’ may sound formal and perhaps unfamiliar, we’ve all been doing it naturally throughout our lives: we’ve been members of our families, work groups and circles of friends. We’ve observed how people behave and what they think, we’ve drawn conclusions and we’ve come to understand what different groups are like. Since we already know how to interact within groups, we can tap into this knowledge and merely make the process a little more conscious and systematic as we engage in research.