Naturalistic Observation

Michael V Angrosino

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781315423593
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Observation is one of the foundational methods of qualitative inquiry—but only if it is conducted in a systematic fashion that allows for the careful recording of data and the consistent retrieval of those data for purposes of analysis. To that end, this book features a brief how-to guide to conducting observations in naturalistic settings. The history of observational research, ongoing questions of its epistemological status, the impact of new technologies, and its major ethical concerns are also treated. Replete with examples of observation-based research, questions for class discussion, a glossary, and extensive references, this volume offers a rapid fire start into doing naturalistic observational research for novices and students.

1Chapter One

What Is Naturalistic Observation?

What is Naturalistic Observation?

Why Do Qualitative Researchers Choose Naturalistic Observation as a Research Tool?

Site Selection Examples

• Public spaces and opportunity-based site selection

• Site selection for theoretical interests

• Site selection for policy issues

• Site selection for a research commission

• Site selection for research linkage

Basic Principles of Site Selection

Gaining Entrée

• Informal gatekeepers

• Formal gatekeepers

How Researchers Position Themselves in the Field

Necessary Research Skills

Necessary Interpersonal and Social Skills

The Process of Collecting Information by Means of Naturalistic Observation: The Procedural Arc

• The descriptive phase

• The focusing phase

• The selective phase

• The saturation point

How a Naturalistic Observer Takes Notes

Evaluating Data Collected by Means of Naturalistic Observation

• Validity

• Reliability

Observer Roles

• Complete participants

• Participants-as-observers

• Observers-as-participants

• Complete members

• Active members

• Evolving members

• Complete observers

For Discussion

2What is Naturalistic Observation?

Qualitative research is a process of inquiry aimed at understanding human behavior by building complex, holistic pictures of the social and cultural settings in which such behavior occurs. It does so by analyzing words rather than numbers, and by reporting the detailed views of the people who have been studied. Such inquiry is conducted in settings where people naturally interact, as opposed to specially designed laboratories or clinical/experimental settings. Qualitative research seeks to understand the what, how, when, and where of an event or an action in order to establish its meanings, concepts, definitions, characteristics, metaphors, symbols, and descriptions (Berg, 2004, pp. 2–3; Creswell, 1998, pp. 14–16).

Prominent among the tools of qualitative research is observation, characterized by Adler and Adler (1994) as “the fundamental base of all research methods” (p. 389). Quantitative researchers favor observing people in highly controlled settings in which the researchers control all the variables involved, with the aim of experimentally testing specific hypotheses. By contrast, qualitative researchers use observation as a process by which people interacting in their natural settings are studied so that their behaviors and words can be put into their proper context. The descriptive study of people in their natural settings is sometimes referred to as ethnography or ethnographic research. Although hypotheses may be derived from naturalistic observations, the observations themselves do not usually arise from a hypothesis-testing model of research. Qualitative researchers may refer to the natural settings where their projects are conducted as “the field,” and when they leave the laboratory to do their research, they are said to be conducting fieldwork.

It should be emphasized from the outset that naturalistic observation as a tool of research is different from the kinds of casual “seeing” that we do in the course of everyday life, even if it in fact stems from those very ordinary life skills. In order to be useful for research, observation must be systematic, which means that it must be conducted carefully, with precise notation that allows for the efficient and orderly retrieval, categorization, and analysis of information (Adler and Adler, 1994). While qualitative researchers tend to avoid predetermining categories of action that can be precisely measured, they are as concerned as their quantitative colleagues with ensuring that observation yields more than haphazard impressions. In everyday language, “observation” usually refers to the use of our visual sense to record and make 3sense of information. But in the research context, we must learn to use all of our senses, in order to accurately perceive the whole picture. As Adler and Adler (1994, p. 378) put it, “Observation thus consists of gathering impressions of the surrounding world through all relevant human faculties.”

There are three main traditions of observation-based research within qualitative social science: the non-reactive (or unobtrusive) mode, in which the researcher avoids intervening in the action he or she is observing, the reactive mode, in which the researcher intervenes in the action, but only in the role of outside observer, and the participant mode, in which the researcher strives to be an active member of the group under study. There are important sub-divisions of these three broad categories that we will discuss in greater detail in a later section. At this point, however, we can say that all forms of qualitative observation-based inquiry are rooted in the researcher’s preference for the “natural laboratory.” It is assumed that observation of people and events takes place in the settings in which they would naturally occur, and involves those who would naturally take part in them. The aim of qualitative observation research is to capture the essential flow of everyday experience. As such, observation serves the purpose of detecting patterns, concepts, trends, or categories that are taken as meaningful by people in the course of that everyday experience; it does not begin, as does much quantitative inquiry, with patterns, concepts, trends, or categories that emerge from theoretical formulations and take the form of specific hypotheses that can be tested by measuring clearly operationalized variables.

Adler and Adler (1994, p. 378), for example, speak of the “‘Click!’ experience,” which they describe as “a sudden, though minor, epiphany as to the emotional depth or importance of an event or a phenomenon.” Real life, in other words, is full of surprises, even for the well trained and experienced researcher. Observation allows the researcher to register that surprise and then ponder the meaning behind the behavior that provoked it. It is my belief that this necessary element of surprise and the experience of epiphany best arise out of personal encounters; it is fine to read about the research of others, but doing research for oneself is the best way to learn ethnography. Therefore, in addition to the didactic presentations in the following chapters, this book will feature some do-it-yourself suggestions. Those labeled “For Discussion” are meant to stimulate thinking about the research process and are intended to be shared with some relevant peer group.

4Why Do Qualitative Researchers Choose Naturalistic Observation as a Research Tool?

As we will see, good fieldwork is usually a matter of putting together multiple data collection techniques so as to converge on a holistic picture of a setting. Observation is rarely conducted in isolation as the sole method of data collection. In the context, then, of a mixed-methods research project, we can say that observational techniques are particularly well-suited to getting the lay of the land, so to speak. Observations therefore form the basis from which we can develop questions for surveys or interviews. In that sense, they are essential to and inform all other forms of data collection in the field. Using observation to get the lay of the land typically involves the study of:

• specific settings that may be clearly demarcated in physical space (e.g., a shopping mall, a church, a school) or in virtual space (e.g., an on-line chat group)
• events that feature well-defined sequences of activities longer and more complex than single actions, that take place in specific locations, have a defined purpose and meaning, involve more than one person, have a recognized history, and are repeated with some regularity (e.g., a university commencement program)
• demographic factors, which might include, for example, observation of housing or building materials, presence or absence of indoor plumbing, presence and number of intact windows, methods of garbage disposal, and legal or illegal sources of electrical power to indicate socioeconomic differences between neighborhoods as well as observations of where people congregate under particular circumstances.

5Site Selection: Examples

The first step in a naturalistic observation inquiry is to select a site in which to conduct fieldwork. In principle, qualitative observation-based research can be conducted wherever people interact in “natural” settings. The method originally came into its own in the context of research in small-scale and relatively homogeneous communities, although it soon came to be used in well-defined enclave communities (defined by race, ethnicity, or social class) within larger societies. More recently, it has been applied to “communities of interest,” defined as groups of people who share some common factor, such as members of a support group for cancer survivors, who do not necessarily share all the other aspects of traditional culture beyond the one interest that brought them together. It has even begun to be applied to “virtual communities” formed in cyberspace rather than in traditional physical space. In the latter case, there may be legitimate questions raised about whether all the senses are truly engaged in the process of observation, but an adaptation of the method is almost certainly called for, given the propensity of people nowadays to spend proportionately greater amounts of their time interacting on-line.

Public spaces and opportunity-based site selection.

An observational research site may be one in which the researcher might find him/herself anyway and which is considered “public” in a way that requires no special access; observations in public space have taken place in airports, city streets, shopping malls, medical waiting areas, and sporting events. On the other hand, a site may be one which the researcher might need permission to enter: a school classroom, a private event like a wedding or a funeral, or certain places of worship. It is conceivable that a site may not be “chosen” at all, but may present itself to the researcher through happenstance. Some years ago at an unusually long commencement ceremony, I amused myself by making note of facial expressions and body language that seemed to differentiate faculty from students as we progressed (at a glacial pace) through the event. I even wrote a paper about my observations, although the explicit threat of cruel reprisals from my colleagues kept me from ever publishing it.

6Site selection for theoretical interests.

More often than not, however, a site is specifically selected for some definite purpose (albeit typically not a formally stated, testable hypothesis). A site might be selected because the researcher has a prior theoretical interest in a particular aspect of sociocultural behavior that is typically found at such a site. One of my research interests, for example, is the way in which ethnic groups in culturally diverse societies define their communal identities, and how those identities shift in response to evolving economic and political circumstances. A study I conducted on Trinidad, an island in the West Indies, dealt specifically with how people from India (brought to the island in colonial times on a system of indenture to work on sugar plantations following the emancipation of the slaves) had made the transition from being an impoverished rural proletariat to being part of the emerging national state. During the course of this research, I conducted on-site observations at both a traditional sugar mill in the countryside and a modern oil refinery near the international port. I was not particularly concerned with the physics and chemistry of the transformation of cane into molasses or of petroleum into gasoline, but rather in the kinds of social interaction that typified the mill, an almost exclusively Indian work site, in comparison to the refinery, where Indians worked in close proximity to people from many different ethnic groups. (See Angrosino, 1974.)

Site selection for policy issues.

A site might also be selected because it typifies an issue of current policy concern. My own long-term study of adults with mental “disabilities” derived initially from my skeptical reaction to a spate of alarmist news reports about the “epidemic” of homeless mentally ill people who were “flooding” the streets in the wake of the mass closing of mental institutions. I wanted to get beyond the sensationalized media accounts in order to understand the process of deinstitutionalization from the inside, and so I began observing sheltered workshops, group homes, training centers, and other sites at which deinstitutionalized adults labeled as mentally retarded and/or chronically mentally ill congregated. (See Angrosino, 1998a.)

Site selection for a research commission.

Another way in which a site may become the focus of observational research is through a process of commissioning, paid or otherwise. That is, the people or organization involved in that site may want to have research conducted, and will contract with someone for this purpose. 7For example, a nearby monastery was getting ready to celebrate the centennial of its founding, and its leaders thought that an article on daily life in the community would make an interesting addition to the series of publications being released to celebrate the event. Since the study of the role of religious institutions in secular society is another of my interests, I have developed contacts with members of various denominations in our area. Through those contacts I was brought to the attention of the abbot of the monastery, who asked me to conduct the research he had in mind. Although much of my study was based on interviews with the monks, I was only able to place their reminiscences in proper context by doing a thorough observation of the site and getting a feel for what living there would be like. (See Angrosino, 2004.) The monastery “commission” was undertaken as an act of community service—assisting a significant local institution in celebrating an important anniversary. I have, however, conducted other research projects...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 What Is Naturalistic Observation?
• Chapter 2 Naturalistic Observation An Overview of Some Influential Schools of Thought
• Chapter 3 The Varieties of Naturalistic Observation
• Chapter 4 Naturalistic Observation Procedures and Practicalities
• Chapter 5 The Ethics of Naturalistic Observation
• Chapter 6 Current Issues in Naturalistic Observation
• Chapter 7 Looking Ahead
• Glossary
• References
• About the Author