RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

410 OBSERVATION
the individual or the protection and interests of
the wider public, will the research harm already
damaged or vulnerable people, will the research
improve their lot, will the research have to treat
the researched instrumentally in the interests of
gathering otherwise unobtainable yet valuable
research data The researcher has inescapable
moral obligations to consider and, while codes
of ethical conduct abound, each case might have
to be judged on its own merits.
Further, the issue of non-intervention is, itself,
problematical. While the claim for observation as
being non-interventionist was made at the start
of this chapter, the issue is not as clean cut as
this, for researchers inhabit the world that they
are researching, and their influence may not be
neutral (the Hawthorne and halo effects discussed
in Chapter 5). This is clearly an issue in, for
example, school inspections, where the presence
of an inspector in the classroom exerts a powerful
influence on what takes place; it is disingenuous
to pretend otherwise. Observer effects can be
considerable.
Moreover, the non-interventionist observer has
to consider her/his position very closely. In the
example of Patrick’s (1973) witness to a murder
above, should the researcher have blown his
cover and reported the murder What if not
acting on the witnessed murder might have
yielded access to further sensitive data Should
a researcher investigating drug or child abuse
report the first incident or hang back in order
to gain access to further, more sensitive data
Should a witness to abuse simply report it or
take action about it If observers see incidents
of racial abuse or bullying, should they maintain
their non-interventionist position Is the observer
merely a journalist, providing data for others
to judge When does non-intervention become
morally reprehensible These are issues for which
one cannot turn to codes of conduct for a clear
adjudication.
Some cautionary comments
Many observation situations carry the risk of bias
(e.g. Wilkinson 2000: 228; Moyles 2002: 179;
Robson 2002: 324–5; Shaughnessy et al. 2003:
116–17), for example by:
Selective attention of the observer: what we see
is a function of where we look, what we look
at, how we look, when we look, what we think
we see, whom we look at, what is in our minds
at the time of observation; what are our own
interests and experiences.
Reactivity: participants may change their
behaviour if they know that they are being
observed, e.g. they may try harder in class,
they may feel more anxious, they may behave
much better or much worse than normal,
they may behave in ways in which they
think the researcher wishes or in ways for
which the researcher tacitly signals approval:
‘demand characteristics’ (Shaughnessy et al.
2003: 113).
Attention deficit: what if the observer is
distracted, or looks away and misses an event
Validity of constructs: decisions have to taken on
what counts as valid evidence for a judgement.
For example, is a smile a relaxed smile, a
nervous smile, a friendly smile, a hostile smile
Does looking at a person’s non-verbal gestures
count as a valid indicator of interaction Are
the labels and indicators used to describe the
behaviour of interest valid indicators of that
behaviour
Selective data entry: what we record is sometimes
affected by our personal judgement rather
than the phenomenon itself; we sometimes
interpret the situation and then record our
interpretation rather than the phenomenon.
Selective memory: if we write up our observations
after the event our memory neglects and
selects data, sometimes overlooking the need
to record the contextual details of the observation;
notes should be written either during or
immediately after the observation.
Interpersonal matters and counter-transference:
our interpretations are affected by our
judgements and preferences – what we like and
what we don’t like about people and their
behaviour, together with the relationships that
we may have developed with those being