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Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zaReactivity becomes the largest single threat to the validity of research findingswhen human behaviour or characteristics are the source of data or information.Excluding covert observation, and irrespective of whether data are collected bymeans of indirect or direct observation, human beings as respondents orresearch participants are aware of the researcher and usually react to thissituation in one way or another. Obviously, the products of human activitiessuch as documents or texts cannot react to the fact that they are beingresearched. It should, nevertheless, be borne in mind that the products ofhuman behaviour are the result of decisions and cognitive processes — that theproducts are the sedimentations or objectifications of the human spirit (inHegel’s terminology). This is, for example, manifested in the fact that theresearcher, when studying a text, has to be mindful of the original intention oraim of the author and of the researcher’s own historicity. The rationality ofhuman beings is obviously also manifested in the products of humanbehaviour. Although data sources in the second category are unlikely to displayreactivity to any marked extent, it cannot be ignored. In the remainder of thissection, we shall, however, pay attention to the threats to the validity offindings which are associated with the first category.An obvious reaction to the high level of reactivity of some sources of data is toattempt to control for this. The researcher could, for example, attempt tominimize the threats to validity by imposing a greater degree of structure onthe observations, or by exerting more control on the research situation.The best examples of this type of control are to be found in experimentalresearch designs. One such form of control is the practice of assigningparticipants to experimental and control groups on a random basis to controlfor the possible effects of individual differences. Quite frequently, theparticipants of such research are isolated in a laboratory situation removedfrom their natural environment so as to limit the effects of external nuisancevariables. Banks drew attention to the interesting phenomenon that thesecontrol measures vary positively with the degree of reactivity of the specificobservation technique employed. Stated differently, the greater the number ofcontrols that the researcher builds into the research situation, the more likelythe participants are to be reactive. Because of the fact that laboratoryconditions such as isolation and random assignment to treatments does notform part of the everyday existence of the subjects, it is likely to result inartificial and atypical patterns of behaviour. As Groenewald (1986) quitecorrectly states, the researcher is faced with an insoluble dilemma — while, onthe one hand, it is desirable to use observation techniques that elicit as littlereactivity as possible in order to ensure the highest level of validity, it is, on theother hand, equally desirable to employ observation techniques that make itpossible to exercise the greatest possible control.78