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In accordance with common usage in the literature on experimental design, weshall refer to the consequences of the nuisance variables associated with eachof the four variables as effects: researcher effects, participant effects measuringinstrument effects, and context effects. Researcher effects are those negativeconsequences (relating to validity) that are directly attributable to theresearcher. Similarly, measuring instrument effects are those negativeconsequences, or that lack of validity, that may be directly attributed to someaspect of the measuring instrument, and so on.Observation effectsWe shall employ the term observation effects in a broad sense to indicateresearcher, participant, measuring instrument, and context effects. Althoughthe examples to which we refer in the following section are mainly derivedfrom the experimental and survey research literature, it ought to be clear to thereader that they have a wider applicability, and also refer to unstructured formsof observation.Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zaRESEARCHER EFFECTSOur discussion of researcher effects is divided into two sections; in the first, wediscuss those effects which are associated with researcher characteristics, andin the second, those associated with researcher orientations.Researcher characteristicsSome of the most important researcher effects associated with specificresearcher characteristics or attributes, relate to the affiliation of the researcher,the image that the researcher has with the research participants, and thedistance between the researcher and the participants as a result of differencesbetween the characteristics of the researcher and those of the participants. Thelatter category is, therefore, not only the consequence of researchercharacteristics, but it arises from the interaction between the characteristics ofthe researcher and those of the participants.(i)Affiliation of the researcherThe organization with which the researcher is associated may result inresponses being biased. If the interviewer is employed by a highly influentialorganization that is known for the quality of its research, it is likely thatrespondents will be more highly motivated to answer questions seriously andauthentically. Universities and large research organizations usually havereputations of this nature. Should the interviewer, however, be associated withan organization which causes suspicion or with a completely unknownorganization, it is likely that respondents will react more negatively to theinterview situation. Atking and Chaffee (1972), for example, found that the81