Why Do Some Sociologists Use Observation?

Select one answer for each item. 1. In sociology, observation means spending time:

• Watching social life as it happens to study behaviour directly

• Downloading official statistics on behaviour

• Re-analysing previous questionnaires

• Asking teachers to keep behaviour logs

A participant observer differs from a non-participant observer because they:

• Remain on the sidelines taking notes only

• Join in with the group’s activities while studying it

• Use only covert methods

• Record behaviour on hidden cameras

The hand-out says overt observation is when the people being studied:

• Think the researcher is a teacher

• Are unaware of any study taking place

• Know the researcher is observing them

• Are interviewed after the session

Covert participant observation is especially useful for researching:

• Nursery classrooms

• Public lectures

• Sports crowds with ticket entry

• Secretive or criminal groups that would refuse open access

Select one answer for each item. 5. One strength of observation highlighted in the notes is that it is usually high in:

• Validity, because the researcher sees behaviour first-hand

• Reliability, since results are identical each time

• Sample size, covering thousands of people quickly

• Ethical approval from all participants

A key weakness of participant observation is that the researcher may:

• Influence behaviour simply by being present

• Forget details because they cannot write notes while joining in

• Finish the study very quickly

• Collect only quantitative data

Non-participant observation can threaten validity because the group might:

• Permit more detailed questioning

• Ignore the researcher’s presence completely

• Change its behaviour as soon as it realises it is being watched

• Supply large amounts of statistics

The hand-out notes that observation studies are often criticised on ethical grounds when they are:

• Overt and conducted in schools

• Funded by the government

• Covert and the group is unaware it is being studied

• Approved by an ethics committee

Because observation is extremely time-consuming, some sociologists have:

• Spent several years immersed in a single group before writing results

• Collected national statistics instead

• Replaced observation with postal surveys

• Abandoned validity as a goal

When a senior teacher walks into a classroom and behaviour suddenly improves, this illustrates the drawback of:

• Participant observation

• Non-participant overt observation altering natural behaviour

• Secondary-data analysis

• Covert observation’s ethical issues