HOW TO CARRY OUT PARTICIPANT

OBSERVATION?

Course Title: Business Research

Course Code: BAN 375

Member 1: Toukir Ahammad 2009731008

Member 2: Ahammad Bhuiyan Lipu 2009731013

Member 3: Sharmistha Tribedi 2009731020

Group : Cluster

Observation

Observation is the systematic process of recording the

behavioural patterns of people, objects, and occurrences as they

are witnessed

The observation serves a formulated research purpose

It is planned systematically

It is recorded systematically and related to general purpose

The observation is subjected to checks or control on validaty

and reliability.

To Carry Out Participant Observation

Participant observation can be viewed as a methodology, rather than a

method, as it took shape within particular historical and social

circumstances within anthropology and sociology. It is a procedure for

generating understanding about the way of life of others.

Participant observation can be carried out within any community,

culture or context which is different to the usual community and/or

culture of the researcher. The researcher immerses herself into the

community - the action is deliberate and intended to add to knowledge.

The researcher participates in the community while observing others

within that community, and as such she must be a researcher 24 hours a

day. In practice most researchers find that they play more of a role as

observer, than they do as a participant.

Various process of carrying out participant observation:

Gaining access

Acting ethically

Personal considerations when entering the field

Collecting and analyzing information

Withdrawing from the field

To Carry Out Participant Observation

Description of the process

Gaining Access: Participant observation, as a research method, cannot work unless being able to gain access to the community that someone wish to study. Before you spend a lot of time planning your project you need to find out whether you can obtain this access.

There are two ways of gaining access. They are: Using gatekeepers Creating a good impression

Acting ethically: Because of the nature of participant observation, there tends to be more issues involving ethics and morals to consider. This could happen with research into drug use or crime syndicates where people may not trust you until you become one of them and join in their activities.

Personal considerations when entering the field: Some people will not accept you. Is someone prepared for rejection and can you handle it when it happens? Is he/she able to banish rejection anxieties from the outset? Some researchers overcome this problem by making sure that they have someone outside the community who they can talk to if they need to. Some researchers may try arguing their point in the hope that they will get more information and it will deepen their understanding. However, you must be careful not to compromise your position.

Description of the process

Description of the process

Collecting and analyzing information : At the beginning of a participant observation study it is hard to understand what everything means. At first something may appear very significant, but later it might become a minor detail. However, you will not know this until you have started to analyze what is going on. So it is important from the outset to start taking copious notes. You need to have a good memory as in many situations it is not possible to take notes at the time.

Withdrawing from the field : When you have been immersed in a particular culture for a long period of time, it can be hard to break away. Indeed, some researchers have found that they do not want to break away, although this only happens rarely. It is important to leave your community on good terms. Finally, you must make sure that you try not to do anything which will give researchers a bad name and cause problems for other researchers who may wish to follow in your footsteps.

Summery

Finally we can say that, in participant observation, the researcher immerses herself into a community, culture or context.

To gain access a researcher must be non-threatening, displaying appropriate behavior and body language ,wearing appropriate dress and needs to do much soul-searching before going into the field.

A useful way of gaining access is to find a gatekeeper who can introduce you to other members of the community.

It is sometimes quicker and more economical to wait for questions to come to the researcher, rather than ask questions of informants in the early stages of a study.

The community should be left on good terms and any written reports should be given back to the people for their interest and personal comments.

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