Terms In Sociology Research 2022

Running head: TERMS IN SOCIOLOGY
TERMS IN SOCIOLOGY
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TERMS IN SOCIOLOGY1
The sociologists use a large number of methods and designs for studying the social
behavior and the society. Participatory observation can be considered as a trademark of both
sociological studies as well as anthropological studies. In the recent years research has seen a
sudden increase of the number of qualitative studies, which includes the observation of the
participants or the respondents as a way to collect data for qualitative studies (Jorgensen).
Qualitative methodologies like observation, conduction of interviews and analysis of the
documentations can be included under the umbrella term of the “ethnographic methodology”.
The term observation has been defined by MARSHALL and ROSSMAN (1989) to be a
systematic description of the behaviors, incidents, events and artifacts within a social setting that
has been chosen for the study. “Observatory researches enables the researcher to discuss about
the existing situations by the use of the five senses, and providing a written photograph of the
entire situation. A participatory observation enables the researcher to get an insight of the
activities of people who are under the study by observation and participation those tasks or the
activities. According to DeMUNCK and SOBO (1998), participatory observation is a primary
method that is being used by the anthropologists by doing the fieldwork, which involves, active
looking, informal interviewing, improvement of the memory with a detailed written field, notes.
Kawulich, Barbara on the other hand have stated that understanding the observation of the
participants requires a certain amount of deception and impression management. Most of the
anthropologist needs to maintain certain distance for the maintenance of a sense of objectivity.
The researchers should aim to assimilate with the community by the establishment of the rapport
with the community, such that the members act naturally and then removing oneself from the
community or the setting and concentrating on the analysis of the data that has been collected.
Participant observation would also involve natural conversations, interviews of various sorts,

TERMS IN SOCIOLOGY2
questionnaires, checklists and interviews. ‘Peopled ethnography” can be used as a term that
provides a description of the theoretical understanding of the settings by the utilization of the
vignettes, interviews and the product of the group members. “Peopled ethnography” is done by
the extensive description of the observed behavior (Balsiger, Philip, and Alexandre Lambelet).
Discussing about the strengths and limitations of using participatory observation, it can be said
that it allows for a detailed description, which can be interpreted to mean that one’s goal of
description behaviorism situations and intentions are understood by one’s informants. Moreover
it advances the feature of the data collection process. It assists in the development of new
hypothesis or the research question. There are also several disadvantages of an ethnographic
research. Sometimes the researcher might not find interest in interfering in whatever that is
happening out of eye of the public and that one should depend on the utilization of the main
informants. There can be issues related to the representation of the incidents or wrong
interpretations might occur if the investigators select the main informants who are community
leaders and hence biased information might be obtained. As stated by Lopez-Dicastillo, Olga,
and Maider participant observation leads to a wrong description in behavior research. As many
of the researchers have noted that the collected information does no symbolize tradition, as much
of the collected data by the investigator is based on the interest of the researcher. For example,
the reports collected about political activities would be more interesting than that of the eating
and the sleeping activities. Participatory observation is used as a backbone in the field work in a
varieties of subjects.
There are two types of naturalistic observation. Observations are a favorable methods
used in behaviorism studies. Overt observation can be referred as the researcher being open
about their intentions in the observatory field. The strength of these types of observation is that it