POL 2156 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Proxemics, Participant Observation, Focus Group

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POL 2156
• Professor: Stephanie Mullen

Document Summary

Participant observation is useful for gaining an understanding of the: Physical, social, cultural, and economic contexts in which participants live. The relationships among and between people, contacts, ideas, norms, and events. People"s behaviours and activities - what they do, how frequently, and with whom. Enables researches to develop a familiarity with the cultural milieu. Data obtained through participant observation serve as a check against participants subjective reporting of what they believe and do. Researchers can uncover factors important for a thorough understanding of the research problem that were unknown the study was designed. What we learn from participant observation can help us. Understand data collected through other methods (such as interviews, focus groups, and quantitive, research methods) Design questions for those methods that will give us the best understanding of the phenomenon being studied. Participant observation may be done prior to other data collection, as well as simultaneously with other methods and during data analysis.