5/10/2024 0 Comments Actor observer bias questions![]() In part this concern is a response to ethnographers’ relative methodological indifference – unlike researchers using statistical methods – to measuring the extent of any bias introduced or calculating the reliability and validity of their data ( Atkinson and Hammersley, 2007). i Of course, the implication is that individuals will behave better (e.g., more ethically, more conscientiously, more efficiently) when being observed. For instance, a key part of grant proposals is a description of the methods that ethnographers will mobilize to prevent their presence from becoming an intervention or changing the behaviors and activities of those whom they are studying ( Agar, 1980). ![]() By doing so, however, ethnographers effectively legitimize the concern. Observer effects – also sometimes referred to as “researcher effects,” “reactivity,” or the “Hawthorne effect” – are often understood to be so pervasive that ethnographers must make de facto explanations about how they will attempt to minimize them ( McDonald, 2005 Shipman, 1997). This paper is an initial response to that criticism. Implicit in this negative evaluation of ethnographic methods is the assumption that other methods, particularly quantitative methods, are more objective or less prone to bias ( Agar, 1980 Forsythe, 1999). Put simply, critics assert that the presence of a researcher will influence the behavior of those being studied, making it impossible for ethnographers to ever really document social phenomena in any accurate, let alone objective, way ( Wilson, 1977). Finally, by detailing a few examples of questionable behavior on the part of informants, we challenge the fallacy that the presence of ethnographers will cause informants to self-censor.Ī frequent criticism of ethnographic research is that “observer effects” will somehow bias and therefore invalidate research findings ( LeCompte and Goetz, 1982 Spano, 2005). Second, we draw upon our ethnographic projects to illustrate the rich data that can be obtained from “staged performances” by informants. To make this case, first we mobilize methodological insights from the field of science studies to illustrate the contingency and partiality of all knowledge and to challenge the notion that ethnography is less objective than other research methods. Informants’ performances – however staged for or influenced by the observer – often reveal profound truths about social and/or cultural phenomena. Instead of aspiring to distance and detachment, some of the greatest strengths of ethnographic research lie in cultivating close ties with others and collaboratively shaping discourses and practices in the field. ![]() This paper responds to the criticism that “observer effects” in ethnographic research necessarily bias and therefore invalidate research findings. ![]()
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