A good overview of participant observation can be found in the book "Participant Observation" by James P. Spradley. The book discusses different levels of participation and the ethical and data collection and interpretation issues that emerge with differing levels of participation. The book describe a general procedure for participant observation starting out with how to locate the observation situation, how to choose the level of participation, how to make description observations, how to make domain analyses and focused observations, how to take a cultural inventory, and how to write up the overal results of the participant observation study.
Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participant observation. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Another small handbook (one of the Sage series on methods) that deals with overt and participant observation is: Jorgensen, D. L. (1989). Participant observation: A methodology for human studies. Sage Publications. As part of one of my jobs, I had to listen to a day's worth of support calls with a member of the support team and when "how to" questions came up on on a product I was working on, the tech support person would bring me into the call. It was very difficult and some people were outraged and you had to calm them down first. I gained a tremendous amount of respect for tech support as a result of a few days of being on the line with them. Chauncey On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 11:00 AM, christine chastain < [email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > Participant observation is well documented in anthropological literature so > I may have a look there. There are, of course, issues with this > methodology, > like all others. Mainly, they are of the ethical kind - how not to > influence > the observed, whether or not to let them know that you are participating in > order to observe them or not, whether you should interfere in interactions > that are uncomfortable for you or unethical in your eyes (domestic > violence, > drug dealing, etc.), etc. Just a heads up because I have seen, in my own > work, that these issues do have an influence on outcomes. > > Also, self-reporting techniques are useful in conjunction with participant > observation. That way, you can be a bit more sure that it isn't your > perception of participation that feeds the analysis. > > Cheers, > Christine > > On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 8:22 AM, Joshua Ayers <[email protected] > >wrote: > > > I've never heard of anyone doing this, but I have to agree that it is > > an excellent idea. Having personas to help develop applications is one > > thing, but to actually take on the role of a potential user is even > > better! > > > > > > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > > Posted from the new ixda.org > > http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=37492 > > > > > > ________________________________________________________________ > > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > > To post to this list ....... [email protected] > > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [email protected] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
