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Key Takeaways
- Unobtrusive research refers to methods of collecting data that do not interfere with the subjects under study (because these methods are not obtrusive). It is a cost-effective way to do research and more forgiving of mistakes; however, there can be potential problems with validity, limitations in the data availability, and difficulty in accounting for social context.
- The Hawthorne effect, which is the effect of the researchers on the participants, is not a concern with unobtrusive measures because researchers do not interact directly with their research participants.
- Primary data sources are original data sources, whereas secondary data sources are those that have already been analyzed.
- Physical traces are those materials that are left by humans and the material artifacts that tell us something about their beliefs, values, or norms.
- There are two types of physical trace materials. Erosion refers to the wearing away or removal of material because of a physical activity (e.g. a worn foot path). On the other hand, accretion is the building up of material because of physical activity (e.g., a pile of garbage).
- Archival measures are hard copy documents or records, including written or taped-recorded material, photographs, newspaper, books, magazines, diaries, and letters. Webpages are also a source of archival measures and can include documents, images, videos, and audio files in addition to written materials.
- Stability is an issue in unobtrusive research when the results of coding by the same person vary across different time period.
- Reproducibility means that one coder’s results are the same as other coders’ results for the same text.
- Accuracy refers to the extent to which one’s coding procedures correspond to some pre-existing standard.
- Ethnomethodologists study everyday reality and how people produce those realities through their presentations of self and interactions with others.
- Conversation analysis is considered a more formal ethnomethodological approach. It focuses specifically on the dynamics of talk.
