Dear Ross,

I hope the following may be of some assistance.

Kind regards,

Paul Chaney

Carolyn Ellis, Tony E. Adams & Arthur P. Bochner (2011) Autoethnography: An Overview, Volume 12, No. 1, Art. 10 – January 2011. http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589/3095%3Cbr

RM Emerson, RI Fretz, LL Shaw (2001) Participant observation and fieldnotes, Chpt 24 in Handbook of ethnography, in Atkinson, P. et al (eds) 2001, Thousand Oaks, Ca. SAGE

Rowe, A. (2014) Situating the Self in Prison Research: Power, Identity, and Epistemology, Qualitative Inquiry April 2014, vol. 20 no. 4, 404-416. http://qix.sagepub.com/content/20/4/404.abstract

Thanks for your help on in this Paul!

Ross

That's an interesting question, Ross. Having done participant observation in ethnographic and other qualitative studies for many years, I have wondered how my presence changed the responses and actions of participants. I think  you might consider these questions and considerations, as you administer your self-report survey. One might assume that, in some instances, those being observed will be on their best behavior, when they are aware of being observed, which may mean that what typically happens is somewhat "cleaned up" for public view. You didn't mention whether your position of participant observer was covert or known to the rest of the group being observed.  If they are aware that you are observing for the purposes of research, then they may skew the reality of what happens normally to fit how they want to public to view it, and they may be hesitant to reveal that, in fact, your presence had an effect on their behavior. Granted, observing over time means, hopefully, that you have established a sense of rapport and trust that facilitates their acting naturally and without regard for your presence as a researcher, but will they really tell  you or do they even know how their actions/behaviors were affected? I would be interested to see what you find. 

Good suggestions above. It is an issue that has been debated in anthropology as well.

I presume your observations were overt and if so I share Barbara's reservations about the value of self-reports when you have established a relationship with the participants (even if it is not a close one they will know the people who are close to you).  A questionnaire would also make it difficult to tease out issues such as the participants goals when talking to you.   I recommend reading Briggs (1986) 'Learning How to Ask' Cambridge University Press.  He discovered that much of what he was told by his key informants was based on their understanding that their role was to teach him.  It had a significant effect on what they told him and how they did so.

Rose I was in a similar situation a year back and the only thing that I remember offered by leading sociologists was to "question your position in any given environment"

Thanks everyone for your comments.

Yes, the research was overt. I shadowed police officers during shifts when they interacted with members of the public. As a member of police myself (but not in the two locations I was researching) I had a "less-than-the-usually-expected" level of resistance to building rapport but I was still interested in whether there was some way to systematically measure or evaluate reactivity at the end of the research. 

Some research of police-citizen encounters concluded that gender of the observer can affect the degree of proactivity - look at Spano 2005 Potential sources of observer bias in police observational data - but I was wondering if anyone had tried to measure reactivity through a self-report questionnaire.

What was interesting about the research was that in one of the two research sites, the general area of operations was heavily monitored by CCTV and some research subjects wore body video cams. As such, this group where "aware they were being observed" when not accompanied by a participant observer. The other group operated in an environment where there was no CCTV or body cams. This may have only affected some types of behaviour (i.e. deviant behaviour) but of course may have had no affect on other types of behaviour (i.e. behaviour that doesn't look bad such as decision-making or temporal factors). 

I will check out Briggs, thanks David.

Hi, Ross,

I think that the fact that they were police officers in a precinct to which you do not belong and the fact that they are used to being on CCTV or on video via body cams make a difference in how I might respond to the prospect of your asking them about reactivity. I agree that gender may be a factor to consider,  particularly in a male-dominated occupation, such as law enforcement. I think a survey might be useful in this instance. If you supplement the survey with interviews and observational data, you may be able to make some comparisons between the two locations for those who are aware of constantly being watched and those who are being watched for purposes of the research. I think I would be interested in asking such questions of them as: In what ways does the presence of a researcher affect your responses (behavior and language)? Tell me of an instance in which you felt that you responded differently, because you were being observed. They may feel that they have to respond differently when there is video monitoring at all times or when they are being observed by a researcher. I'd check on how they perceive any changes in their actions and responses (physically, emotionally, and verbally) when being observed. It may be an exercise in futility, but you may get something very important. 

Another, more inductive option, is to use some form of elicitation (sometimes called projective) technique.  Elicitation techniques can help get past self-presentation issues and provide you with some direction for any quantitative work you might want to do.  Some good articles on different elicitation techniques are Breivik and Supphellen (2003) Elicitation of product attribute in an evaluation context: A comparison of three elicitation techniques, Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 24. 77-98

I think a vignette approach might work quite well in your context.

http://qrj.sagepub.com/content/10/2/175