Observation in multi-method research

In the same way that surveys can give the bigger picture within which more in-depth interviews are nested, so can observation provide a wider descriptive framework. In a school, for example, it would make only limited sense to interview teachers about their views on the official dis­ciplinary policy without some account, by direct observation, of how student behaviour was routinely dealt with. Both approaches have their strengths and limitations; in combi­nation these balance out.

Because of the difficulty of getting a comprehensive pic­ture via any one method in social research, during the past 20 years or so there has been increasing interest in the complementary strengths of different methods. A key text, recommended for further reading (but not for its read­ability) is Brewer and Hunter’s 1989 book Multi-method Research: A Synthesis of Styles. Case study research methods (see Gillham, 2000), with the emphasis on multiple sources of evidence, are part of the same movement. The notion of taking multiple perspectives on a complex social phenom­enon (teenage pregnancies, for example) is a commonsense one. Interviews, national level statistics and demographic patterns can combine with participant observation – going with these young women on their daily routines, visiting them in their homes, helping them with the practicalities of claiming allowances, and so on – all these factors in com­bination enable outsiders (perhaps neither young, nor female, nor pregnant, nor poor) to grasp the wider issues. And the observational element adds something vivid and ‘real*, which may not be apparent even from loosely struc­tured interviews with the teenagers concerned.

Source: Gillham Bill (2008), Observation Techniques: Structured to Unstructured, Continuum; Illustrated edition.