Observation usually involves an intensive examination of a particular group, event, or social process. The researcher studies something that is happening or has happened without attempting to structure the conditions of observation. Most observational studies take place in the field.
Observation is a form of long unstructured interview, where the researcher interviews people informally, if need be, as events unfold before his eyes. But s/he learns not by asking questions but by what they observe.
The researcher does not attempt to influence what happens in any way but aims instead at an accurate description and analysis of what takes place. The analysis usually involves tracing cause-and-effect relationships, but some sociologists are content merely to give a precise account of their observations. These accounts may be useful to other sociologists.
Observation can be of three types:
a. Non-participant Observation: The researcher remains an outsider to the event or the group. He does not participate in the group life but observes as an external spectator.
b. Participant Observation : The observer lives in the group or community as a member of it and participates in their life, while he observes. Though this approach is very common in Social Anthropology, it is also used in Sociology.
A famous example of this type of participation was done by John Howard Griffin, who dyed his skin black and lived as a black man in the southern states ofAmerica(1960). Another famous instance was Hunter Thompson, who lived with a bunch of Hell’s Angels and observed their culture (1967).
c. Controlled Observation (Experimental Method)
The greatest drawback of uncontrolled observation is that in it the observer has no control over the factors or circumstances operating in a situation, and therefore cannot easily determine the influencing factors. Therefore they have recourse to controlled observation. Here is an example. To determine what influences workers’ better productivity (dependant variable), different factors may be chosen to be independent variables (like a nap in the afternoon, common coffee break, recreational facility, incentives, music,etc.) and observe the fall or rise in their performance in correspondence to the presence or absence of the independent variables.
However there are innumerable social situations where the control of circumstances is neither feasible nor desirable. For example, no one can condone inducing drug-addiction in human beings for the sake of determining the quantity and frequency of drug taking leading to addiction.