Structured Observation

Definition

Anthropologists prefer the method of structured observation when studying particular issues in people's behavior. Structured observation focuses on people’s behaviors related to the pre-determined topics of observers. For example, if researchers want to investigate nutrition in a particular group of people, they may focus on people’s eating behaviors. Anthropologists consider two different interests in structured observation depending on the purpose of research. One interest is to understand the process of a particular behavior. The other is to measure how much or how often people engage in a particular behavior during a given time period. 

Advantage

Anthropologists use structured observation after becoming somewhat familiar with a group of people under study. Researchers will be able to develop effective observation plans when they already know important issues of the group. Over the years, social scientists have developed various coding systems for structured observation. One of the advantages of this is that researchers can compare the results of observations when they use the same coding system. For example, anthropologists conducted structured observation on children's play in six different countries, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, the Philippines, New England, and India. Their consistent observations under the same code enabled the researchers to compare their data and draw a cross-cultural conclusion on children's social behavior and its development (Bernard 2002: 399-400).

Challenges

One of the challenges of structured observation is reactivity. When people know they are being observed, they tend to act differently than they usually do. This reactivity prevents anthropologists from recording people’s authentic behavior. Researchers can lower reactivity by conducting participant observation with structured observation. As people become used to the presence of observers, they tend to stop acting for the observers.

Information overload presents another challenge in conducting structured observations. It is sometimes difficult for a researcher to observe and record all the behaviors of focus. The solution is to organize a team of researchers so that they can observe the same scene together.

Sources:

• Angrosino, Michael V. 2002 Doing Cultural Anthropology: Projects for Ethnographic Data Collection. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press.





• Bernard, Russell H. 2002 Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.

This page was created by a Minnesota State University, Mankato student. Last updated 11/14/04.