Information
Due to the objectivity of the five senses of the researcher, observation is an extremely objective research method. It seems to require little or no interaction between the researcher and those being studied (Angrosino, 2007, p. 37). This procedure does not disturb the natural, continuous flow of events at all or it does so to the smallest extent. The natural dynamics of the procedural unfolding of an event, and all the important elements of the event, are successfully identified by means of observation. Observation can also be directed to some crucial moments, which can be isolated, and thoroughly studied. But more than anything else, observation, and especially its participant forms, directly establishes communication between people, and opens up the closed groups of people, bringing some changes to them that did not exist before (Pečujlić, 1982, p. 105).
In spite of being a very fruitful data collection procedure, observation has some significant limitations, which relate both to the research method, and the observer as a central figure in the procedure. Observation is a long-lasting and complex process. Even when thoroughly planned, it depends on the so-called dispersion of senses. Namely, due to the long-lasting process of observation and its complex organization within a place, senses cannot detect all the facts. So, the unconscious process of suppressing some facts with others, or suppressing old facts with new ones, inevitably takes place.
The success of keeping structured and organised field notes depends on a thoroughly prepared plan for note taking, but even then, if there is not enough time, it is difficult to record all the data. So, this is usually done after the observation, but then it loses the elements of real observation and becomes recollection, which implies that some data processing has been done in the mind that interprets the facts, thus revealing the deceptiveness of human senses. A note taking plan can help to solve the problem, but cannot completely eliminate it.
The observer as the central figure in the observation process is limited by the deceptiveness of human senses, but also by his or her own skills, because skills differ with different people. When it comes to observation, they differ so much that the same two people will not perceive the same fact in the same way. Most people are in fact persuaded to see what they want to see. A series of the observer’s mental characteristics such as speed, precision, mental ability, recollection, mood, together with a series of social characteristics such as sociability and talkativeness, form the so-called ‘personal equation’ of the observer, which affects the observation, and can distort the originality of facts. Bias is even more dangerous than this latent danger accompanying observation. Very often the observer distorts the accuracy of facts not only unconsciously, but quite consciously as well. The traditional methodology considers this not only a serious limitation, but also the breach of the scientific rigour of the procedure. In the dialectic action research model, this is not a problem, and the bias itself, which breaks through the established ideological veil, is the precondition for reaching objectivity and truthfulness. Bias serves as a social engagement that provides a path to good observation (Pečujlić & Milić, 1995, p. 107).
