Research Methods

This is my first anthropology class that I have taken but the research methods are very similar to other classes I have taken. The four different ways that researchers can collect data is through questionnaires, interviews, observation and participant observation.  Although each of the different methods have their pros and cons I find observation and participant-observation the most interesting.  In my senior year of high school I took a psychology class and we were required to come up with questionnaires and distribute them to students around our school.  The topic that my group was interested in was The Sexual History of High School Students, which is an interesting topic while in high school.  Looking back on the assignment, it probably was not the best choice because in high school boys want to seem "cool, hip, popular" by having sexual partners therefore they could have lied when the question asked how many sexual partners had they had.  While the girls did not want to seem "slutty" by having more than one sexual partner.  Although the students answers were anonymous I still feel that by answering such intimate questions, the boys wanted to be perceived as cool while they girls were more worried about other would think.  With the topic of sexual history, I think it is hard to collect accurate data because during interviews people are not probably not willing to open up about such a personal and intimate parts of their life and it is not appropriate to collect data by observation or participant- observation.

The reason I find observation so interesting is because you get to see whatever subjects you are observing in their natural environment.  Although your subjects may be a little nervous or hesitant because they are being watched I think that the data that you are collecting is more accurate than questionnaires.  I still feel that with questionnaires people may not always be truthful such as "are you home every night to read a story and tuck your child into bed?" People want to seem better on paper, than they may be in real life.  With participant-observation, I think it would be fascinating to emerge yourself in someone’s culture and environment and see what it is like to live like they do.  It can be hard to put all preconceived notions aside but I think it is one of the most interesting ways to collect data.