Structured observations as research method under the prism of interpretivism

Interpretivism, which is one of the most well-known methodological philosophies in education, alleges that there is a clear distinction between the nature of the natural phenomena and the nature of the social phenomena. It rejects the assumption that the phenomena can occur in the same way in different places and times and disputes the effectiveness of any linear causal model as it can only give convincing explanations about a uniform world. Interpretivism also claims that while natural scientists, like physicists, chemists, biologists, etc can effectively study the natural world by using a common scientific method, the social scientists, like historians, educational researchers, etc need more sophisticated methods in order to study the multi-faceted and unpredictable field of the social phenomena and human affairs. 

Thus, the advocates of interpretivism, adopting an antinaturalist and antipositivism position, reject by default all the methods being used by natural scientists. They further support their ideas by arguing that human beings are apparently much more complex organisms than atoms and chemicals, that they have more intricate needs than food and sleep and that above all they constantly and mutually interact with the social and cultural environment in which they live. In other words, the advocates of interpretivism claim that the different cultural background and orientation shapes drastically and inevitably the way people think, act and make sense of the world.

Consequently, the innumerable cultural variations on the one hand and the personal interpretations on the other, explain the existence (at several historical periods and societies), or the co-existence (at the same period and society) of different beliefs and thoughts about numerous subjects like religion, sciences, aesthetics, ethics etc. Additionally and because each member of a society constructs its own individual and subjective reality, a person might act in a completely diverse and unpredictable way under the same or similar situation.

Thus the ”logic” of what people say or do, can be only understood if the researchers analyze and comprehend deeply people’s beliefs and thoughts, their culture, their perception, their intentions and goals, their feelings, their view on good and bad etc. More specifically and focusing on the field of education, the advocates of interpretivism suggest that before any research starts, the researchers must first endeavor to see and document the world (society, classroom etc) from the point of view of the research subject (students, teacher etc) and then to try to understand and explain the rationale of the intentions and actions of them. Moreover, Interpretivism, unlike behaviorism, urges the researchers to explore mostly what is not observable, like people’s thoughts and perception and thus encourages them to employ mostly qualitative research methods and reject the scientific ones.

            Because of the exploratory character or interpretivism, the research question may not be specific and concrete from the beginning and by contrast it might emerge as the research process develops and progresses. Also the advocates of interpretivism, through the exploratory process aspire to overcome all the prior misperceptions and stereotypes especially those that concern the low-status or marginalized groups.

Now according to the opponents of this methodology, the majority of the interpetivist ideas are unrealistic and impractical. They also claim that it’s rather impossible to run a survey respecting absolutely the principles of interpretivism, since it presupposes a set of ideal conditions like the profound understanding of other people’s perspective and the overcoming of any personal or cultural assumption.

At first glance, the use of structured observation under the prism of interpretivism seems an obvious oxymoron. Indeed, the interpretive form of research that is mainly exploratory in character starts from the tentative estimation that the researchers know nothing about the subject they want to investigate and that they must reject any previous knowledge, assumptions, stereotypes about it. According to this philosophy the researchers should try to collect the data in a rather open-ended fashion using methods that are structured as little as possible. On the contrary, structured observation is a highly prearranged procedure that requires the observers to categorize the human activity into a set of fixed categories. Thus, in order to be applied, the method needs to build on prior assumptions, to makes prognostications about future actions, to anticipate unusual behaviors, to follow a strict schedule of observation, etc. And, unlike structure observation that accepts only what human senses can capture, interpretivism seeks to investigate the non-observable and any hidden features that possibly lie beneath the obvious. So, in other words, the basic conventions of structure observation, oppose directly to the hypothesis and suggestions of the interpretivist methodological philosophy.

The advocates of interpretivism criticize negatively the attempts of structure observation to categorize the complex human activity into a few, austere categories and consequently dispute the alleged validity and worth of the collected data. They argue that many marginal and unclear cases would never find a proper category in a limited observation schedule, no matter how carefully the researcher will design it. Indeed, if an interpretivist researcher was to design an observation schedule, he would need innumerable categories, in order to fully cover the majority of the reactions and actions of the people observed. By contrast, the categories in structure observation can’t be innumerable or high-inference, because the researchers will delay and hesitate a lot in order to fill them. In other words, under the prism of intrepretivism the observation schedule, which is the most basic tool for structure observation, it is axiomatically impossible to be constructed.

Furthermore, the advocates of interpretivism believe in the existence of multiple realities and interpretations. So, inevitably they set in doubt the central claim of the supporters of structure observation that a group of trained observers can make the same categorization of the human activity, no matter the time, the place, the sample, the personality of the observer etc. Hence, they challenge directly the objectivity and validity of any later data analysis since it is based on false data and misconstrued evidences. 

As it was already mentioned, the interpretive form of research is an unknown and open procedure, where many element of the survey, like the duration, the sample to be observed, the methods etc, are not clear and fixed from the beginning and several rearrangements may occur. During the procedure even the starting question is not stable and it may change as the research progresses over time. By contrast, structured observation requires the strict prearrangement of almost all the details of the research. So, for a typical interpretivist researcher, who needs flexible and customizable tools, the method of structure observation seems ineffective, restrictive and futile.

Finally, under the prism of interepretivism, many other characteristics of structured observation can be considered as disadvantages or defects. Thus, for example, structure observation collects mainly quantitative data while interpretivism respects and extracts evidences from the qualitative ones. In structure observation, the researchers need to spend much prior time and effort in order to construct a sophisticated schedule, while the interpretivist researchers need to devote time and thought in order to explore the inner perspectives of the subject, to fathom the cultural background of the society, to know the beliefs of the research sample etc. Additionally, structure observation can’t be used by an individual practitioner (reflective practitioners or practitioner-researcher) who wish to self evaluate his own performance or to conduct small scale researches, since the method requires trained observers and not just the contribution of a friend or a colleague.

            In review of all the above, it is concluded that structure observation, as a method of collecting data, opposes directly to the basic axioms of interpretivism, like for example to the exploratory character of the methodology, to the principle that the procedure must be open and adaptable, to the belief that the human nature is abstract and inhomogeneous, etc.

But, at the same time, interpretivism is a dialectic ideology that is open to diverse and even contradictory theories. By this logic, it could be argued that they are aspects of structure observation that seem advantageous and beneficial even for an interpretivist researcher. For example, the technique of covert observation can help the researchers to observe people to the natural context without affecting the naturalness and spontaneity of their behavior. Or the participant observation can help the observer to merge with the environment eventually and to understand the phenomenon closely and from inside the group. Moreover, structure observation, can be used as a supplement method by interpretive researchers in order to generalize previous findings gathered from unstructured data. After all, the combination of more than one method can help the researchers to compare the findings and supplement their knowledge about the world of education.

From all the previous analysis, it can be assumed that the absolute characterization of any method as an advantageous or problematic is at least risky and useless since such a classification depends mostly from the point of view under which the particular method is examined. Thus, what counts as an advantage under the prism of one methodology it can be characterized as a serious disadvantage under the prism of an opposite theory.