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PLANNING NATURALISTIC RESEARCH 181
criteria is termed a ‘primary informant’. Morse
(1994) also cautions that not all these features
may be present in the informants, but that they
may still be useful for the research, though the
researcher would have to decide how much time
to spend with these ‘secondary’ informants.
Stage 6: Developing and maintaining relations in the
field
This involves addressing interpersonal and
practical issues, for example:
building participants’ confidence in the
researcher
developing rapport, trust, sensitivity and
discretion
handling people and issues with which the
researcher disagrees or finds objectionable or
repulsive
being attentive and empathizing
being discreet
deciding how long to stay.
Spindler and Spindler (1992: 65) suggest that
ethnographic validity is attained by having the
researcher in situ long enough to see things
happening repeatedly rather than just once, that
is to say, observing regularities.
LeCompte and Preissle (1993: 89) suggest that
fieldwork, particularly because it is conducted faceto-face,
raises problems and questions that are
less significant in research that is conducted at a
distance, including:
how to communicate meaningfully with
participants
how they and the researcher might be affected
by the emotions evoked in one another, and
how to handle these
differences and similarities between the
researcher and the participants (e.g. personal
characteristics, power, resources), and how
these might affect relationships between parties
and the course of the investigation
the researcher’s responsibilities to the participants
(qua researcher and member of their
community), even if the period of residence in
the community is short
how to balance responsibilities to the
community with responsibilities to other
interested parties.
Critically important in this area is the maintenance
of trust and rapport (De Laine 2000: 41),
showing interest, assuring confidentiality (where
appropriate) and avoiding being judgemental. She
adds to these the ability to tolerate ambiguity, to
keep self-doubt in check, to withstand insecurity,
and to be flexible and accommodating (De Laine
2000: 97). Such features are not able to be encapsulated
in formal agreements, but they are the
lifeblood of effective qualitative enquiry. They are
process matters.
The issue here is that the data collection process
is itself socially situated; it is neither a clean,
antiseptic activity nor always a straightforward
negotiation.
Stage 7: Data collection in situ
The qualitative researcher is able to use a variety
of techniques for gathering information. There is
no single prescription for which data collection
instruments to use; rather the issue here is of
‘fitness for purpose’ because, as was mentioned
earlier, the ethnographer is a methodological
omnivore! That said, there are several types of data
collection instruments that are used more widely
in qualitative research than others. The researcher
can use field notes, participant observation, journal
notes, interviews, diaries, life histories, artefacts,
documents, video recordings, audio recordings etc.
Several of these are discussed elsewhere in this
book. Lincoln and Guba (1985: 199) distinguish
between ‘obtrusive’ (e.g. interviews, observation,
non-verbal language) and ‘unobtrusive’ methods
(e.g. documents and records), on the basis of
whether another human typically is present at
the point of data collection.
Field notes can be written both in situ
and away from the situation. They contain
the results of observations. The nature of
observation in ethnographic research is discussed
fully in Chapter 17. Accompanying observation
techniques is the use of interviews, documentary
Chapter 7