Unobtrusive Methods

When I read the section in Knight about unobtrusive methods (pp108-109) I kept thinking back to my recent idea of incorporating observation as part of my research design. Knight states that it can be “hard to be confident about what the measures (of unobtrusive methods) mean.” (p109) He uses as an example students’ washrooms, the messy state of which could be due to any number of factors. Or the observation of gestures and use of public space – so much of this would be a matter of the researcher’s own perspective and interpretation… Therefore in this sense (and particularly in relation to my own research) I completely agree that these techniques would need to be accompanied by other approaches in a mixed-methods design, in order to help solidify one's analysis.