A method commonly used in anthropology and ethnography, direct observation involves the insertion of a researcher into the event or group studied. The researcher attempts to understand the fundamental principles, values and understandings in play within the group, recording his or her observations as a descriptive or interpretive account. The method requires that the researcher immerse herself completely in the phenomena or group studied, while maintaining enough academic distance as a non-participating observer to record and interpret her observations objectively.
Through focus groups, the researcher brings together a small group of participants with predetermined characteristics to study attitudes and opinions. The researcher usually guides the conversation within the group, posing questions about phenomena of interest to the study and carefully recording responses in order to reach general conclusions. As a research method, the validity of focus groups depends primarily on how representative the group is of the larger social subsection being studied.
Similar to a focus group, the interview method asks individual research subjects a series of questions designed to extract information relevant to the study. A study of attitudes about tobacco among teenagers, for instance, could administer an interview to individual teenagers and compile the results as data general to the population of that age group. As with quantitative analysis, the information could be organized into a range of opinions that would serve to identify a general tendency and certain outliers.
A common method is psychological research, role-playing and simulation asks participants to assume certain roles or places them in specific situations to see how they will react. A researcher, for example, could ask groups from different cultures or social segments to divide a cake among participants along whatever criteria they considered appropriate in order to asses social and cultural values regarding distribution. Do groups divide the cake evenly? Do they privilege certain group members with specific characteristics? Do members who do not like cake donate their portions to the group? The answers to these questions can provide valuable insights into cultural priorities and values.