Participant Observation

Schwandt, 1997
As a methodology for ethnographic field work, participant observation is a procedure for generating understanding of the ways of life of others. It requires that the researcher engage is some relatively prolonged period of participation in a community, group, and so on ... Broadly conceived, participant observation thus includes activities of direct observation, interviewing, document analysis, reflection, analysis, and interpretation

Schwandt, T. Qualitative Inquiry: A Dictionary of Terms. Thousand Oaks, CA and London: Sage, 1997