the problem with fieldwork.

"the mere observation of an experiment changes its outcome" - The Observer Effect.

When one goes into ethnography, they have to adapt to their new surroundings. They must embrace another culture and "gain the trust" of the people that they are going to be observing. It also requires intimacy with the people. I mean think about it, if you were an ethnographer, your purpose is to find out and study a group that's not of your own, and then you have to take what you learn and use that information in order to teach and educate others, those who are also not part of that group. But there are problems with this sort of research.There's bias, researchers's work is affected by their own personal opinions and "preconceived attitudes". The article says that "Good Ethnography is systematic, rigorous, scientific." But no matter how scientific and systematic a person is, we (as imperfect human beings) are always holding people to our standards of being.

Another problem...the quote above "the mere observation of an experiment changes its outcome." That is the observer effect, and while that mainly pertains to physics, can it not also be true regarding observing people? Think about it. When you know that you're being watched, you may act differently from how you normally act. Not to say you're going to act completely different. But even slight changes in the way you speak or the way you move, those are all being observed and recorded, when in fact that's not how you would be under normal circumstances. In the textbook it is called the Hawthorne Effect - the fact that human beings will react differently because they know they are in a study.
From personal experience, I know that when i know I'm being watched and in a way "judged" I certainly act differently. depending on who I am with, I will even go so far as to talk in a different manner. around teachers and older people i'll be more formal.when i'm around younger ones and friends i am very casual in my speech. so an adult's perception of me, can be completely different from how someone of my age group perceives me.

In reality though, even though there are ways of dealing with the Hawthorne effect, it's completely in human nature to act differently around different people and different scenarios. Observation is one of the main tools we have at our use in order to gain information about things. But its also flawed, and prone to so many variables. "It Depends"