| As a participant
observer she made frequent purchases from Coke machines. To all outward
appearances, she did what others did, but she approached each vending
machine with an additional purpose: to watch her own actions, the behavior
of others, and everything she could see in this social situation. When
she had to wait her turn, she focused on
how people interacted with the machine, the steps they went through to
make their purchases, their reactions when the machines did not make proper
change. Like all participant observers she operated with two
purposes in mind at the same time.
James Spradley (1980) p.54 |