With reference to item D, it is seen that the elderly are an increasingly large social group. Using participant observation means that the researcher can achieve a first-hand perspective on the elderly population’s experiences.
Participant observation has many advantages. It indulges the researcher into achieving valid research and the participation means that in the meantime questions can be raised that were never initially considered beforehand. Another advantage is researchers can examine the experiences and issues that the elderly people face, as they play a part of their lives. On the other hand to produce qualitative research, the researcher would have to carry out participant observation in several care homes to analyse the treatment towards different social classes and obtain broader research on how gender and ethnicity may impact elderly experiences. However a disadvantage of this is that it would be extremely time consuming.
With doing participant observation the characteristics of the researcher are also important. Characteristics as to whether the researcher is bias can dominate the findings, as a stereotypical view will remove validity, also the researcher’s age can impact the findings because of the views elderly people may hold, and for example they believe that young people are immature and disobedient. The case of the investigation is sensitive for many reasons; therefore the researcher would have to be capable of building a rapport with the individual. However ethical issues would tie into this as getting close to an elderly person who is perhaps lonely from loss of contact with family, friends and social networks, as stated in item D enriches vulnerability, which would be a general limitation to the means of investigating the experience of old age. Another disadvantage would be that whilst doing participant observation the researcher may forget