ABSTRACT
Although recent essays about participant observation have extended understanding of the research method and its problematic aspects, few methodologists have scrutinized intensively the processes by which roles are developed in the type of fieldwork or the relationship of role development to the data gathered. The experiences as participant observers occurred during the data-gathering phase of a longitudinal fieldwork study in which questionnaires, interviews, psychological measures and participant observation were used to gather information on emergence of professional identity in baccalaureate student nurses. The students themselves were in general of Anglo-Saxon origin, native born and of middle and upper middle socio-economic origins. The stabilization of meaningful definitions of roles further depends on the ecological or spatial setting in which roles are developed. Stabilization is much influenced by the onward flow of events and by the social rhythms of the research setting, and the movement of persons in roles related to those of the researcher and the actors.
