ABSTRACT
It seems safe to say that observation will continue to be an essential element in the tool kit of qualitative field researchers. Despite the controversial questions discussed in the previous section, we will continue to make detailed, systematic observations of one form or another are the foundation for everything else we do in our study of human groups in their natural settings. It can be taken as a given that “forecasting the wax and wane of social science research methods is always uncertain” (Adler and Adler, 1994, p. 389), but it is still possible to venture some guesses as to what might be in the near future for observational techniques.
