ABSTRACT
Direct observations of behaviors and events are increasingly important in applied ethnographic research because of researchers' awareness of serious problems in informants' recall of past behaviors. Also, for a variety of reasons, participant observation, used as a primary method for getting systematic assessments of behaviors, has been seen as unreliable and often not amenable to quantitative analysis. Some of the approaches to systematic direct observation have been developed as modifications and extensions of participant observation. The special ethnographic tool of spot-checks, or spot observations, such as the research by the Johnson among the Machiguenga tribal people in South America, has been found to be especially valuable and practical in getting good estimates of time-use patterns and related information. The spot-checking approach is much less vulnerable to reactivity, and is much less costly in terms of researcher time commitments. On the other hand, the method is not suited to getting complex patterns and sequences of behaviors.
