What do you think about unobtrusive measure?

Answer 1

Unobtrusive measurement is impossible in sociology and anthropology, but there are probably some other sciences -- such as chemistry or cellular biology -- where it can be achieved.

To observe human dynamics, however, is to change them. The change doesn't necessarily have to be a profound one. It can be minor, but it is still a change nonetheless. And change implies obtrusiveness.

Once human subjects understand they are being observed, their behavior changes in order to create a desired perception in the eye of the observer. So Anthropologists never see the natives as they truly are. Merely, they see the natives as the natives want to be seen.

Answer 2

Unobtrusive measure is a researchers' greatest hope, but we have to settle for measures that suffer from phenomenon like social desirability bias, priming or single source confounding. There are measures that are unobtrusive, but are often expensive, time consuming, unethical or not generalizeable. An example of unobtrusive measure is the measuring of floor wear to estimate traffic through an area. A more contemporary example is the use of a University's email traffic to observe network effects within an organization. There was an ethical privacy issue, which was addressed through the recoding of individuals' information into a annonymous number, which still allowed the analysis of nodal and connectivity behavior.

Still, this is not that common in research methodology.