Community research: The lost art of unobtrusive methods

The use of unobtrusive methods, with special reference to community-oriente d research, is a lost art, despite their strong recommendation by Webb, Cam pbell, Schwartz, & Sechrest (1966) as means of supplementing reactive measu res. The decline of unobtrusive measures seems to be related to the increas ed popularity and adherence to the doctrine of informed consent, the decrea se in use of deception as a method, and the effort to conceptualize researc h subjects as cooperative participants. While the distaste for unobtrusive methods seems to reflect increased sensitivity toward ethics in research, t he collection of partially reliable and partially valid knowledge continues , with considerable reliance on reactive measures.