Strengths

• Practical Flexibilty

  • allows researcher to be flexible when something emerges that’s unexpected (change of focus of study ) . Particularly useful as NPO are often used to explore social phenomena
  • for until example Lord Humphrey’s used NPO when investigating cottaging in his study tearoom trade
• Practical Access getting in

  • access issues are reduced as participants don’t have to fit in with group to be seen as one of them, particularly important if the researcher doesn’t have the physical characteristics of group being observed
• Ethical

  • as researcher doe y have to participate in the group they are more likely to not participate in illegal/ deviant activities
  • Parker frequently tried to stop gang members from stealing cars he also provided legal advice to those who had been charged with theft although this was ethical he changed groups behaviour