who practiced the case study method of observation
Participant observation Participant observation is one type of data collection method typically used in qualitative research. It is a widely used methodology in many disciplines, particularly cultural anthropology, European ethnology, sociology, communication studies, human geography and social psychology. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals (such as a religious, occupational, sub cultural group, or a particular community) and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time. The method originated in the field research of social anthropologists, especially Bronisław Malinowski and his students in Britain, the students of Franz Boas in the United States, and in the later urban research of the Chicago School of sociology.
Social psychology The first published study in this area was an experiment in 1898 by Norman Triplett, on the phenomenon of social facilitation.[6] During the 1930s, many Gestalt psychologists, most notably Kurt Lewin, fled to the United States from Nazi Germany. They were instrumental in developing the field as something separate from the behavioral and psychoanalytic schools that were dominant during that time, and social psychology has always maintained the legacy of their interests in perception and cognition. Attitudes and small group phenomena were the most commonly studied topics in this era.[citation needed]