Last Updated on September 3, 2026 by Karl Thompson
Covert participant observation is where the researcher joins a group without telling them they are a researcher. It is the version of participant observation that produces the most interesting studies and the most serious ethical problems, and the two facts are related.
This post covers:
- What covert observation is, and why most ‘covert’ studies are only partly covert
- Seven examples, including Pearson’s study of football supporters in detail
- The advantages of going undercover
- The disadvantages, including the ones students usually miss
- The ethical objections, which are directly examinable
Covert participant observation is part of the research methods topic in A-level sociology, examined on Paper 3 in theory and methods and on Paper 1 in the Methods in Context question. It is also the standard example whenever a question asks about research ethics.
For the general method — the theoretical, practical and ethical advantages and disadvantages of participant observation as a whole, plus overt examples — see Overt Participant Observation: Advantages and Disadvantages. That post covers the method; this one covers what changes when the researcher is undercover.
What covert participant observation is
Covert participant observation, or covert ethnography, is where the researcher does not reveal that they are actually a researcher.
There are different degrees to which ethnographic research can be covert. Fully covert research is where every member of the group believes the researcher is one of them, and nobody has any idea research is taking place.
In practice many ‘covert’ studies are only partially covert. Researchers may reveal themselves to some participants but not others. Jason Ditton had to do this during his 1977 research on ‘fiddling’ in a bakery: he kept making frequent visits to the toilet in order to get off the bakery line and write field notes about recent conversations. Some participants became concerned about him, and he had to out himself to those people — but not to everyone else — in order to keep his position there.
That detail is worth remembering, because it shows how the practical problem of taking notes forces a methodological compromise. Ditton did not choose to go partly overt; the toilet visits made the choice for him.
Examples of covert participant observation
- Pearson (2009) — football supporters at Blackpool Football Club. Covered in full below.
- Laud Humphreys (1970), Tearoom Trade — the best-known and most criticised covert study in sociology. Humphreys observed anonymous sexual encounters between men in public toilets, acting as a lookout, then traced participants’ car registrations to their home addresses and interviewed them a year later under the cover of a health survey. Almost every ethical objection to covert research can be illustrated from this one study.
- Patrick (1973), A Glasgow Gang Observed — a study of a violent Glasgow gang, published under a pseudonym. Patrick abandoned the fieldwork early because of the violence he was expected to take part in, and delayed publication for years to protect himself.
- Lloyd (2012) — research carried out while employed in a call centre in Middlesbrough.
- Matley’s (2006) research on a sex fantasy phone line. (Left exactly as it appeared on the original post — I have not been able to verify this study or the spelling of the researcher’s name against any source. Worth checking before you rely on it in a lesson.)
- The BBC (2003) documentary The Secret Policeman — an investigation into racism in police recruit training. Journalistic rather than sociological, but too useful to leave out.
- MacIntyre (1999) — Donal MacIntyre’s BBC documentary on football hooliganism. Again journalistic, but it pairs well with Pearson’s research.
The journalistic examples are worth knowing precisely because they raise the question of what separates undercover journalism from covert sociology. The honest answer is: the ethical review, the theoretical framing, and not much else.
Pearson’s study of Blackpool Football Club supporters
Dr Geoff Pearson — committed only ‘minor’ offences while doing covert research
Pearson carried out covert participant observation with supporters of Blackpool Football Club between 1995 and 1998. He was known to the other supporters as a student doing a law degree, but his status as an academic researcher was unknown to them. His approach was to meet them in the pub before a match, or sometimes on entering the stadium, and again afterwards for a drink. He attended seventy-eight matches, but notes that because he did not live in the area he was unable to observe the supporters outside a football context.
He chose Blackpool because it was close to Lancaster, where he was a student, and because of the club’s reputation for problems with hooliganism. He seems to have gradually worked his way into the supporters’ world by being recognised as a regular, playing up his knowledge of the game and the club.
What makes the study a set text on research ethics is Pearson’s own account of the crimes he committed to stay in role. He explains that while it was possible to avoid some individual offences, refusing to commit crimes regularly would have aroused suspicion and reduced his research opportunities. He therefore committed offences he defined as minor — ones that would not cause direct physical harm to a research subject — restricting himself to what the majority of his subjects were doing and what he judged necessary to carry out the research, while avoiding more serious offences where he could.
You can read an interview with Dr Geoff Pearson here.
Pearson is what Bryman would call a ‘covert full member’ — he participated fully in the activities of the group he was observing. Note the position he ends up in: the more valid his data, the more law he has to break to get it. That trade-off is the point of the example, and it is what you should write about if a question asks you to evaluate covert observation ethically.
Advantages of covert participant observation
Access. Gaining access to closed or deviant groups is far easier covertly, because the researcher does not have to seek permission from anyone. A gatekeeper who knows a study is happening can refuse, stall, or steer the researcher towards the parts of the group they want seen. There is no gatekeeper in a covert study.
Reactivity is not a problem. If respondents do not know research is taking place, they have no reason to behave differently. The Hawthorne Effect, which threatens the validity of almost every other method, largely disappears. This is the strongest theoretical argument for covert work and the reason interpretivists defend it despite the ethics.
Validity, in principle. Following from the above, covert observation should produce the most authentic picture of what a group actually does, as opposed to what it will admit to doing in front of a researcher. Whether it delivers on that is another matter — see the note-taking problem below.
Disadvantages of covert participant observation
The problem of taking field notes. It is almost impossible to take notes as you go while in a covert role. Pearson had to write his up as soon after matches as possible and admits that a good deal was probably forgotten. HOWEVER, this cuts directly against the validity argument above: covert observation may capture more authentic behaviour and then record it less accurately. Students who can make that point are doing analysis rather than description.
You cannot use other methods. In a covert role you have to act as the group does without raising suspicion, and you can hardly produce a social survey or start conducting probing interviews, because that is not normal behaviour. Overt researchers can triangulate; covert researchers generally cannot.
Stress. The covert researcher is under constant pressure from maintaining a front, and then has to record data backstage on top of it — effectively working two jobs. Add the worry that having your cover blown could destroy the entire project, and it is a serious practical limitation. Patrick abandoned his Glasgow fieldwork early for exactly this reason.
You are limited by your own characteristics. A covert researcher can only study groups they can plausibly pass as a member of. Age, gender, ethnicity, accent and class all constrain what is researchable, which is a limit that overt work does not face in the same way.
Representativeness. As with all participant observation, groups are small and accessed haphazardly, so findings cannot be generalised. Covert research makes this worse, because the researcher cannot select a sample — they study whoever they can get near.
The ethics of covert research
This is the section that comes up in exams, and it is worth learning as a set of named problems rather than a general sense of unease.
Deception. Covert research works by lying to participants about who the researcher is and what they are doing. Every other ethical problem follows from this one.
Informed consent. Participants cannot consent to research they do not know is happening. Humphreys’ subjects had no idea they were being studied in the toilets, still less that they would be traced to their homes and interviewed a year later.
Privacy. Covert observation intrudes on private behaviour by definition, and often on behaviour participants have strong reasons for keeping private.
Harm. Exposure can be serious. Humphreys’ data, had it been subpoenaed, could have led to the criminal prosecution of his participants at a time when the behaviour he observed was illegal.
Criminality. As Pearson’s account shows, a researcher embedded in a deviant group may have to break the law to keep their cover, which raises the question of whether any research finding justifies committing offences.
Against all of this, defenders of covert research make one serious argument: some groups — the powerful, the criminal, the racist — will never consent to being studied, and refusing to research them covertly means they are never researched at all. That is the argument to weigh in an evaluation, not to dismiss.
The British Sociological Association’s Statement of Ethical Practice is the professional guidance here, and the BSA is directly examinable in the methods topic. It does not ban covert research outright; it treats it as something requiring justification rather than something automatically forbidden. Check the current version of the statement before quoting a date — it has been revised more than once.
Applying this in the exam
Covert participant observation appears in three places on the specification, and the material is used differently in each.
Paper 3, theory and methods. As part of a general question on participant observation, or on research ethics, or on the interpretivist preference for qualitative methods.
Paper 1, Methods in Context. Applied to a topic in education, where the ethical problems become much sharper because the participants are children. See using covert participant observation to investigate pupils with behavioural difficulties for a worked answer — deceiving vulnerable students is close to the hardest ethical case the specification asks you to defend.
10-mark questions comparing overt and covert. This has come up as a no-item 10-marker, and the full-mark AQA answer with examiner commentary is on the overt participant observation post. If you are revising the pair, read that answer — it shows exactly how much comparison the examiners want and how little else.
Sociology Revision Resources
If you like this sort of thing, you might like my A-level sociology revision mega bundle, designed to cover all three exam papers for the AQA A-level sociology specification.
The bundle covers:
- Paper 7192/1: Education, including Methods in Context and Theory and Methods
- Paper 7192/2: Families and Households, Beliefs in Society, and Media
- Paper 7192/3: Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods
Overall the bundle contains:
- Over 200 pages of revision notes
- 60 mind maps in PDF and PNG formats
- 50 short-answer exam practice questions with exemplar answers
- Coverage of the entire A-level sociology syllabus, with an AQA focus
Written by Karl Thompson, who taught A-level sociology for eighteen years and was an AQA examiner across all three papers from 2010 to 2018.
Signposting and Related Posts
This post has been written primarily for students studying the research methods topic as part of the AQA’s A-level sociology course.
The companion post is Overt Participant Observation: Advantages and Disadvantages, which covers participant observation as a method — validity, reliability, representativeness, the practical problems — along with recent overt studies and the 10-mark exam answer comparing the two approaches. Read the two together: the general method there, the undercover version and its ethics here.
Non-Participant Observation is the third option, where the researcher watches without joining in at all.
Covert observation produces qualitative data, and the general strengths and limitations of qualitative data apply to it.
For the rest of the topic, see the research methods hub.
Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com
Sources
Bryman, A. (2016) Social Research Methods, Oxford University Press
Pearson, G. (2009) ‘The researcher as hooligan: where “participant” observation means breaking the law’
Ditton, J. (1977) Part-Time Crime: An Ethnography of Fiddling and Pilferage
Humphreys, L. (1970) Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places
Patrick, J. (1973) A Glasgow Gang Observed
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