Pronoun-antecedent agreement.?

Observation is a typical research tool. Researchers in a variety of fields collect data by observing things like specific events, chemical reactions, and people. Studies of people often focus on specific groups that share some kind of common characteristic. For example, a sociology student seeking to better understand the literacy challenges faced by a specific group of children might begin his/her research by observing the role of reading in their daily lives. Another project might concern the habits of a group of people that are all suffering from the same health problem. In this case, the researcher might begin his/her project by observing where they live. He/she might look for similarities in an environment that could explain the illness experienced by them. Yet another experiment might involve a linguistics student attempting to explain the use of an unusual dialect. He/she would need to observe conversations among the speakers who are the subjects of his study. One disadvantage of using observation as a research tool lies in its inherent lack of objectivity. In the case of the linguistics study, the observations would also be recorded so that the researcher would not have to rely on his/her memory to reconstruct the speakers' pronunciation. Most research methods include measures like a recording to better guarantee the legitimacy of the research.