Designing Observations - 13/11/23

Question 1

What are the two option for designing observations?

Answer 1

1) Unstructured Observations
2) Structured Observations

Question 2

What happens in unstructured observations?
[3]

Answer 2

• When the researcher is writing down everything they see
• Appropriate to do when observation is small scale with few participants
• Produce qualititative data

Question 3

When is unstructured observations appropriate to do? (2)

Answer 3

When observations is:
1. -Small-scale
2. Few participants

Question 4

What kind of data does unstructured observations produce?

Answer 4

They produce qualitative data

Question 5

What’s a negative of unstructured observations?
[2]

Answer 5

1) It’s more difficult to analyse
2) Observer bias - It’s more prone to bias as researchers may only record behaviour that “catch their eye” and these may not be the most important or useful

Question 6

What’s the positive of unstructured observations?

Answer 6

More richer and in depth data

Question 7

What is structure observations?
[3]

Answer 7

• When there’s too much going on for the researcher to record everything
• allows researcher to quantify their observations
• produce quantitative data

Question 8

What does structured observations allow the researcher to do and what’s a positive of this?

Answer 8

It allows a researcher to quantify their observations and this means it’s straightforward to analyse

Question 9

What kind of data does structured observations produce?

Answer 9

Numerical/quantitative data

Question 10

What’s a positive of structured observations?

Answer 10

1) Easier since systematic
2) Quantitative data is easier to analyse and compare with other data
3) Less risk of observer bias

Question 11

What is observer’s bias?

Answer 11

• When an observer’s expectations impact what they see or hear
• reduces validity of observations

Question 12

What kind of design is more likely to be affected by observer’s bias?

Answer 12

Unstructured design is more likely to be affected by observer bias because they may only write certain cases

Question 13

What is target behaviour?
[2]

Answer 13

• The behaviour that is the main focus of observation
• It must be cleraly defined before an observation

Question 14

The target population must be clearly _______ before an observation

Answer 14

defined

Question 15

What is behavioural categories?

Answer 15

A pre-determined list of target behaviours and sampling methods that’s been operationalised

Question 16

What do target behaviours have to be put into?

Answer 16

Behavioural categories

Question 17

What is the positive of behavioural categories? (2)

Answer 17

It makes data collection more:
1) Structured
2) Objective

Question 18

What is the purpose of behavioural categories?
[2]

Answer 18

• Makes data collection more structured and objective
• They should be clear and unambiguous so they don’t require further interpretation by the researcher as this will be different for each person

Question 19

What’s a dustbin category?

Answer 19

A category where different behaviours are “deposited” because they don’t have their own behavioural category

Question 20

Why shouldn’t a dustbin category be in a behavioural checklist?

Answer 20

Because it means that researchers aren’t actually observing what they want to and haven’t created appropriate behavioural categories

Question 21

Why shouldn’t behavioural categories overlap?

Answer 21

Because then you don’t know which category a behaviour belongs to

Question 22

What happens if behavioural categories aren’t clearly defined?

Answer 22

Two observers might interpret it differently which makes it less reliable

Question 23

What should the researcher ensure about the target behaviour before an observation begins?

Answer 23

The researcher should ensure they have included all the ways in which the target population may occur in the behavioural checklist

Question 24

What happens in Event Sampling?
[4]

Answer 24

• Target behaviour is established
• you count the number of times a particular behaviour is carried out by the target group
• Uses a tally chart
• Only use it if behaviour is infrequent

Question 25

What are the strengths of Event Sampling?

Answer 25

Good for infrequent behaviours that are likely to missed if time sampling was used

Question 26

What are the limitations of Event Sampling?
[3]

Answer 26

1) If complex behaviour is being observed, important details of the behaviour may be overlooked by the observer
2) If the behaviour is very frequent, there could be counting errors
3) Difficult to judge the beginning and ending of a behaviour

Question 27

What happens in Time Sampling?
[3]

Answer 27

• A target individual/group is observed
• Researchers record behaviour in a fixed time frame (e.g. ever minute for 10 minutes)
• You do it when there’s lots of people to osberve

Question 28

What are the strengths of Time sampling?

Answer 28

• It reduces the number of observations that has made it so it’s less time consuming.
• It’s used when there’s lots of people to observe

Question 29

What are the limitations of Time Sampling?
[2]

Answer 29

1) The small amount of data collected within a small time frame is unrepresentative as a whole
2) Some behaviours can be missed if happens in interval

Question 30

What is Inter-Observer reliability?
[2]

Answer 30

• It’s the extent to which there’s an agreement between two or more observers involved in observations of behaviour
• measured by correlating the observations

Question 31

Why would you use Inter-observer reliability?

Answer 31

Because single observers may miss important details or may only notice events that confirm their opinions and introduce bias

Question 32

What does Inter-observer reliability do to data?

Answer 32

It makes it more objective and unbiased

Question 33

Observers should take part in the same ________ before the observation to ensure they’re interpreting behavioural categories in the same way

Answer 33

Training

Question 34

What are the 4 stages in inter-observer reliability?

Answer 34

1) Observers should familiarise with the behavioural categories to be used
2) A pilot study should be completed to allow the observers a chance to practice using the behavioural categories, so that any changes can be made if the categories don’t work
3) after observation of study, observations of two or more observers should be correlated to check for reliability
4) A positive correlation of above +.80 would deem the observations to be reliable

Question 35

What are the two types of sampling methods?
[2]

Answer 35

1. Event Sampling
2. Time Sampling