issues in observational design

Question 1

2 ways to record observations

Answer 1

structured
unstructured

Question 2

define unstructured observation

Answer 2

write down evertything you see

Question 3

evaluate unstructured observation

Answer 3

+ rich data
- qualitative (harder to analyse)

Question 4

define structured observation

Answer 4

target behaviors for a main focus

Question 5

evaluate structured observation

Answer 5

+ data more likely to be quantitative
+ behaviour categories makes recording easier and more systematic as have less things to focus on

Question 6

define behavioural categories in structured observation

Answer 6

target behaviour is broken up into components that observable and measurable
behaviour checklist and tally each behaviour

Question 7

evaluate behavioural categories in structured observation

Answer 7

+ makes data more objective
+ observable + measurable
- categories should be exclusive

Question 8

what are the 2 types of sampling methods

Answer 8

event sampling
time sampling

Question 9

define event sampling

Answer 9

counting the number of times a particular event occurs

Question 10

evaluate event sampling

Answer 10

+ useful when behaviour/event happens infrequently
- overlooks important details of the behaviour

Question 11

define time sampling

Answer 11

recording behaviour with a pre-established time frame

Question 12

evaluate time sampling

Answer 12

+ reduces the number of observations that have to be made
- behaviour being sampled may not be representative