L6: Interviews and Observations Flashcards
What makes research observational? (Hamaker, 2020)
Anything that’s not experimental is observational
What is objectivity?
Tendency to base judgments and interpretations on external data rather than on subjective factors, such as personal feelings, beliefs, and experiences
Objective = Behaviour
What is subjectivity?
the tendency to interpret data or make judgments in the light of personal feelings, beliefs, or experiences
Psychology tends to be subjective even if we claim otherwise
Experience = Subjective
What is an interview?
a directed conversation in which a researcher, therapist, clinician, employer, or the like (the interviewer) intends to elicit specific information from an individual (the interviewee) for purposes of research, diagnosis, treatment, or employment
How does the Working Model of the child work? (Zeannah, 1995)
Measures history of the infant, relationship with parents, impression of personality - aims to understand parent’s experience of the baby
Q’s are asked in a subjective manner
Involves audio & transcription
Classifications - distorted, disengaged, distorted
How did Foley et al., (2022) build on the WM of the child?
Added 5 min speech about their infant (loosely structured)
Then coded for mind-mindedness (mental)
-Mental: “stubborn”
-Non-mental: she’s a bundle of energy
What is interview structure?
Interviews can be very structured including checklists, inventories or they can be semi-structured and include open ended questions
How did Tamis Le-Monda et al., 2001 use the Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) use interview techniques?
Use the CDI in an interview to quantify children’s language milestones
-More objective as they using an inventory checklist but asked at the end to answer open ended questions about their children’s speech about the past
Why do clinicians & researchers use interviews with children?
Child interviews allow researchers to probe their knowledge
Inherently subjective
Useful method for evaluation
Important to avoid leading questions as children are especially susceptible to them
Subjectivity vs Objectivity
Subjectivity creates opportunity for bias
Psychologists value objectivity to avoid bias
BUT psychologists must be willing to engage with subjectivity
Important to check against & guard against bias
What is observational research?
It involves watching a participant and recording relevant behavior for later analysis
Shapes practice and policy
How did Tamis Le-Monda et al., (2001) use observational research?
Used observational research to quantify maternal responsiveness
Mum & Child asked to play w/ set of toys for 10 mins
During interview: Language milestones were assessed
Used event based coding - clear definitions of the event
the event has started and the event has stopped
Event: specific behaviors
Used a 5 second window - micro, narrow time frame
What are coding schemes?
A way of categorizing behaviour so you can code what you observe
Researchers can increase systematicity by using coding in observations
Molar approach: Subjective (macro)
Molecular approach: Objective (micro)
May result in reliability & validity/ time & accuracy tradeoffs
What is Parten’s (1932) scale of participation?
Created path forward for coding (Landmark study)
interested in the extent to which pre-school children would engage with one another in a social participation way by comparing teacher & observer ratings
Looked at the proportion of items overlapping with primary researcher
Limitations of coding systems in relation to Parten’s scale (1932)
Difficult to code more than 1 individual
Hard to read and remember everything (need to be trained to code concisely)
Dependent on videographer
