observational design Flashcards
What are the issues in the design of observation?
What the researcher would have to plan when doing an observational study
What is a structured observation?
Involves pre-determined behaviours and sampling methods which are appropriate for larger observations.
What are the strengths of a structured observation?
- easier recording of data and more systematic
- produces quantitative data which is easier to analyse
What are the weaknesses of a structured observation
- important behaviours may be missed
What is an unstructured observation?
The researcher writes down everything that they see which produces rich data. This would be appropriate for small observations.
What are the strengths of an unstructured observation?
More detailed and rich data
What are the weaknesses of an unstructured observation?
- Produce qualitative data which is harder to analyse and record
- Greater risk of researcher bias as there are no behavioural categories
What are behavioural categories?
Breaking down a target behaviour into components that are observable and measurable.
What are the strengths of behavioural categories?
- Make data collection more objective and structured
What are the weaknesses of behavioural categories?
- Can be problematic if behaviour categories are not clear
- All categories of the target behaviour should be included and if they aren’t this can result in a dustbin category
What are the sampling methods?
- Event
- Time
- Continuous
What is event sampling?
The target behaviour is established and then it is recorded every time it occurs.
What are the strengths of event sampling?
- Useful when behaviour
What is event sampling?
When targe behaviour is established and then it is recorded every time it occurs
What are the strengths of event sampling?
It is useful when behaviour happens infrequently and could be missed when using time sampling
What are the weaknesses of event sampling?
Target behaviour is too complex in which the observer may overlook important details
What is time sampling?
A target individual is identified and then the observer records their behaviour in a fixed time
What are the strengths of time sampling?
Effective in reducing the number of observations that have been made
What are the weaknesses of time sampling?
Times, when behaviour is sampled, may be unrepresentative as a whole
What is continuous sampling?
This happens with unstructured observations, it is when all target behaviours are recorded
What is inter-observer reliability?
It is recommended that researchers don’t conduct observations alone as it is vital that any data recorded is the same or similar.
How is inter-observer reliability done?
- familiarising themselves with the behavioural categories
- observing the same behaviour at the same time as another observer, as part of a pilot study
- compare the data they have recorded and discuss any differences
- analyse the data by correlating each pair of observations and an overall figure is produced (correlation is more than +0.8 it is reliable)
