Observational Design

Question 1

Behavioural Categories

Answer 1

The target behaviour to be observed should be broken up into a set of observable categories. This is similar to operationalisation.

Question 2

A03 (Difficult To Make Clear And Ambiguous)

Answer 2

E- Categories should be self-evident and not overlap, not always possible to achieve.
E- ‘smiling’ and ‘grinning’ would be poor categories

Question 3

A03 (Dustbin Categories)

Answer 3

E- All forms of behaviour should be in the list and not one ‘dustbin’
E- ‘Dumped’ behaviours go unrecorded

Question 4

Event Sampling

Answer 4

A target behaviour/ event is recorded every time it occurs

Question 5

A03 (Useful For Infrequent Behaviours)

Answer 5

E- The researcher will still ‘pick up’ behaviours that do not occur at regular intervals
E- Such behaviours could easily be missed using time sampling

Question 6

A03 (Complex Behaviour Oversimplified)

Answer 6

E- If the event is too complex, important details may go unrecorded
E- This may affect the validity of the findings

Question 7

Time Sampling

Answer 7

Observations are made at regular intervals, e.g. once every 15 seconds

Question 8

A03 (Reduces The Number Of Observations)

Answer 8

E- Rather than recording everything that is seen data is recorded at certain intervals
E- The observation is more structured and systematic

Question 9

A03 (May Be Unrepresentative)

Answer 9

E- The researcher may miss important details outside of the timescale
E- May not reflect the whole behaviour