Observational design

Question 1

What’s an unstructured observation?

Answer 1

When a researcher writes down everything they see

Question 2

When are unstructured observations appropriate?

Answer 2

When observations are small in scale and involve few participants

Question 3

What are structured observations?

Answer 3

Allows the researcher to quanitfy their observations using a pre-determined list of behaviours and sampling methods

Question 4

What are the strengths and limitations of unstructured interviews?

Answer 4

STRENGTH
-They are more rich in detail and in depth
LIMITATION
-As they tend to produce qualitative data, which may be more difficult to record and analyse
-There is a greated risk of observer bias - researchers may only record those behaviours that ‘catch their eye’

Question 5

What are the strengths and limitations or structured interviews?

Answer 5

STRENGTH
-As they involve the use of categories, recording the data is easier and more systematic
-Data produced is likely to be numerical/quantitative which means that analysing and comparing the behaviour observed between participants is more straighforward
LIMITATION

Question 6

What are behavioural categories?

Answer 6

Where the target behaviour is broken up into categories, target behaviours should be precisely defined and made observabke and measurable

Question 7

What is a strength behavioural categories?

Answer 7

STRENGTH

-Can make data collection more structured and objective

Question 8

How should behavioural categories be?

Answer 8

Measurable, observable, they shouldn’t require further interpretation, all possible forms of the target behaviour are included in the checklist, categories should be exlusive and not overlap

Question 9

What are the sampling methods?

Answer 9

Continuous recording, event sampling and time sampling

Question 10

What is continous recording?

Answer 10

This is only used for unstructured observations where all target behavious is recorded

Question 11

What is event sampling?

Answer 11

Counting the number of times a particular behaviour occurs in a target individual or group

Question 12

What is a strength and limitation of event sampling?

Answer 12

STRENGTH
-Useful when the target behaviour or event happens quite infrequently and could be missed if time sampling was used
LIMITATION
-If the specified event is complex, the observer may miss important details if using event sampling

Question 13

What is time sampling?

Answer 13

Involves recording behaviour with a pre-established time frame.

Question 14

What is a strength and limitation of time sampling?

Answer 14

STRENGTH
-Effective in reducing the number of observations that have to be made
LIMITATION
-Those instances when behaviour is sampled might be unrepresentative of the observation as a whole

Question 15

How should researchers gain inter-observed reliability?

Answer 15

• Familiarise themselves with the behavioural categories being used
• They observe the same behaviour at the same time, such as in a pilot study
• Observers compare their daqta and discuss any differences in interpretations
• Observers analyse the data from the study, inter-observer reliability us calculated by correlating each pair of observations made and an overall figure is produced