Observational Design Flashcards
What is an observational design?
When observing, psychologists may have different techniques that they use to help them measure the behaviour observed and ensure that there is consistency between observers
When recording data what may the psychologist do if they want qualitative data?
Make notes as they watch with their research, aim and hypothesis in mind
What is the problem with recording qualitative data and what is one way around this?
Issue = two different observers may highlight different things as significant which may reflect their values
Way around it = if the behaviour is filmed and then two observers can watch it and compare their notes
When recording data what may the psychologist do if they want quantitative data and what may they do to ensure inter-observer reliability?
They might agree ways of quantifying behaviour prior to the experiment, thinking about how to categorise, rate and sample the behaviour observed
May use more than one observer watching the same person/people
What do psychologists need to do when categorising behaviour?
Spend time defining the behaviours that they wish to observe e.g. if they are looking at how affectionate caregivers are when collecting their children from school, they would need a set of parameters of what is and what is not classified as affectionate - this involves giving an operationalised definition
e.g. affection is any physical act made with the intention of conveying love to another person such as kissing, hugging and smiling with
Why must be care be taken with operationalising key concepts in categorising behaviour?
That things are not musses out as this would affect the validity of the data
What is rating behaviour>
The behaviours that the psychologists may be interested in may be the things that are a matter of degree, so the psychologist may need to use a rating scale to classify the behaviour
How may behaviour be rated?
They might number observed behaviour against a scale e.g. very affectionate, mildly affectionate etc
Or they might use a coding system where observed behaviour is given a score of a scale of 1-10 (however psychologists would need to plan what kinds of behaviour are included for each level of the rating or coding system e.g. prolonged hug may be 8 compared to smile which may be a 3
What do psychologists need to decide when sampling behaviour?
How often and for how long they are going to observe RPs for
What is event sampling and what is a strength/weakness?
When the psychologist only records particular events that they are interested in and ignore all other behaviours
This gives the psychologist a real focus but means that potentially interesting behaviours are ignored
What is time sampling and what is a strength/weakness?
When the psychologist records all behaviours observed within a pre-decided time-frame e.g. the first two minutes of every 10 min block of time
This means that all behaviours seen in this interval are recorded but any interesting behaviours observed outside this time frame are ignored
