Observational design

Question 1

What are structured and unstructured observations?

Answer 1

Unstructured observations produce a lot of detail as everything is written down whereas structured observations focus on target behaviours and only certian things are recorded.

Question 2

How can observations be structured?

Answer 2

By using behavioural categories or sampling methods.

Question 3

What are behavioural categories?

Answer 3

Target behaviours should be precisely definied and broken down into smaller, observable behaviours. These behaviours can be tallied.

Question 4

What are the sampling methods?

Answer 4

Continous recording of behaviour is a key feature of unstructured observations whereas in structured observations event and time sampling are used. Event sampling is counting the number of times a particular behaviour occurs and time samping involves recording behaviour for example every 30 seconds.

Question 5

What are the advantages and disadvantages of unstructed and structured observations?

Answer 5

In unstructed observations lots of details are collected but the data may be difficult to compare due to observer bias and is difficult to analyse as it is so much information. In structed observations data is easier to record and it is likely to be numerical and easy to analyse but there is not as much detai.