Observational Techniques Flashcards
What observational techniques are there?
- Naturalistic observation
- Controlled observation
- Covert observation
- Overt observation
- Participant observation
- Non-participant observation
What is a naturalistic observation?
It is an observation in a setting which the behaviour would normally occur and a normal environment and nothing is artificial.
What is the advantage of a naturalistic observation?
-High ecological validity as the findings can be generalised to everyday real life as the behaviour is shown in a natural environment that is not controlled
What are the disadvantages of a naturalistic observation?
- The lack of control makes replication difficult, this means it is hard to trust the results as they might not be reliable
- It is difficult to control extraneous variables therefore a cause and effect cannot be established
What is a controlled observation?
It is observing behaviour in an artificial environment where some if not all variables are controlled
What is the advantage of controlled observations?
-Extraneous variables are controlled so it is easy to establish that the DV iOS the cause and the effect of the IV
What is the disadvantage of controlled observations?
-Controlled observations lack ecological validity which means we cannot generalise the findings to real life because the observation takes place under an artificial setting
What is a covert and overt observation?
- Covert observation is when participants are not aware they are being observed and recorded by the researcher without their consent
- Overt observation is when participants do know and have given consent to be observed and recorded.
What is the advantage of overt observations?
-Does not breach any ethical issues as participants know they are being observed so informed consent is given
What is the disadvantage of an overt observation?
-Participants know they are being observed therefore they are more likely going to produce unnatural behaviour they usually would not produce therefore this decreases the validity of the findings.
What is the advantage of a covert observation
-Participants don’t know they are being observed therefore this produces more natural behaviour they would normally produce therefore this increases the validity of the findings
What is the disadvantage of covert observations?
It violates ethical issue informed consent because participants do not know they are being observed
What is a participant observation?
-The researcher becomes a member of the group they are observing and recording
What is the advantage of participant observations?
-The researcher can experience the situation as the participants do which gives them an increased insight into the participants they are observing which will increase the validity of their findings
What is the disadvantage of a participant observation?
The researcher may start loosing objectivity and start identifying with the participants to strongly which is also known as going native
What is a non participant observation?
-It is an observation where the researcher is separate from the group whose behaviour they are recording and remains outside of the group
What is the advantage of non participant observation?
-Allows a researcher maintain objectivity as they remain outside of the group and prevents them identifying weigh the group and going native
What is the disadvantage of non participant observation?
It prevents them from gaining increased insight into the participants behaviours because they are not part of the group which can decrease the validity of the findings
How do you deal with observer bias?
Inter observer reliability
What is a unstructured observation?
- It is an observation where the researcher records all relevant behaviour but without a system, the researcher will record an instance when a behaviour occurs
What are the disadvantages of unstructured observations?
- There may not be much to record
- The behaviours recorded will most likely only be the most visible ones therefore behaviour that should have been recorded may be missed
What is the advantage of unstructured observations?
-It is useful for researchers who are observing behaviours or situations that have not been conducted before as kind of pilot study to see what behaviours might be recorded using a structured system.
What is a structured observation?
-It is the use of systems to organise observations which is done through using behavioural categories and sampling procedures
What are behavioural categories?
-Behaviour needs to be operationalised and they are broken down into set categories so every time one of the behaviours occur they are recorded
What two sampling procedures are there for observations?
- Time sampling
- Event sampling
What is time sampling?
-Recording behaviours in a given time frame
What is event sampling?
-recording the amount of times a behaviour occurs in a certain event
Why is it important to structure observations with behavioural categories?
- Using categories provide clear focus for the researcher
- Categorisation enables for a testable hypothesis
- Categories allow for more scientific and objective data to be collected
- categories provide data that is easy to analyse
- Behavioural categories allow observers to tally observations into pre arranged groupings
