Observations Flashcards
Naturalistic
Watching and recording behaviour in the setting within which it would normally occur.
Controlled
Watching and recording behaviour within a structured environment
Covert
Participants behaviour is watched and recorded without their knowledge or consent
Overt
Behaviour is watched and recorded with knowledge and consent
Participant
The researcher becomes a member of the group whose behaviour he/she is watching
Non participant
Researcher remains outside of the group whose behaviour is being watched
Unstructured observations
If the researcher is writing down everything that they see it is an unstructured observation.
• This is appropriate to do when the observation is in a small scale and involves few participants
Unstructured observations produce qualitative data (more difficult to analyse, but richer and more in depth data)
However, an unstructured observation is more prone to bias because researchers may only record those behaviours that ‘catch their eye’ and these may not be the most important of useful.
Structured observations
• A structured observation might be used because there is too much going on for the researcher to record everything.
• Structured observations allow the researcher to quantify their observations.
• They produce numerical/quantitative data – this is more straightforward to analyse
Observer bias
when observers’ expectations impact what they see or hear.
This reduces the validity of the observations.
Behavioural categories
Target behaviour = The behaviour that is the main focus of the observation.
• The target behaviour must be clearly defined before an observation.
• Researchers quantify their observations using a pre-determined list of
behaviours and sampling methods.
• Target behaviours have to be put into behavioural categories/behavioural checklists.
Behavioural categories
Behavioural categories makes the data collection more structured and objective.
• It is important that behavioural categories are clear and unambiguous so that they do not require further interpretation by the researcher as this will be different for each person.
Behavioural categories
A “dustbin category” = A category where may different behaviours are “deposited” because they do not have their own behavioural category.
• There should not be one of these in a behavioural checklist because it means the researcher is not actually observing what they want to and have not created appropriate behavioural categories.
• Behavioural categories should not overlap because then you do not know which category a behaviour belongs to.
• If the behavioural categories are not clearly defined, two observers might interpret it differently which would make it not reliable!
• Before the observation begins, the researcher should ensure they have, as far as possible, included all the ways in which the target behaviour may occur within the behavioural checklist.
Sampling methods
- Event sampling
- Time sampling
Event sampling
A target behaviour or event is established, and the researcher records this event every time it occurs.
• It is appropriate to use event sampling when the target behaviour or even happens quite infrequently.
• It would not be appropriate to use event sampling if the event is too complex as the observer may overlook important details.
• Event sampling would tend to use a tally chart to record the data.
Time sampling
A target individual or group is observed, and the researchers records their behaviour in a fixed time frame e.g. every minute for 10 minutes to get 10 observations.
• Time sampling is appropriate to use when there are lots of people to observe.
• An issue which might occur with time sampling is important behaviours may be missed if they do not occur at that set time interval.
