Observations Flashcards
what is an ethological observation
records behaviour impartially and in detail with no evaluation
what is an ethnographic observation
describes behaviour in such as way as to resemble the original cultural reality for the individual
what is a systematic observation
describes behaviour with an emphasis
whats an eg of ethological
Lorenz - squirell monkeys on a capybara - obvs of interspecies interaction
whats an eg of ethnographic
Malinowski, Peter Marsh - direct first hand observation of daily behaviour - can include participant observation
how are systematic observations carried out
the researcher defines the categories of beh to be observed and defines the rules for recording behaviour
whats an eg of systematic
discovery of local beliefs and perceptions
how are ethnographic observations carried out
conversations with different levels of formality
the genaelogical method - a set of procedures by which ethnographers discover and record connections of kinship, descent and marriage using diagrams and symbold
whats a causal observation
observing with an open mind/ “first impressions”
whats a participant observation
allows access to attitudes and feelings as well as behaviours but is not at all objective
whats a formal observation
planned and systemic application of a system of procedures for conducting observations or gathering data
what do formal observations normally inovolve
unintrusive observer who counts or rates behaviours or events
what are causal/ ad lib observations
- informal and unstructured
- starting point for developing a research question or a way to systematically record something of interest
- answers casual “whats happening?” questions
what are the advantages of ad lib sampling
- useful for hypothesis generation
* allows the observer to generate an account of the behaviour that is likely to be meaningful to the lay person
what are the disadvantages of ad lib sampling
likely to be an over-interpretation of events and to produce reliability problems
what is systematic observations driven by
the need for replicahility
what must happen to the data in a systematic observation
it must be reduced so it can be analysed
what must a systematic observer decide
- what and who?
- how long?
- behaviour of interest?
- how to code?
how should systematic observations be coded
must be mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories
what do mutually a exclusive and exhaustive categories of behaviour require
- that only one code can be associated with a particular event
- that there is a code for every event
what needs to be decided in advance
full definitions of the behaviours to be observed
all definitions of behaviours need to be
- clear
- complete
- unambiguous
- refer to observable characteristics
whats the first recording rule about
how to record the behaviours you have defined
whats continuous recording
all coded behaviours as they happen with recording of onset and offset time
advantages of continuous recording
comprehensive
disadvantages of continuous recording
time consuming
whats the second recording rule
time sampling
what are the 2 types of time sampling
- instantaneous or ‘point’ sampling
* one-zero sampling
whats point sampling
whats happening at a particular instant eg every 10 secs
whats one-zero sampling
occurrence/non-occurrence of beh in a defined time period
advantages of point sampling
simple to carry out if categories are mutually exclusive and exhaustive
*depending on the beh studied - increasing the gap between sampling points may have little effect on accuracy
disadvantages of point sampling
depending on spacing of points and nature of beh under study, this could produce highly representative or highly unrepresentative descriptions of behaviour - can make assessing time spent in a beh difficult
disadvantages of one-zero sampling
increasing the duration of the selection time period may have a major effect on accuracy
advantages of one-zero sampling
method can provide richer description of behaviour than point sampling
