WEEK 8) Observational methods of conducting research

Question 1

What is observational research design?

Answer 1

Descriptive research in which the researcher observes and systematically records the behaviour of individuals in order to describe the behaviour.
Observing ppl in natural habitat, or in lab.

Question 2

Why do it?

Answer 2

Systematic observation provides one with an enhanced appreciation of those you study

What people do and what they say they do are not always the same

There are problems with the alternative (interviews) e.g. recall error, biased questions, social desirability, assumes they have a level of personal insight

Question 3

Other advantages of observational r?

Answer 3

-systematic, accurate, objective, highest level of ecological validity.

Direct observational methods provide accurate and objective accounts by directly measuring the behaviours of interest as they occur.

Question 4

What are the two ways of collecting data?

Answer 4

Without intervention

With intervention

Question 5

List what the subheadings are in without intervention.

Answer 5

1) Naturalistic observation
2) Physical traces
3) Archival data

Question 6

Without intervention ways of collecting data:

1) Naturalistic observation

Describe and example.

Answer 6

1) Naturalistic observation e.g. like Jane Goodall observing chimpanzees in Tanzania. e.g. Hiding inside a parked car to measure the speed without the awareness of the drivers.

Question 7

Without intervention ways of collecting data:

1) Physical traces

Describe and example.

Answer 7

2) Physical traces: Unobtrusive (non-reactive) measures of people’s behaviour can be obtained by searching their rubbish for physical traces, but ethical issues regarding privacy must be considered! e.g. University of Arizona Garbage Project to analyse food preferences, waste behaviour, and alcohol consumption.
Note: not just waste though, can be cars, magazines donated, fingerprints left behind etc.

Question 8

Without intervention ways of collecting data:

1) Archival data

Describe and example.

Answer 8

3) Archival data: refers to the internet’s ability to go ‘data mining’. Cookies in computer do this. e.g. supermarket spies e.g. customers who drank milk and ate meat, were better car insurance candidates (safer) than ppl who ate pasta and rice, drank spirits.
Note: one in four apps on your Android mobile needlessly mining your personal data

Question 9

Problems with naturalistic observation?

Answer 9

• Interesting behaviours may occur infrequently
• Some events do not occur in public
• Hard to examine processes during observation
• No control over circumstances

Question 10

List the types of with intervention methods.

Answer 10

1) Participant observation
2) Disguised observation
3) Undisguised observation

Question 11

What is Participant observation under with intervention ?

Answer 11

A type of observation in which the researcher engages in the same activities as the people being observed in order to observe and record their behaviour

Question 12

What are some features of with intervention?

Answer 12

• Most psychological research involves intervention
• Can cause infrequent events to occur! (unlike without)

    - Simulated emergencies
    - Use confederate to ins)gate a behaviour 

• Investigate the limits of an ability
• Observe normally private events

  - Individual seangs
  - Observe mental event

Question 13

Example of with intervention?

Answer 13

Confederates used (two)
One dishevelled old man and one suited man.
Observed how many ppl followed their jaywalking behaviour.

Question 14

Adv of with intervention?

Answer 14

• Allows comparisons with different groups
• Can vary the settings explicitly
- Can assign conditions to people
- Allows repeated observation of the same behaviour

Question 15

What is DISGUISED/covert participant observation?

• ethical concerns
• biases?

Answer 15

It’s when the participant ‘infiltrates’ group and observes

• Ethical problems with disguised observation
  ‣ deception
  ‣ Group members will treat experimenter as one of their own
  ‣ Participant may (unwittingly) adopt attitudes of the group e.g. undercover police officer studying drug dealers claimed that thru inhaling cocaine others were smoking he became addicted.
• Experimenter bias and expectancy
  ‣ May inadvertently influence the group

e.g. being undercover in a psychiatric ward but actually are sane, ‘pseudo-patient’ by Rosenhan

Question 16

What caused the biggest distractions in UNdisguised observation study, where cameras were installed at back of car mirrors?

Answer 16

internal distractions
music controls
ext distractions
conversing
eating and drinking 

etc….

Question 17

What was the thing that drivers did the most while driving?

Answer 17

eating and drinking

Question 18

Methods for recording behaviour can be classified in terms of…

Answer 18

how much of the behaviour is recorded.

Question 19

What are 3 effects of sampling?

Answer 19

• Influences representativeness of observations
• Influences ecological validity
• Influences quality of the data

Question 20

What are the four types of sampling in obvservational research?

Answer 20

• Continuous sampling
• Time sampling
• Event sampling
• Situation sampling

Question 21

• Continuous sampling ?

Adv and dis

Answer 21

All behaviour recorded within a specified time period.

Adv:
Can see stream of events e.g. which activities may precipitate subsequent activities.
contributes to validity because complete account.

Dis:
demanding on coder, especially when activities changing rapidly.

Question 22

• Time sampling?

also sub heading of instantaneous (target time) sampling:

Answer 22

Will have an observe period and a record period during which behaviour in observe period is recorded on score sheet (e.g. 10 minutes every hour, 1 hour per day)

Instantaneous (target time) sampling: observer decides in advance the pre-selected moments when observation will take place and records what is happening at that instant. Everything happening before or after is ignored.

e. g. what happens when the lights turn green.
e. g. sitting in church at 8pm mary prayed and greg bowed.

Question 23

• Event sampling?

Answer 23

discrete events youre looking for in coding. e.g. focus on just the first cars that took off when the traffic lights

Adv:
focuses on events that are rare

Dis:
cant generalise

Question 24

• Situation sampling

Answer 24

involves studying behaviour in different loca)ons and under different circumstances and condi)ons.
observe when people use their mobiles whilst driving and nature of phone call: business or social?

• Is likely to have high ecological validity!
• May be expensive to carry out – visiting various locations

Question 25

What is text mining?

Answer 25

a qualitative research technique that control finds e.g. no. of times a word was used in romeo and juliet, then creates circles of themes.

software = leximancer for example

Question 26

What is data reduction?

Answer 26

how Observational data is summarised. e.g. descriptive measures such as frequency counts, means, and standard deviations.

Question 27

Distinguish btn

inter and intrarater reliability

Answer 27

inter: btn 2 different people
intra: one single observer and their own reliability when repeated

Both refer to amount of agreement in observations.

Question 28

How to improve inter observer reliability?

Answer 28

• see if other people in literature have observed say pedestrian behaviour. perhaps use their coding system..
  Coding schemes that have been successfully used in other studies demonstrate good construct validity.
• providing clear definitions about behaviours and events to be recorded
• training observers
• giving feedback on discrepancies

Question 29

How can you calculate inter observer reliability mathematically?

Answer 29

no of opportunities for agreement

x 100

= % of agreement

Question 30

What is considered good inter observer reliability?

Answer 30

Agreement of 90% (or higher)

Question 31

What factors could negatively influence inter-rater reliability?

Answer 31

Observer Effect: due to the presence of the observer or stimuli.

Observer Bias: related to expectancies of the observer may be consistent, high or low. For example in categorising some behaviours, you may see what you want to see

Error of Recording: may be due to poor techniques and equipment, mental lapses in the observer and inexperience.

Computational Error: is usually due to an inappropriate choice of a statistical test.

Error of Apprehending: due to the physical arrangement of both the animal and the observer - you might not be able to see what the driver is doing due to the angle of the camera.

Observer Error: can be caused by many factors. For example, inexperience, poorly defined behavioural units, observer drift or decay.

Observer decay: tired, not paying attention anymore

Question 32

What is observer bias?

Answer 32

seeing what we want to see. when researchers’ biases determine which behaviours they choose to observe

Question 33

How can observer bias be reduced?

Answer 33

by keeper observe blind to hypothesis of study.

Question 34

Whats the Hawthorne Effect/reactivtiy?

Answer 34

when ppl realise theyre being ovserved they behave differently. “reactive measure”

Question 35

How to reduce Hawthorne effect?

Answer 35

– Make observations surreptitiously
– Make the observer 􏰄blind􏰅 to the goal or hypothesis of the study
– Use non-human observers
-unobtrusive measurements