Observational design

• Inter-rater reliability (also called inter-observer reliability) measures the degree of agreement between different people observing or assessing the same thing
• Ways of recording data → Write down everything they see (Qualitative data) → Produce accounts of behaviour that is rich in detail → This may be appropriate when observations are small in scale and involve few participants However, there may be to much going on in a single observation for the researcher to record it all
• Ways of recording data → This becomes a structured observation → Behaviours are categorised → Quantitative Data → Easier to compare & analyse → Good for larger studies with lots of participants → Target behaviour ‘’affection’’ Break the target behaviour into a set of behavioural categories (behaviour checklist).

  Each of these behaviours must be observable – there should be no need for inferences to be made, such as ‘being loving’.
• For a structured observation a research must use a systematic way of sampling their observations

  Event Sampling • Involves counting the number of times a particular behaviours (the ‘event’) occurs in a target individual or group. Time Sampling • Involves recording behaviour within a pre￾established time frame. The observer decides in advance that observation will take place only during specified time periods (e.g. 10 minutes every hour, 1 hour per day) and records the occurrence of the specified behavior during that period only
• An Advantage of structured observations

  Use of behavioural categories make the recording of data easier and more systematic Data produced is numerical which means that analysing and comparing the behaviour observed between participants is straightforward. Good for larger studies with lots of participants
• A disadvantage of structured observations -

  They are only useful for studying large scale interactions. Duration or events does not tell us about their meaning. Events may not fit any of the categories or may overlap several categories
• An advantage of unstructured observationsUnstructured observations benefits more richness and in-depth detail.
• Disadvantage of unstructured observations

  Greater risk of observer bias as there is no objective behavioural categories qualitative data which may be much more difficult to record and analyse
• Strength of sampling methods

  Good for infrequent behaviours Observer may overlook important details in complex events
• Time sampling evaluation

  Reducing the number of observations needed to be made May miss behaviours in-between times May be unrepresentative