an observation is a careful, close examination of a participant's real behaviour, rather than what people say they would do
when identifying the type of observation, you need to refer to the location, the researcher involvement and participant awareness
Location
-naturalistic observations - these take place in a natural environment
-controlled observations - these take place in controlled environments
Evaluation of naturalistic observations
S - high ecological validity
S - lower demand characteristics
W - low internal validity
Evaluation of controlled observations
S - high internal validity
W - lower ecological validity
W - higher demand characteristics
Awareness
-covert observations
this is where the researcher is not visible to participants
the participants are unaware they are being observed
-overt observations
this is where the researcher is visible to participants
the participants are aware they are being observed
Evaluation of covert observations
S - less demand characteristics
W - ethical issues
Evaluation of overt observations
S - more ethical
W - higher chance of demand characteristics
Researcher involvement
-participant observation - the researcher is part of the group they are observing
-non-participant observation - the researcher is not part of the group they are observing
Evaluation of participant observations
S - higher internal validity
W - researcher bias
Evaluation of non-participant observation
S - less researcher bias
W - low internal validity
Observational design and behaviour categories
observations require operationalised behaviour categories to ensure that they are objective and have high inter-observer reliability
this means that the behaviours must be precisely defined and easy to identify, without any overlap or ambiguity
a coding sheet will be used to tally the number of times these behaviours occur
Time and event sampling
in an observation the researcher must use a systematic way of sampling the participants behaviour (this is not the same as sampling the people involved). There are 2 ways to do this;
event sampling
time sampling
Event sampling
the researchers decide on a specific event relevant to the investigation
they record (tally) every time an event/behaviour occurs in a period of time
Time sampling
this is where you record the behaviour at set time intervals
at the specified time intervals, the researcher will tick/mark one or more categories from the behavioural checklist
behaviours observed in between the time sampling frames should be ignored and should not be recorded