Observations

Cards (16)

  • Observation
    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
  • Evaluation of event sampling
    S - more representative
    W - difficult for ongoing behaviours
  • Evaluation of time sampling
    S - better for ongoing behaviours
    W - less representative