Observational design

• Behavioural categories 


  the target behaviour to be observed should be broken up into a set of observable categories

  --difficult to make clear and unambiguous = categories should be self-evident and not overlap, not always possible to achieve

  e.g. 'smiling' and 'grinning' would be poor categories

  -- dustbin categories = all forms of behaviour should be in the list and not one 'dustbin' ... 'dumped' behaviours go unrecorded
• Event sampling


  a target behaviour / event is recorded every time it occurs

  + useful for infrequent behaviour = the researcher will still 'pick up' behaviours that do not occur at regular intervals .. such as behaviours could be missed using time sampling

  -- complex behaviour oversimplified = if the event is too complex, important details may go unrecorded ... affect validity of the findings
• Time sampling


  observations are made at regular intervals, e.g. once every 15 seconds

  + reduces the number of observations = rather than recording everything that is seen (i.e. continuous) data os recorded at certain intervals ... observation is more structured and systematic

  --may be unrepresentative = researcher may miss important details outside of the timescale ... may not reflect the whole behaviour