Observations:

• What are the different types of observation?

  • Naturalistic vs controlled observation
  • Overt vs covert observation
  • Participant vs non-participant observation
• What is a naturalistic observation?

  • No variables are controlled or manipulated by the researcher
  • Behaviour is often observed in a natural setting- everything is left as it is normally
• Strengths of naturalistic observations:

  • Behaviour is likely to be natural. This means that ecological validity is high and findings can be generalised to real-life settings
• Limitations of naturalistic observations:

  • Extraneous variables cannot be controlled to prevent them from becoming confounding variables. This means that cause and effect cannot be established and internal validity is low
• What is a controlled observation?

  • Some variables are regulated by the researcher
  • Behaviour is often observed in a controlled laboratory setting
• Strengths of controlled observations:

  • Extraneous variables can be controlled for to prevent them from becoming confounding variables. This means that cause and effect can be established and internal validity is high
• Limitations of controlled observations:

  • Behaviour is likely to be unnatural. This means that ecological validity is low
• What is an overt observation?

  • Participants are aware they are being observed by a researcher
• Strengths of Overt observations:

  • there are less likely to be ethical issues with this observational technique because participants can give their consent to be observed
• Limitations of overt observations:

  • Behaviour is likely to be unnatural because participants know that they are being observed and may respond to demand characteristics. This means the internal validity of findings may be low
• What is a covert observation?

  • Participants are unaware that they are being observed by a researcher. They may be informed afterwards.
• Strengths of covert observations:

  • Behaviour is likely to be natural because participants do not know that they are being observed. This means the internal validity of findings may be high.
• Limitations of covert observations:

  • There are ethical issues with this observational technique because the participants have not given their consent to be observed.
• What is a participant observation?

  • The researcher becomes a member of the group that they are observing
• Strengths of a participant observation:

  • The researcher may pick up on small details that would otherwise be missed- special insights into the behaviour from the 'inside'
• Limitations of participant observations:

  • The researcher may become subjective and allow their own opinions to influence their observations. This means the internal validity of their findings may be low.
• What are non-participant observations?

  • The researcher remains outside of the group that they are observing and does not interact with the people being observed
• Strengths of non-participant observations:

  • The researcher is more likely to remain objective and not allow their own opinions to influence their observations. This means the internal validity of their findings may be high.
• Limitations of Non-participant observations:

  • The researcher may miss small details of the behaviour that they are observing and therefore not get a full representation of behaviour
• What are the two types of observational design a researcher can use when conducting a study?

  1. structured observation
  2. unstructured observation
• What are structured observations?

  The researcher uses systems to organise their observations

  These systems include:

  • behavioural categories
  • event sampling
  • time sampling
• What are behavioural categories?

  • The researcher creates operationalised behavioural categories to break up the stream of behaviour
  • When they conduct the observation, they record tallies in the behavioural categories
  • Categories should be objective, cover all possible component behaviours and be mutually exclusive
• What is event sampling?

  • The researcher records the number of times a certain behaviour occurs in a target individual or individuals e.g. counting the number of times a person smiles in a 10 minute period
• What is time sampling?

  • The researcher records behaviours at predetermined time intervals e.g. nothing what a target individual is doing every 30 seconds or some other time interval
• What is an unstructured observation?

  • The researcher does not use any systems to record their observations
  • Researchers sometimes use this approach in situations, for example, where research has not been conducted before as a kind of pilot study to see what behaviours might be recorded using a structured system
• What is inter-observer reliability?

  • Way of assessing internal reliability in an observation
  • It is a means of assessing whether different observers are viewing and rating behaviour in the same way
  • Strong positive correlation between different observers (+0.8 or more) suggests high internal reliability
• To improve reliability:

  • Observers should be carefully trained
  • Structured observation with clearly operationalised behavioural categories should be used
• Validity:

  Internal validity can be affected by:

  • Investigator effects
  • Demand characteristics
  • Confounding variables
  • Social desirability bias
  • Poorly operationalised behavioural categories