Field Studies

• Field studies are nonexperimental approaches used in the field or in real-life settings.

  Antecedent conditions are not manipulated in field studies.

  Naturalistic observation is the technique of observing behaviors as they occur spontaneously in natural settings.

  The naturalistic observation approach has been used extensively in animal behavior research, called ethology, to study behavior in the wild as well as in captivity.
• When researchers conduct naturalistic observations, researchers attempt to remain inconspicuous (hidden, tago, di napapansin)
• Reactivity is a phenomenon that occurs when individuals alter their performance or behavior due to the awareness that they are being observed, thereby making the findings of the research subject to error.
• The Hawthorne effect occurs when research study participants know they are being studied and alter their performance because of the attention they receive from the experimenters.
• Unobtrusive measures are techniques for collecting data without the knowledge of respondents.
• Naturalistic observation provides a wealth of descriptive information, but this research method does not lend itself to testing causal antecedents of behavior or determining cause and effect.
• Observers should remain as unobtrusive (inconspicuous) as possible when they conduct naturalistic observations. Researchers can make themselves less obtrusive by hiding behind a duck blind, by observing from behind one-way mirror, or by blending in with the social surroundings so that they are not noticed.
• In Participant-Observer Study the researcher actually becomes part of the group being studied. Sometimes this is the only method that can be used to study a group-particularly if the group would not reasonably be expected to cooperate voluntarily with a research

  investigation.
• Some questions you need to consider before using Naturalistic Observation:

  1. Is you observation going to make an important contribution to psychological knowledge?
  2. Are you invading the privacy of others?
  3. Is it ethical not to tell people they are being studied?
  4. Is it ethical to pretend to be a real group member?
• A field study should not be confused with a field experiment. A field experiment is a TRUE EXPERIMENT because the antecedent conditions are controlled by the researcher outside the laboratory.
• Participant-observer study is used to investigate groups that are (1) difficult to study with traditional methods; (2) are expected to show high reactivity; or (3) would not give consent to be studied.