Observation

• Observational techniques involve seeing and/or listening to what people do without asking them.

  
  

  Strength) Captures how people act, especially because they often act different from how they say they will in self-report techniques.

  
  

  Limitation) Risk of observer bias because researcher expectations of the situations may affect results.
• Naturalistic observation: Takes place where the behaviour normally occurs

  
  

  +)High external validity because the behaviour occurs in natural context, therefore more generalisable to real life

  
  

  -)Low control over extraneous variables that could affect findings.
• Controlled observation: Variables manipulated within an observation

  
  

  +)Easily replicated due to standardised procedure, findings can be checked.

  
  

  -)Low external reliability because behaviour may be affected by artificial conditions that don't reflect everyday life.
• Covert: Unaware of being observed

  +)Demand characteristics reduced

  -)Ethically questionable

  
  

  Overt: Aware of being observed

  +)More ethically acceptable

  -)Demand characteristics
• Participant observation: Researcher becomes part of the group they are studying

  
  

  +)Researcher experiences situation as participants do leading to greater insight.

  
  

  -)Researcher may affect the objectivity of the study.
• Non-participant observation: Researcher remains separate from the group they are studying.

  
  

  +)More objective as they maintain a distance so less chance of bias.

  
  

  -)Lose insight as they are too far removed from those they are studying.
• Event sampling: Behaviour recorded every time it occurs.

  
  

  +)Useful for rare behaviour as the researcher will pick up behaviour that does not occur regularly.

  
  

  -)Complex behaviours may be oversimplified and important details may be overlooked.
• Time sampling: Observations are made at regular intervals (once every 10 seconds).

  
  

  +)Reduces the number of observations making the observation more systematic.

  
  

  -)Researchers may miss important details.