Observations

• Observations


  Involve watching animal or human participants
• Naturalistic Observations


  • Can be seen as true to life - people are more likely to behave as normal
  • Unstructured observation can record all possible behaviours
• Observations


  • No guarantee that the behaviour being examined will happen during the observation
  • Difficult to record ALL behaviours
  • Researcher involvement can affect the natural behaviours of the participants
  • Could invade privacy and cause distress
• Types of observations


  • Involve a researcher watching or listening to participants engage in a piece of research
  • Researcher may observe directly or behaviour may be recorded for later viewing
• Time sampling


  Behaviours are recorded in specified time intervals
• Types of time sampling

  • Instantaneous scan
  • Predominant activity scan
  • One-zero scan
• Event sampling


  Every time a behaviour is seen in person being observed it is tallied
• Overt observation


  Participants know who the researcher is and that they are being observed
• Covert observation


  Participants do not know that a researcher is in group observing them
• Participant observation


  Researcher becomes a part of group the researcher wishes to observe
• Non-participant observation


  Researcher is 'away' from people or animals being observed
• Structured observations


  Observers have created a behavioural checklist in order to code behaviour they are observing
• Unstructured observations


  Observers note all behaviours they can see in qualitative form over a period of time
• Naturalistic observations


  Take place in a person's or animal's own natural environment
• Controlled observations


  Take place in a controlled setting, e.g. during an experiment in a laboratory room with observers behind a one-way mirror