Obs on mobiles

• aim = are college students more likely to use their phone in social situations
• there will be a difference in the number of times college students pick up their phone in the common room and libary
• we chose a non directional hypothesis as there is no previous research
• the IV is the location - common room or libary
• the DV is the amount of times the college students pick up their phone in 5 minutes
• operationalised alternative hypothesis = there will be a significant difference in the amount of times phones are picked up by college students within 5 mins between the libary and common room
• null hypothesis = there will be no difference in the amount of times college students pick up their phone within 5 mins between the common room and libary. any difference will be due to chance
• extraneous variables = situational variables , who they are with , time of day , gender , age
• naturalistic observation is watching behaviour in natural enviroment with no manipulation of variables
• we chose to do a naturalistic observation as it is real life setting and no artifical manipulation
• we did oppourtunity sampling because we needed 20 college students and it means its easier to gain a large, representative sample
• we did time sampling - counting the number of times a behaviour occurs in a set time frame (5 mins)
• we chose time sampling so we could concentrate on one person at a time to accurately count how many times they pick up their phone
• we used non participant observation as we observed behaviour from a distance
• strength of non ppt obs:

  • managing data and recording is easier
  • more objective
• weakness of non ppt obs:

  • miss aspects of behaviour
• covert non ppt observation = to reduce the chance of demand characteristics as the college students didnt know
• to ensure reliability we used inter-rater reliability and standardised procedures
• inter-rater = 2 or more researchers produce consistent results
• to assess external reliability = test re-test with the same ppts and test over time and comparing results
• validity issues:

  • researcher bias
  • situational variables
  • participant variables
• to deal with researcher bias = clearly operationalise and standardise procedure
• situational variables = operationalise variables
• to assess validity we used face validity to see if the results matched with our hypothesis
• ethical issues:

  • confidentiality
  • valid consent
• confidentiality = if ppts know their names are on it, it can lead to social desirability = to deal with this, we used ppt numbers
• privacy = ppts may not want to be part of the study = observe in a public setting
• valid consent = ppts arent asked before being observed = gain presumptive consent
• measures of central tendancy used was the mean. this is because it can be used for further statistical analysis to show the spread of mobile phone use
• measure of dispersion used = the range as it is quicker and easier then standard diviation
• we used a bar chart to show our findings. this is because it clearly shows the difference in the two categories: libary and common room . we have colected discrete data so bar chart is most appropriate
• inferential statistics 3d's :

  • difference
  • independant groups
  • ratio data
• mann whitney u test would be appropriate
• mann whitney u = the observed value has to be lower then the critical value
• therefore reject alternative hypothesis and accept null hypothesis
• overall conclusion = there is no difference in phone usage in college students within 5 mins between the common room and libary
• to improve:

  • look at amount of time spent on phone rather then occassions = more valid measurement of phone engagement
  • observe across the day = increase population validity as it will be more representative
  • increase observation time to 10 mins = more valid measure rather then a snapshot of behaviour