Observation

• Naturalistic


  Watching and recording behaviour in the setting within it would normally occur
• Strength of Naturalistic

  High external validity
• Weaknesses of Naturalistic

  Difficult to replicate

  Uncontrolled extraneous variables
• Controlled

  Watching and recording behaviour within a structured environment where some variables are managed
• Strengths of Controlled

  Controlled extraneous variables

  Replicable
• Weakness of Controlled

  Cannot be applied to real-life settings
• Covert


  Participants are unaware they’re bing observed
• Strength of Covert

  Removes demand characteristics
• Weaknesses of Covert

  Ethical issues - deception
• Overt


  Participants know they are being observed and have given informed consent
• Strengths of Overt


  More ethical
• Weaknesses of Overt

  Demand Characteristics
• Participant

  The researcher becomes part of the group whose behaviour is being watched and recorded
• Strength of Participant

  Increased Insight into the participants
• Weakness of Participant

  Researcher Bias
• Non-Participant


  Researcher remains outside of the group whose behaviour is being watched and recorded
• Strength of Non-Participant


  Research remains objective
• Weakness of Non-Participant

  Loses insight into participants
• Structured

  Observations using predetermined factors to record participants behaviour (Quantitative data)
• Strength of Structured

  Easier data collection

  More systematic
• Weaknesses of structured

  Only produces numerical data
• Unstructured


  Observations where there is no checklist so ever behaviour seen is written down in as much detail as possible
• Strength of Unstructured

  More in-depth data
• Weakness of unstructured

  Observer Bias
• Behavioural Categories


  When a target behaviour or event is first established then the researcher records this event every time it occurs

  Exclusive categories that should be precisely defined and made observable and measurable
• Event Sampling

  Counting the number of times a particular behaviour occurs in a target individual or group
• Strength of Event sampling


  Useful when targets behaviour is infrequent
• Weakness of Event Sampling

  Specified event may be too complex - details can be overlooked
• Time Sampling


  Recording behaviour within a pre-established time frame
• Strength of time sampling

  Reduces number of observations that must be made
• Weakness of Time Sampling

  Behaviours sampled may be unrepresentative of the observation as a whole