research methods: observational design

Question 1

What is observation design?

Answer 1

The choice of behaviours to record and how they are measured

Question 2

What are behavioural categories?

Answer 2

When a target behaviour is broken down into components that are observable and measurable

Question 3

What are the components of behavioural categories?

Answer 3

• Operationalisation: breaking the behaviour being studied into a set of components
• Be objective: no inferences about the behaviour, just simply recording
• be mutually exclusive: no overlapping

Question 4

What is time sampling?

Answer 4

The researcher records behaviour of an individual or a group in a fixed time frame

Question 5

What are advantages of time sampling?

Answer 5

• effective in reducing the number of observations that have to be made
• more flexibility to be able to record unexpected types of behaviour

Question 6

What is a disadvantage of time sampling?

Answer 6

Behaviour presented might be unrepresentative of the observation as a whole as it does not look at every single behaviour

Question 7

What is event sampling?

Answer 7

A target behaviour is established and a researcher records this event every time it happens

Question 8

What is an advantage of event samplng?

Answer 8

Useful when the target behaviour occurs infrequently which could be missed if time sampling is used

Question 9

What is a disadvantage of event sampling?

Answer 9

If the specified event is too complex, the observer may overlook important details not on the list of behavioural categories

Question 10

What are the advantages of structured observations?

Answer 10

• the recording of data is easier and more systematic
  -the data produced is likely to be quantitative which makes the analysis and comparisons easier

Question 11

What is an advantage of unstructured observations?

Answer 11

Richer, more in-depth data from qualitative results

Question 12

What are the disadvantages of using unstructured observations?

Answer 12

• greater risk of observer bias
• researchers may only record behaviours that ‘catch their eye’
• qualitative data may be much harder to record and analyse

Question 13

How can you assess observational reliability?

Answer 13

Inter-observer reliability

Question 14

What is inter-observer reliability?

Answer 14

When two researchers carry out observations independently and compare the data to check for consistency i.e. reliability

Question 15

What are the steps of carrying out inter-observer reliability?

Answer 15

1) Observers should conduct observations in teams of at least two
2) Observers look for the same behaviours by watching the same event but reversing the data independently
3) The data collected by the two observers is correlated to assess reliability
4) The correlation coefficient should be +0.80