OBSERVATIONS IN SOCIOLOGY

What was Rosenhan’s observation on?

being sane in insane places, diagnoses of schziphrenia in the 1960s

What type of observation did Rosenhorn undertake?

covert, ethnographic, participant observation

How do we know that observations are non experimental?

as they do not test an independent variable

What is a naturalistic observation?

behaviour is studied in a natural setting, kept the same as it normally is

What is a controlled observation?

variables are controlled, participants are likely to know they are being studied, my occur in a lab

What is a participant observation?

researcher is involved in the behaviour being studied

What is a non participant observation?

where a researcher is an objective observer of events

What does overt mean?

participant is aware the study

What are the comments on overt observations?

more ethical but likely to leadd to social desirability bias or demand characteristics

What does covert mean?

when the participant is not aware that they are being studied

What are the comments on covert observations?

more natural behaviour and avoid demand charateristics but may present ethical problems

What is a structured observation?

a ‘target behaviour’ is focussed on and clearly defined, behavioural categories are often used to help operationalise target behaviour and ensure ccurate and reliable recording

What is an unstructure observation?

observer writes down everything thing they see, often rich in detail but some behaviours are missd and observer bias often occurs

What is the aim of behavioural categories?

to make observations systematic and rigorous, to. operationalise the behaviour and clearly define it, each category should be mutually exculsive

What is time sampling?

in an observation study and is where an observer records behaviour at pescribed intervals, eg 10 seconds

What is event sampling?

an observer records the number of times a certain behaviour occurs

What is inter-observer reliability?

trained, 2 or more obervers, clearly defined behavioural cetegories

practical strengths of observations?

don’t need specialist equipment, naturalistic is likely to be cheaper, low researcher skill for structutured observations

ethical strengths of observations?

overt is easy to gain consent, non participants is not as decieving

theoretical strengths of observations?

naturalistic has a higher ecological validity, covert means less demand characteristics, work well for both quant and qual data, naturalistic is more representative, covert means lower hawthorne effect, detailed data from unstructuered observation

practical weaknesses of observation?

may take a long time, may need multiple observers (expensive)

ethical weaknesses of observation?

cvert is likely to involve deception, particiapnt may involve law breaking, can involve a lack of consent, can involve invading privacy

theoretical weaknesses of observations?

not always representative as it is tricky to have a large study, may be difficult to replicate, overt can cause sdb or hawthorne effect, less observers means that it less reliable