Observational designs

Unstructured observation?

researcher records everything they see, producing accounts of behaviour that are in rich detail

When would the method of unstructured observation be appropriate to use?

when observations are small in scall and involve few people

Unstructured observation - what type of data does it produce?

qualitative data

Structured observation?

simplifying target behaviours that will become the main focus of the investigation to allow the researcher to quantify their observations using a pre-determined list of behaviours and sampling methods

Structured observation - what type of data does it produce?

quantitative

What is this target behaviour broken down into?

behavioural categories

Behavioural categories?

when a target behaviour is broken up into components that are observable, measurable and self-evident

Observable?

we can actually see/hear them

Measurable?

we can actually quantify/count them

Self-evident?

do not require personal interpretation

What does the researcher has to ensure about the behavioural categories?

that they don’t overlap - should be exclusive

What do the specific behavioural categories need to be put into?

a behaviour checklist

Why do the specific behavioural categories need to be put into a checklist?

so you can tally how often you observe the behaviours

The two ways to record/sample behaviour in an observation?

event and time sampling

Event sampling?

continuously recording every time a specific behavioural category is observed using a tally chart

Time sampling?

start with a behaviour checklist, observe at set time intervals and tally each time a behavioural category is seen

Event sampling - strength: what does the researcher not miss?

doesn’t miss important behaviours

Event sampling - weakness: key disadvantage?

more time consuming as it involves continuous observation

Time sampling - strength: key advantage?

less time consuming - less observations required

Time sampling - weakness: what may be missed?

important behaviours may be missed - unrepresentative of the observation as a whole

Structured observation - strength: what makes it easier to do?

analysing and comparing the behaviour observed between participants is easier as it produces numerical (quantitative) data

Structured observation - weakness: what does the data collected have a lower level of?

data has a lower richness and depth of detail than in unstructured observation

Unstructured observation - strength: what does the data collected have a high level of?

high richness and depth of detail

Unstructured observation - weakness 1: what is difficult to do with the data it produces?

more difficult to record, analyse and compare (as it often produces qualitative data)

Unstructured observation - weakness 2: what is there a greater risk of?

observer bias - as behavioural categories aren’t used the researcher may only record those behaviours the ‘catch their eye’ and these may not be the most important or useful