Observational Design

Behavioural Categories: When a target behaviour is broken up into components that are observable and measurable (operationalisation).

Behavioural Categories Eval: Can make data collection more structured and objective but only if categories are clear. All possible forms of target behaviour should be included in the checklist (no dustbin category) and categories shouldn’t overlap.

Event Sampling: A target behaviour or event is first established then the researcher records this event every time it occurs.

Event Sampling Eval: Useful when target behaviour or event happens quite infrequently however if the event is too complex, the observer may overlook important details.

Time Sampling: A target individual or group is first established then the researcher records their behaviour is a fixed time frame, say, every 60 seconds.

Time Sampling Eval: Effective in reducing the number of obsersavtions to be made however instances when behaviour is sampled might be unrepresentative of the observation as a whole.

Unstructured Observation: When the researcher simply writes down everything they see and tends to produce accounts of behaviour that have a lot of detail.

Structured Observation: When what is recorded is simplified to target behaviour that will become the main focus of the investigation using behavioural categories.

Structured Eval: The use of behavioural categories make recording data easier and more systematic. The produced data is likely numerical and so analysing and comparing the behaviour observed is straightforward.

Unstructured Eval: Tend to produce qualitative data which may be harder to record and analuse. There’s great risk of observer bias however the data collected would be more in detail.

Continuous Recording: All instances of a target behaviour are recorded.

Inter-Observer Reliability: Data from different observers is compared to check consistency on the same researcher.

How to Achieve Inter-Observer Reliability: Observers should familiarise themselves with behavioural categories, then observe behaviour at same time, then compare recorded data and then analyse data.