Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Observation
- Examples
- Bandura
- Used covert time sample d
observation to record the
children's aggressive behaviour
- Rosenhan
- Used participant observation to record
the behaviour on psychiatric wards
- Milgram
- Observed the signs of
stress/distress in the
behaviour of the participants
- Sampling Observational Data
- Event Sampling
- Observing a event that has been
defined/categorised before
- Observer records every time
this event occurs
- Weakness: If too many of the obeserving
subject happen at once, it's hard to record
every single one
- Strength: Less chance of missing the behaviour
when specifically looking for a certain behaviour
- Time Sampling
- Specific time frames
- Records what behaviours
occur at the end of each time
frame
- Typically more than
one observer
- e.g. Bandura
- Weakness: some behaviours
may be missed and make it
not representative
- Strength: less
time-consuming as
the observation is
structured and timed
- Inter-observer (rater) Reliability
- Pilot study
- To check that all observers are
recording the behaviour similarly
- Advantages
- No demand characteristics in a
natural, uncontrived setting
- Behaviour first hand not
through self report methods
- Disadvantages
- No explanations of behaviours
from participants because they
have no knowledge of the
observations
- Bias or misinterpreting
observers
- Naturalistic
observations are
difficult to
replicate
- Inter-observer (rater) reliability
has to be done with more than
one observer, which isn't always
easy to establish
- Ethics
- Naturalistic observations
- No informed consent
- Participants should be observed in public where they are
less likely to be distressed when finding out about the
observation
- If the location of the observation is identifiable, not
protecting confidentiality may be unethical
- Types of Observation
- Participant Observations
- The observer becomes
part of the observation
- Disadvantage
- Demand characteristics
- Observer bias
- Naturalistic Observations
- Covert
Observations
- Participants are not fully aware of
observation e.g. Observers may use
on-way mirrors (stay hidden)
- Overt Observations
- Participants know they are being
observed
- Natural environment
with no manipulation
from the observers
- Unstructured
Observations
- Qualitative data
- Observers record
what they see
- Structured
Observations
- Quantitative data
- Recorded through categorising behaviour
- Controlled
Observations
- Keep some variables controlled,
normally in a laboratory or natural
environment