Observations

Question 1

What are behavioural categories?

Answer 1

• Devising a set of component behaviours.

Question 2

What is event sampling?

Answer 2

• Counting number of times a certain behaviour (or event) occurs in a target individual or individuals.

Question 3

What is time sampling?

Answer 3

• Recording behaviours in a given time frame -> E.g. noting what individual is doing every 30 seconds.

Question 4

What is controlled observation?

Answer 4

• When the researcher has some of measure of control over the environment.

Question 5

What are the strengths of a controlled observation?

Answer 5

• Control over extraneous variables
• Inter-observer reliability
• Easy to replicate

Question 6

What are the weaknesses of a controlled observation?

Answer 6

• Cannot be applied to real-life settings.
• May be subjective towards what the researcher wants to see.

Question 7

What is a naturalistic observation?

Answer 7

• Studying behaviour in a natural setting where everything has been left as it is normally.

Question 8

What are the strengths of a naturalistic observation?

Answer 8

• High external (ecological) validity.
• Natural environment: generalised to everyday life.
• Few demand characteristic.

Question 9

What are the weaknesses of naturalistic observations?

Answer 9

• Replication difficult -> lack of control.
• Uncontrolled extraneous variables.

Question 10

What is a covert observation?

Answer 10

• ppts are not aware that they are being observed.

Question 11

What are the strengths of a covert observation?

Answer 11

• No demand characteristics.

Question 12

What are the weaknesses of a covert observation.

Answer 12

• Ethical issues as they do not know they are being observed.

Question 13

What is an overt observation?

Answer 13

• Ppts are aware that they are being observed.

Question 14

What are the strengths of an overt observation?

Answer 14

• Less ethical issues as they are not being deceived.

Question 15

What are the weaknesses of an overt observation?

Answer 15

• There may be demand characteristics as they know they are being observed.

Question 16

What is a participant observation?

Answer 16

• The observer acts as part of the group being watched.

Question 17

What are the strengths of participant observation?

Answer 17

• Exp the situation
• Insight
• Increased validity

Question 18

What are the weaknesses of participant observation?

Answer 18

• Lose objectivity
• Difficulty in recording observations
• Ethical issues

Question 19

What is non-participant observation?

Answer 19

• The experimenter foes not become part of the group being observed.

Question 20

What are the strengths of non-participant observations?

Answer 20

• More ethical
• More objective

Question 21

What are the weaknesses of non-participant observation?

Answer 21

• Less insight
• Not exp the same things
• lower in validity

Question 22

What are is structured observation?

Answer 22

• Researcher determines precisely what behaviours are to be observed and uses a standardised checklist to record the frequency with which they are observed within a specific time frame.

Question 23

What is an unstructured observation?

Answer 23

• The observer recalls all relevant behaviour but has no system.

Question 24

What is ‘inter rater’ reliability?

Answer 24

• 2 or more interviewers / observers must get some outcome on 80% or more of the behaviours.

Question 25

How can inter rater reliability be improved?

Answer 25

• Using secondary data -> pre-existing categories e.g. experiment an aggression of teenagers, you use conditions of precious experiments on some topic.