observational design

Question 1

define behavioural categories

Answer 1

when a target behaviour is broken up into components that are observable and measurable (operationalisation)

Question 2

define event sampling

Answer 2

a target behaviour or event is first established then the researcher records this event every time it occurs

Question 3

define time sampling

Answer 3

a target individual or group is first established then the researcher records their behaviour in a fixed time frame.

Question 4

what is inter observer reliability?

Answer 4

observations should be carried out by 2 or more observers to avoid bias and missing details. Observers should familiarise themselves with what they’re looking for and a pilot study should occur before the observation. Data should be compared

Question 5

what is a structured observation & what data does it produce

Answer 5

simplifying the target behaviours that will become the main focus of the investigation using behavioural categories. Quantitative data.

Question 6

what is an unstructured observation & what data does it produce

Answer 6

when the researcher writes down everything that they see. Data is often rich in detail however it only happens when it is a smaller amount of pp’s. Qualitative data.

Question 7

evaluate behavioural categories

Answer 7

the categories must be clear and unambiguous in order for them to work and shouldn’t require interpretation as this may affect the validity.
Researchers also need to include every behaviour which may be difficult and important details may be missed out & categories shouldn’t overlap

Question 8

define continuous recording

Answer 8

key feature of unstructured observations in which all instances of target behaviour are recorded

Question 9

evaluate event sampling

Answer 9

useful when behaviour happens infrequently and could be missed if time sampling was used.
However important detail may be missed as if the event is too complex the observer may not record everything. This affects the validity

Question 10

evaluate time sampling

Answer 10

effective in reducing the number of observations that have to be made so observations are more structured
However those being observed may be unrepresentative of population and researcher may miss out important details