Field Method Reports PDF

servation ob  Contents Sampling behavior Observational Method Chart Recording Behavior Thinking Critically about observational research  sampling behavior When a complete record of behavior cannot be obtained, researchers seek to obtain a representative sample of behavior. The...

servation ob  Contents Sampling behavior Observational Method Chart Recording Behavior Thinking Critically about observational research  sampling behavior When a complete record of behavior cannot be obtained, researchers seek to obtain a representative sample of behavior. The extent to which observations may be generalized (external validity) depends on how behavior is sampled  sampling behavior Process of observing and studying a subset (or sample) of individuals within a larger population. Representative Sample are “like” the larger population from which they are drawn Random Sampling are techniques that ensure each member of the population has an equal chance of being included in the sample. External Validity extent to which the results of a research study can be generalized to different populations, settings, and conditions.  Time sampling refers to researchers choosing time intervals for making observations either systematically or randomly A record lasting for a predetermined length of time (e.g. 30 seconds or 1 minute) is made at regular intervals (e.g. every 10 minutes or every hour) about what a particular child (or group of children) is doing.  event sampling observer records each event that meets a predetermined definition. involves observing and recording specific behaviors or events whenever they occur during a defined observation period  Situation sampling involves studying behavior in different locations and under different circumstances and conditions. understand how behavior varies in different contexts and enhances the external validity of their findings. reduce the likelihood that their findings are specific to a particular situation and increase the generalizability of their results. Observational Method Chart Direct Observational Methods The collection of information using your senses; When you watch interactions, processes, or behaviors as they occur. Has two classification (Observation without intervention and observation with Intervention) OBSERVATION WITHOUT INTERVENTION Also known as Naturalistic Observation to which it describes behavior as it normally occurs and to examine relationships among variables. ADVANTAGES: Allows researchers to study behaviors or situations that cannot be manipulated in a lab due to ethical concerns Can support the external validity of research DISADVANTAGES: Observer bias: Lack of validity Lack of control Inability to draw cause-and-effect conclusions OBSERVATION WITH INTERVENTION Most psychological research uses observation with intervention. Types; The three methods of observation with intervention are participant observation, structured observation, and the field experiment. PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION In participant observation, observers play a dual role (Overt - Disguised & Covert -Undisguised) where observe people’s behavior and they participate actively in the situation they are observing. PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION If individuals change their behavior when they know they are being observed (“reactivity”), their behavior may no longer be representative of their normal behavior. STRUCTURED OBSERVATION Is often used by clinical and developmental psychologists, structured observations are set up to record behaviors that may be difficult to observe using naturalistic observation. STRUCTURED OBSERVATION Can be done in a lab or a simulated environment. A structured observation is meant to observe a specific, limited set of behaviors. This method is less natural, but enables less variables to be at play. FIELD EXPERIMENT When a researcher manipulates one or more independent variables in a natural setting in order to determine the effect on behavior, the procedure is called a field experiment. Indirect Observational Methods Indirect, or unobtrusive, observations can be obtained by examining physical traces and archival records. Behavior can also be observed indirectly through records and other evidence of people’s behavior. PHYSICAL TRACES Physical traces are the remnants, fragments, and products of past behavior. Two categories of physical traces are “use traces” and “products.” PHYSICAL TRACES Use traces are what the label implies—the physical evidence that results from the use (or nonuse) of an item. Physical traces are the remnants, fragments, and products of past behavior. ARCHIVAL RECORDS Are the public and private documents describing the activities of individuals, groups, institutions, and governments. Records that are continuously kept and updated are referred to as running records.  Recording behavior The goals of observational research determine whether researchers seek a comprehensive description of behavior or a description of only selected behaviors. recording behavior COMPREHENSIVE RECORDS OF BEHAVIOR SELECTED RECORDS OF BEHAVIOR COMPREHENSIVE RECORDS OF BEHAVIOR Narrative records in the form of written descriptions of behavior, audio and video recordings, are comprehensive records. Researchers classify and organize data from narrative records to test their hypotheses about behavior. Narrative records should be made during or soon after behavior is observed, and observers must be carefully trained to record behavior according to established criteria.  COMPREHENSIVE RECORDS OF BEHAVIOR Narrative records provide a more or less faithful reproduction of behavior as it originally occurred. To create a narrative record, an observer can write descriptions of behavior, or use audio or video recordings. For example, videos were used to record the mother-child interactions among maltreating and nonmaltreating families (Valentino et al., 2006). HARTUP (1974) OBTAINED NARRATIVE RECORDS AS PART OF HIS NATURALISTIC STUDY OF CHILDREN’S AGGRESSION. Marian [a 7-year old]... is complaining to all that David [who is also present] had squirted her on the pants she has to wear tonight. She says, “I’m gonna do it to him to see how he likes it.” She fi ls a can with water and David runs to the teacher and tells of her threat. The teacher takes the can from Marian. Marian attacks David and pulls his hair very hard. He cries and swings at Marian as the teacher tries to restrain him; then she takes him upstairs.... Later, Marian and Elaine go upstairs and into the room where David is seated with a teacher. He throws a book at Marian. The teacher asks Marian to leave. Marian kicks David, then leaves. David cries and screams, “Get out of here, they’re just gonna tease me.” COMPREHENSIVE RECORDS OF BEHAVIOR As a general rule, records should be made during or as soon as possible after behavior is observed. SELECTED RECORDS OF BEHAVIOR When researchers seek to describe specific behaviors or events, they often obtain quantitative measures of behavior, such as the frequency or duration of its occurrence. Quantitative measures of behavior use one of four levels of measurement scales: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio.  SELECTED RECORDS OF BEHAVIOR Rating scales, often used to measure psychological dimensions, are frequently treated as if they are interval scales even though they usually represent ordinal measurement. Electronic recording devices may be used in natural settings to record behavior, and pagers sometimes are used to signal participants to report their behavior (e.g., on a questionnaire). STUDY OF INATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS Hyman and his colleagues (2009) selected the behavior of whether people noticed the clown and quantifi ed the number of people who noticed or did not notice the clown. Suppose you wish to observe people’s reactions to individuals with obvious physical disabilities using naturalistic observation. First you would need to define who is a “physically disabled person” and what constitutes a “reaction” to such a person. Are you interested in helping behaviors, approach/ avoidance behaviors, eye contact, length of conversation, or in another physical reaction? Next you would need to decide how to measure these behaviors. Assume you choose to measure people’s reactions by observing eye contact between individuals with and without physical disabilities. Exactly how should you measure eye contact? Should you simply measure whether an individual does or does not make eye contact, or do you want to measure the duration of any eye contact?  MEASUREMENT SCALES There are four levels of measurement, or measurement scales, that apply to both physical and psychological measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio.  MEASUREMENT SCALES NOMINAL SCALE- lowest level of measurement involves categorizing an event into one of a number of discrete categories The only arithmetic operations that we can perform on nominal data involve the relationships “equal” and “not equal.”  MEASUREMENT SCALES NOMINAL SCALE EXAMPLE For instance, we could measure the color of people’s eyes by classifying them as “brown-eyed” or “blue-eyed.”  MEASUREMENT SCALES ORDINAL SCALE- second level of measurement involves ordering or ranking events to be measured. Ordinal scales add the arithmetic relationships “greater than” and “less than” to the measurement process  MEASUREMENT SCALES ORDINAL SCALE EXAMPLE The outcome of a race is a familiar ordinal scale. When we know that an Olympic distance runner won a silver medal, we know the runner placed second but we do not know whether she fi nished second in a photo finish or trailed 200 meters behind the gold medal winner.  MEASUREMENT SCALES INTERVAL SCALE- Third level of measurement involves specifying how far apart two events are on a given dimension. Ordinal scales add the arithmetic relationships “greater than” and “less than” to the measurement process  MEASUREMENT INTERVAL SCALE EXAMPLE SCALES The difference between 50 and 70 correct answers on an aptitude test is equal to the difference between 70 and 90 correct answers. What is missing from an interval scale is a meaningful zero point. For instance, if someone’s score is zero on a verbal aptitude test, he or she would not necessarily have absolutely zero verbal ability (after all, the person presumably had enough verbal ability to take the test). Importantly, the standard arithmetic operations of addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division can be performed on data measured on an interval scale. Whenever possible, therefore, psychologists try to measure psychological dimensions using at least interval scales.  MEASUREMENT SCALES RATIO SCALE- Fourth level of measurement has all the properties of an interval scale, but a ratio scale also has an absolute zero point. arithmetic operations, a zero point makes the ratio of scale values meaningful.  MEASUREMENT SCALES RATIO SCALE EXAMPLE Physical scales measuring time, weight, and distance can usually be treated as ratio scales. For example, someone who is 200 pounds weighs twice as much as someone who weighs 100 pounds.  ELECTRONIC RECORDING AND TRACKING Behavior also can be measured using electronic recording and tracking devices. For example, as part of a study investigating the relationship between cognitive coping strategies and blood pressure among college students, participants wore an ambulatory blood pressure monitor on two “typical” school days, including a day with an exam (Dolan Sherwood, & Light, 1992).  ANALYSIS OF OBSERVATIONAL DATA Researchers choose qualitative data analysis or quantitative data analysis to summarize observational data.  QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS Data reduction is an important step in the analysis of narrative records. Researchers code behaviors according to specifi c criteria, for example, by categorizing behaviors. Content analysis is used to examine archival records and includes three steps: identifying a relevant source, sampling sections from the source, and coding units of analysis.  ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVE RECORDS An important step in analyzing the content of narrative records is data reduction, the process of abstracting and summarizing behavioral data. Data reduction often involves the process of coding, which is the identifi cation of units of behavior or particular events according to specific criteria that are related to the goals of the study.  CONTENT ANALYSIS OF ARCHIVAL RECORDS Content analysis can be generally defined as any objective coding technique that allows researchers to make inferences based on specific characteristics in archival records (Holsti, 1969). The three basic steps of content analysis for archival records include identifying a relevant source, sampling selections from the source, and coding units of analysis. CONTENT ANALYSIS OF ARCHIVAL RECORDS 1. A relevant archival source is one that allows researchers to answer the research questions of the study. Although researchers can be quite ingenious when identifying their source, often the identification of the archival source is relatively straightforward.  CONTENT ANALYSIS OF ARCHIVAL RECORDS 2. Sampling appropriately from the archival source. Many databases and archival sources are so extensive that it would be impossible for an investigator to analyze all of the information in the source; therefore, the investigator must select some of the data with the goal of obtaining a representative sample. CONTENT ANALYSIS OF ARCHIVAL RECORDS 3.Coding. This step requires that relevant descriptive categories and appropriate units of measure be define (see Holsti, 1969). As with the choice of the archival source itself, the descriptive categories depend on the goals of the study. In order for coders to make reliable judgments about the archival data, they must be carefully trained and precise operational definitions must be used. QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS Data are summarized using descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, means, and standard deviations. Interobserver reliability refers to the extent to which independent observers agree in their observations. Interobserver reliability is increased by providing clear definitions about behaviors and events to be recorded, by training observers, and by providing feedback about the accuracy of observations. QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS Descriptive Statistics. The type of descriptive statistics used to summarize observational data depends on the scale of measurement used to record the data. As we saw, a nominal scale of measurement is used when behaviors and events are classified into mutually exclusive categories QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS Observer Reliability In addition to descriptive statistics, researchers examine the extent to which the observations in their study are reliable. You may recall that reliability refers to consistency, and an analysis of reliability in an observational study asks if independent observers viewing the same events would obtain the same results. The degree to which two (or more) independent observers agree is referred to as interobserver reliability. A correlation exists when two different measures of the same people, events, or things vary together—that is, when scores on one variable covary with scores on another variable. The correlation coefficient indicates the direction and strength of the relationship. Direction can be either positive or negative. A positive correlation indicates that as the values for one measure increase, the values of the other measure also increase. For example, measures of smoking and lung cancer are positively correlated. A negative correlation indicates that as the values of one measure increase, the values of the second measure decrease. For instance, time spent watching television and scores on academic tests are negatively correlated. Thinking Critically about observational research  influence of the observer The problem of reactivity occurs when the observer influences the behavior being observed. Research participants may respond to demand characteristics in the research situation to guide their behavior. Methods to control reactivity include concealing the observer’s presence, adaptation (habituation, desensitization), and indirect observation (physical traces, archival records). Researchers must consider ethical issues when attempting to control reactivity.  influence of the observer Research participants can respond in very subtle ways when they are aware that their behavior is being observed. For instance, participants are sometimes apprehensive and anxious about participating in psychological research, and measures of arousal (e.g., heart rate) may change simply because an observer is present.  demand characteristics Individuals often react to the presence of an observer by trying to behave in ways they think the researcher wants them to behave. Knowing they are part of a scientific investigation, individuals usually want to cooperate and be “good” participants. Research participants often try to guess what behaviors are expected, and they may use cues and other information to guide their behavior (Orne, 1962).  Approaches to Control reactivity Disguised participant observation achieves this goal because individuals are not aware of the presence of the observer. Observers can also conceal themselves while making observations in natural settings (naturalistic observation), as seen in the stop-sign study, or they can use hidden cameras or tape recorders to make their observations Adapt participants to the presence of an observer. We can assume that as participants get used to an observer’s presence, they will eventually behave normally in the observer’s presence. Habituation - Psychological process where an individual’s response to a stimulus decreases after repeated exposure to that stimulus. Desensitization - Psychological process where repeated exposure to a stimulus reduces an individual’s emotional response to it. This technique is often used in therapy to help people manage fears, anxieties, or phobias. Ethical Issues Informed Consent Privacy and Confidentiality  Observer bias Observer bias occurs when researchers’ biases determine which behaviors they choose to observe, and when observers’ expectations about behavior lead to systematic errors in identifying and recording behavior. Controlling Observer Bias Reduce observer bias is to limit the information provided to observers Observers can be kept “blind” regarding certain aspects of the study Thank you