Observations

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  • Observation
    • Where you simply observe and watch what people do in certain situations
    • Naturalistic
      • Conducted in every day environment where behaviour studied is normally seen
      • Suitable for studying everyday behaviour
      • PP expected to behave as if researcher not there, who will be recording results
    • Structured
      • In a controlled environment or lab
      • Researcher stages a situation to encourage behaviour they are trying to investigate
      • Used for when observer waits for a behaviour to occur naturally isn`t practical
    • Overt
      • Conducted with PP knowledge that they are being observed for investigation
    • Covert
      • Conducted without PP knowledge that they are being observed
      • When observer is involved in the group being observed it is a participant observation
      • When participant just watches and records without active involvement, it is non participant observation
    • Strengths and Weaknesses
      • Observations can be unreliable if certain measures not in place like each coded behaviour is operationalise-d
        • Can be checked with inter-rate reliabilty
      • Observations can lack validity due to observer bias or if the coded behaviour is not a correct measure
      • Ethical issues with covert (no informed consent)

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