Observational Methods 1: Sampling and Coding Protocols

Lecture

Why use observational methods?

• Questionnaires of limited applicability.
  only one animal species with language, out of millions of animal species. 
• Apparatus limits generalisability.
  eg. if behavioural measuring equipment is noticeable, then results only apply to organisms that are habituated to that apparatus. 
• Context-dependent behaviour where context might be difficult or infeasible to replicate in controlled environments. eg. behaviour of riotous mobs.

Steps in Observational Research: Our Path

• Observe informally: get to know your subject pool firsthand
• Ask questions
• Choose measures
• Choose recording method: when and how do you sample behaviour?
• Design experiment
• Run experiment
• Analyse
• Interpret
• Ask more questions

Choosing measures

1. Define the measures with either:

• Operational definitions: specify the physical requirements for coding a behaviour (e.g. lever press by a rat)
• Ostensive definitions: provide examples through pictures or diagrams, along with written descriptions of the behaviour interest (e.g. coordinated play vs solitary play)

2. Classify your measures as either:

• Events (occurences, usually, but not necessarily of short duration - approximated in points in time)
• States (relatively long-duration events - such as sleep or play)

Ethograms

In past, ethogram was a list of the full behavioural repertoire of a species. 

In recent years, ethogram used to refer to both complete behavioural repertoires and the coding schemes used in specialised studies of a subset of a species' or group's behaviour (i.e. term synonymous with coding scheme). 

Sometimes used to denote a quantitative…