Observation of Children’s Behavior In addition to naturalistic observation, another kind of observation is structured observation. In this case, different children are exposed to the same situation and researchers record how each child behaves in that situation. In this clip, from the laboratory of Grazyna Kochanska, you’ll see portions of a study of infants’ readiness to comply with parental instructions. Each child, and one of his or her parents, is brought into a playroom strewn with toys.

Observation of Children’s Behavior Each parent was then asked to instruct the child to pick up toys and place them in a large plastic basket. Trained observers then rated the degree of compliance each child showed. Retesting the children at later dates allowed the researchers to determine the stability of the children’s tendency to comply and age-related changes in their ability to comply. Both children shown in the video are 15-months old. Import video number 012_01observchildbehav.mpg here. Instructions for importing these files can be found in the ‘Readme’ on this CD-ROM