OBSERVATIONS

 Our next core study will be an observation.  Throughout this lesson, I will be deliberately showing signs of “madness”. … You need to make a note of anything I do which you think is a sign of mental illness.

NON-EXPERIMENTAL METHODS  Observations, like correlations are a non- experimental method … No manipulation of variables … Not technically an experiment  Observations can be used in two ways … As a research technique … As a research method

OBSERVATIONS AS A RESEARCH TECHNIQUE  Observations used as part of another research method … How did Milgram use observations? … What other studies have used observations? … What about in PY1?

OBSERVATIONAL RESEARCH  The entire study is an observation … Observing children in a playground  Sub-types of observation … Naturalistic or controlled … Structured or unstructured … Participant or non-participant … Overt or covert

EVALUATION OF OBSERVATIONS  Read through the strengths and weaknesses, and fill in the blanks  Read and highlight the ways in which reliability and validity can be dealt with  What ethical issues are raised by observations?

PAIR WORK  Person 1 answers the questions on the sheet, while person 2 records person 1’s facial expressions on the next page. When person 1 has finished, swap roles.  What difficulties did you encounter when making your observations?  How did you feel when you were being observed? Did you behave any differently?

What type of observation?  A researcher was interested to investigate whether students continued to work when the teacher left the classroom. The researcher, who was sat in the classroom, conducted a structured observation of students’ behaviour when the teacher leaves the room. She makes a note of any behaviour on a coding-scheme.

HOMEWORK  Complete question 1 (all parts) … Use the example question below (as well as the sample questions I gave you a few weeks ago) as guidance … Remember, all parts of your answer must be contextualised!