Observational techniques. Types of observation: naturalistic and…

The idea

Observation records what people do rather than what they say they do. It is a technique, not a design. Naturalistic observation means behaviour is watched where it normally happens, so realism is high and extraneous variables are uncontrolled. Controlled observation means the setting is structured, like Ainsworth's Strange Situation, buying control at the cost of realism. Covert watching removes demand characteristics but cannot take informed consent; overt keeps the ethics but invites reactivity. Participant observation gives insight while risking the researcher going native; non-participant maintains objectivity. Whichever is used, categories must be operationalised and two coders should agree at around 0.80 or better.

What earns the marks

• Observation defined as recording behaviour directly, and distinguished from a design: it can be used within an experiment or on its own.
• Naturalistic observation: behaviour observed in its usual setting with nothing manipulated, high external validity, low control, hard to replicate.
• Controlled observation: some variables regulated and the setting structured, as in Ainsworth's Strange Situation, so replication is easier and realism lower.
• Covert observation: participants unaware, so behaviour is natural and demand characteristics are removed, but informed consent and privacy are compromised.
• Overt observation: participants know, which is ethically defensible but produces reactivity and social desirability in what is displayed.
• Participant observation: the researcher joins the group, gaining insight, risking loss of objectivity and going native; non-participant keeps distance and objectivity but loses depth.
• Behavioural categories must be operationalised, observable, mutually exclusive and cover all likely behaviour, then be sampled by event or by time.
• Inter-observer reliability: two observers code the same behaviour independently and their totals are correlated, with about 0.80 taken as acceptable agreement.

Common mistakes and how to put them right

• Treating naturalistic and covert as the same thing.

  Put it right: They are independent choices, and a controlled observation can be covert behind a one-way mirror.

• Writing behavioural categories that are inferences, such as "being aggressive" or "showing anxiety", instead of countable acts such as "hits the doll with the mallet".

• Saying covert observation is simply unethical, without the qualification that observing public behaviour where privacy is not expected is normally acceptable.

• Swapping event and time sampling, or describing time sampling without stating the interval that makes it time sampling.

Exam tips

• When asked to design an observation, give at least three operationalised categories drawn from the stem and name the sampling method with its interval.
• Explain inter-observer reliability as a procedure: two observers, same behaviour, independent recording, correlate the tallies.
• Compare on the dimension the question names; a question about covert versus overt gets nothing for a paragraph about naturalistic settings.
• If the stem gives a tally chart, say what type of data it produces before choosing a graph or a test.