Participant observation

The scientific method is a systematic method of observation that involves asking a question, doing research on said question; developing a hypothesis and testing it by experimentation and drawing and reporting conclusions made by the experiment. Overall, Dr. E did not follow the scientific method. He didn’t do any research into his question; other than his own exercise habits and his discussions with his maternal grandmother he didn’t know a lot about health research and hadn’t worked with older…

To try to keep my observations at a very discrete level, I wrote all of my notes using Google Docs on my phone. I tried handwriting notes when I first visited my research site but it produced suspicious looks from people at the bus stop. No one disturbed me or gave me suspicious looks when I typed on my phone; no one thought I had an ulterior motive for riding the bus. Choosing the Red Line for my first hour of observations was intentional; I wanted to get the mixture…

Psychologists prefer to use direct observation of behavior instead of psychological tests. Advantages: Observation can help round out research by offering a real-world aspect to a hypothesis. It offers a better description of behavior and is less hypothetical than other methods. Observation allows you to see how participants act together and separately. Do actions or decisions change in a group setting? Do people act differently when by themselves? Observation allows you to create and observe…

Journal: Group Observation (a) Describe an event that occurred during the group meeting. The meeting started with the traditional “check-in” process. The group facilitator asked each member to describe how they were feeling and what issues they would like to talk about. The group leader also asked group members to summarize the previous session and share their reflections about the topics we discussed the week before. As at the previous meeting, the group focused mainly on spontaneous sharing…

A naturalistic observation is a type of qualitative research methodology in which a researcher carries out a study by carefully observing the subjects in their natural environment (Cozby & Bates, 2012; Creswell, 2013). Naturalistic observational research is deeply deep-rooted in the discipline of anthropology particularly in studies examining human and animal behavior. It is also widely used in other social science disciplines like sociology and ethnic studies (Cozby & Bates, 2012). Bowler et al…

Effects of Gender on Hugging Someone We noticed that other than saying hello to friends, or people and their partners, there is little touch viewed in public settings. Due to social constraints, we hypothesized people might have a challenging time leaving their comfort zones to hug a stranger. Society has social constraints, or social “rules” when it comes to hugging, such as relationship with the person and years known. If people were able to move past their social constraints of hugging a…

females) that occur during the cleanup period of a meal. The observation took place on March 27th, 2016 in my home located in Montville, NJ. After Easter lunch I observed, for thirty minutes, the “cleanup period”—the period where the table is cleaned, food is put away, and dishes, utensils, and glasses are washed. I observed twenty individuals. Eleven participants were male and nine participants were female. The age range of participants was from ten to eighty-one. Furthermore, I positioned…

Based on observations the mid-day encounter at the mall the deduction method would allow the researcher to hypothesize that stranger would easily speak to one another and make eye contact when near each other. The evening crowd seemed to be more focused on the social…

For the observations conducted, I am basing them off Parten’s study of children’s play. In this study, children were viewed for one minute each day and “each time they were observed, their degree of social participation was characterized” (Bateman and Goodman) using Parten’s six levels of social participation. The participants of these observations interacted differently based on what kind of play they engaged in and their age showcased the difference in play in which the participants became…

The impact on of being observed The impact of the observation on the Amy might have contributed to what is known as the Hawthorn effect (cited in Maclean and Baker 2013) and Amy may have changed her behaviour knowing she was been observed. My reflections ‘in action’ were feelings of confusion, the process of allowing two professional strangers inside your property making judgements while Amy waited outside for me. Reflecting with criticality did she modify her behaviour so I could observe her…