Observational Research

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Observational Research

• PSYC301 Week 2

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Todays Schedule

• Quick review of last weeks material
• Discuss Dont the Girls Get Prettier?
• Talk about observational research
• Fun class activity
• Assign some homework

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Nuts and Bolts of Research Design

• About answering questions
• Observation
• Personal hunch
• Past research

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More nuts and bolts

• Variables
• Something that changes or VARIES
• Two types
• Independent Variable (IV)
• One that you change
• Dependent Variable (DV)
• One that is changed by the IV.

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Hypothesis

• Prediction about how the IV will change the DV.
• Or about how two things work together
  (correlation)

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Scientific Writing

• APA Style
• Very precise rules and guidelines for writing
  psychological research.
• Several Types of Articles
• Review articles Summary and Critique
• Case Study Author describes a specific
  individual or case.
• Empirical Studies Original SCIENTIFIC research.

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Our Whole Class in 6 Slides!

• Any questions?
• On to the next topic

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OBSERVATIONAL RESEARCH
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Observational Research

• Primary role description
• What are we describing? Behavior!
• How do we do this? Observation!
• Systematic, objective
• Careful record keeping.
• Full and complete picture.
• Not just Psychology

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Observational Research

• Primary goal Generalize an observation
• Small group of people (sample) must be able to
  represent the whole (population)
• Validity- how well your study supports the
  results
• Does your study accurately support how you tell
  your story?

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Two Types of Observational Research

• Naturalistic Observation
• Intervention

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Two Types of Observational Research

• Naturalistic Observation
• In the natural setting, not the lab!
• The researcher is the passive observer
• Many examples
• People watching, etc

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Two Types of Observational Research

• Intervention
• Two types
• Overt The subject knows youre watching them
• Covert The subject doesnt know youre watching
  them.
• Researchers intervene and attempt to control the
  environment in some way.
• Examples structured observation, field study.

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Examples

• Aschs Conformity Study
• Piaget
• Doesnt always go right Hawthorne Effect

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How do we do observation studies?

• Operational definition
• WHAT youre going to study and HOW youre going
  to measure it.
• How to measure
• Qualitative
• Evaluation of the QUALITIES
• Audio tapes, recording behavior, etc.
• Quantitative
• Measurements, numbers
• Frequency of a certain behavior, etc.

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Dont we all observe different things?

• Inter-rater reliability
• Also called Inter-observer reliability
• The degree to which two (or more) observers would
  agree on a rating.
• Calculation
• Called Kappa, but dont worry much about the
  formula.

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How do we insure inter-rater reliability?

• Clear definitions of behaviors and events
• Training
• Extensive Feedback

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Descriptive Statistics!

• DESCRIBE the data
• Measures of central tendency
• Mean, Median, Mode
• Frequencies
• Tables, charts, graphs

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Measures of Central Tendency

• Mean Average
• 1,3,5,7,9,11 ? (1357911)/6 6
• Median The 50th Percentile (aka the middle )
• 1, 8, 25, 44, 68 ? 25
• Mode The number that occurs the most
• 1, 26, 37, 8, 13, 14, 8, 22, 4 ? 8

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A BRIEF EXAMPLE

• Putting it all together

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An example

• A group of researchers decide to measure helping
  behavior on college campuses.
• They have either a male or a female confederate
  walk out of the Johnson Center in front of one or
  more students.

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• The confederate then accidentally drops a
  brightly colored computer disk onto the brick
  walk.
• Three observers record how many times another
  student exhibits helping behavior toward the
  confederate.

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• Operational definition of helping behavior
• Point out to the confederate that he or she has
  dropped the disk (Informatively Helpful)
• Pick up the disk and return it to the confederate
  (Actively Helpful)

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• What else should they measure?
• Gender of the participant
• Time of day
• Location

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(No Transcript)
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Table 1 Observed helping behaviors as a function
of Gender
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Telling a different story
Table 1 Observed helping behaviors as a function
of location
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Creating a Table APA Style

• Refer to Dunn, 2004 pg 152 Table 8.1 for
  formatting
• Items to remember
• Title for your table (brief but understandable)
• Label your columns and rows meaningfully
• Those silly lines within the table that APA uses
• Double check your table values for accuracy

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Now Its Your Turn!

• In-class assignment get into groups of 3-4 and
  complete proposed study design worksheet (Note I
  must approve your study!)