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Observations (Participant & Non Participant) - Coggle Diagram
Observations (Participant & Non Participant)
Participant: Positives
Through observing in a school setting you can select the data that is relevant to you. It would be easier to note down specific chagnges to behaviour/attainment/engagement (whatever your research topic is) that are specific to your particular research question.
Avoidance of incorrect/inaccurate self-reported data from participants. Able to gather reliable data by observing what participants do as opposed to what they say they do.
Being able to observe the
Natural
behaviours and attitudes of a group
It opens researchers’ minds to possibilities they might not have considered before. It can generate new ideas and research questions.
It is a staple research method in anthropological studies, especially in ethnographic studies: Schools are like little mini communities & looking at them with this in mind when carrying out research will be a positive.
It would be a good way to start your research, if done at the beginning then you would have time to analyse & locate relevant & useful data.
Negatives
Hawthorne/ interview effect may occur - if the participants are aware that they are being observed then it may affect the way that they behave - not being able to tell if they are putting on an 'act'
More Natural Behaviours occur if they are unaware, however this poses implications to ethics - invasion of privacy
You may start to note down extra information & be lead off task because something interesting happened during your observation that you want to explore in more detail. Ensure that you have a clear agenda & you stick to it.
Lack of control - little control over other variables that may affect the data.
Requires the researcher to spend a significant amount of time in the field of research and adopt different roles to gain a comprehensive understanding of the people being studied.
If wanting to observe children in a classroom setting - may experience implications to informed consent. Parents may not want their child to be observed.
Negatives (Non Participant)
Time consuming, inefficient way to gather data.
In our school based context it may be difficult to report without bias, we will have built relationships with the pupils and therefore this would be difficult to separate.
Lack of anonymity may put participants off - would be annonymus in the report but not during the observation.
Definitions of observation
Gorman and Clayton (2005) define observation as involving "the systematic recording of observable phenomena or behaviour in a natural setting”
Consistent throughout definitions is the need to study and understand the people within their natural habitats.
Foster (1996) - Observation is a matter of collecting information about the nature of the physical and social world as it unfolds before us directly via the senses, rather than indirectly via the account of others.
Participant observation leads to an "ethnographic description" (Spradley, 1980)