FRHD 3070 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Statistical Conclusion Validity, Construct Validity, Internal Validity
11 May 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
Sarah Lindblad Wednesday, November 28th, 2018
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FRHD*3070 Lecture #22 – Observational Research
Systematic Observation
• Involves relatively objective measures of behaviors, often with a systematic procedure
for sampling time intervals or other units for observation
• Continuum:
o Unstructured
▪ Open-ended methods
▪ Don’t have a specific categorized list when observing
o Structured
▪ Pre-defined methods
▪ Technology when observer absent (TV meters; pedometers; electronic
scanners)
Naturalistic Observation
• Observing behaviour in a natural field (natural world)
• Ethologists (Jane Goodall; Dian Fossey)
• Observe behaviour as it occurs naturally (no intrusion or intervention)
• Appropriate when behaviour might be altered if they know they are being observed
• High external validity (able to generalize b/c it happens in the real world)
• Limitations – may have to wait a long time for natural behaviour; can’t make strong
casual inferences (internal validity – cause and effect)
• Example:
o Purpose: Examine spectator (parental) behaviour at youth hockey games in
Ottawa
o Methods: Recorded all spectator’s comments in 1 area of arena (5 observers; 69
games)
o Measures:
▪ Type of comments
▪ Target of comments
▪ Intensity of comments
Sarah Lindblad Wednesday, November 28th, 2018
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▪ Who made comments
▪ Whether comments varied by player’s age, gender, and competitive level
o Coding System: How would you categorize the “type of comments” for this
study?
Category
Examples
Positive; directed at team
Nice try; good work
Positive; directed at a specific player
Nice play JB
Corrective/instructional; directed at specific
player
Go after it; you’ve got to cover him
Negative; usually directed towards ref ****
Neutral ***
Participant Observation
• Researcher engages in same activities as the people he/she is observing
• Observe setting from the inside (field notes)
• Need to gain entrance to the group
• Pros:
o High external validity
o Experience same environment as participants
o Collect info on factors not available (perception, motivations)
• Cons:
o Challenge of maintaining objectivity
o Your behaviour can influence participants behaviour
o A lot of time
o Can’t make strong casual inferences (internal validity)
• Example:
o Purpose: Examine online pro-anorexia support groups
o Methods: Created a bogus personal profile and pretended to be a group member
for 2 months
Document Summary
Ottawa: methods: recorded all spectator"s comments in 1 area of arena (5 observers; 69 games, measures, type of comments, target of comments. Go after it; you"ve got to cover him player. Issues regarding ethics: no informed consent (since study was done covertly, deception used (loses trust b/w researcher and participants) Tv show: set up situations outside lab, disguised observation minimizes reactivity effect (able to maintain some objectivity, not systematic research but is still contrived/set up, example, purpose: effect of women"s suggestive clothing on men"s behaviour, methods: Content analysis of mass communication records appropriate topics: trends in topics that newspapers cover, covers of magazines, themes in advertising messages, themes in songs, sex-role stereotypes in movies. Coding in content analysis: manifest coding, clear or obvious to the eye (visible, might be looking at the number of times specific words or phrases appear. It is present but not visible (hidden: underlying meaning of the word (themes associated w/ the subjective word)
