What is the difference between naturalistic observation and participant observation

Naturalistic observation can be useful in many cases, but the method also has some potential downsides. A disadvantage of naturalistic observation is that it can be difficult to determine the exact cause of a subject's behavior.

The experimenter also cannot control for outside variables. Other disadvantages of naturalistic observation include:. Researchers use different techniques to collect and record data from naturalistic observation. For example, they might write down how many times a certain behavior occurred in a specific period of time or take a video-recording of subjects. It is rarely practical—or even possible—to observe every moment of a subject's life. Therefore, researchers often use sampling to gather information through naturalistic observation.

The goal is to make sure that the sample of data is representative of the subject's overall behavior. A representative sample can be obtained through:. Imagine that you want to study risk-taking behavior in teenagers. You might choose to observe behavior in different settings, such as on a sledding hill, a rock-climbing wall, an ice-skating rink, and a bumper car ride. After you operationally define "risk-taking behavior," you would observe your teen subjects in these settings and record every incidence of what you have defined as risky behavior.

Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Pierce, Thomas. Naturalistic Observation. Department of Psychology. Radford University. We can collect data at the time they occur. The observer does not have to ask people about their behavior and reports from others.

He or she can simply watch as individuals act and speak. These forms are typically used for collecting data that can be easily described in advance e. You design an investigation to examine therapist-patient interaction in a hospital setting.

Why choose direct observation to collect data? Direct observation is the collection of information using your senses. An example of a direct observation is listening to a cricket chirp at night, and counting the number of chirps per minute.

Direct Observation is where the evaulator watches the subject in their usual habitat without disrupting or altering it. Direct observation is used when other data collection procedures, such as surveys, questionnaires, etc. Schensul and LeCompte tell us that participant observation gives us an intuitive and intellectual grasp of the ways that society is organized and prioritized, and how people relate to each other.

For evaluators, this includes what is culturally appropriate, what projects might work, how a project is working during its implementation, and what the impact of the project is. When we engage in participant observation, our hope is to be accepted as an insider, or to get to the backstage where you are a true participant.

Bernard tells us that participant observation involves getting close enough to people so that they feel comfortable telling us about their lives, thus countering the observer effect we get in observation and participant observation, and allowing us to gain an emic understanding.

Evaluators use participant observation in the planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of projects. We also use participant observation to help craft our later research including interview questions.

In the implementation phase , we use participant observation to improve an ongoing activity, such as a training workshop, as we monitor it. We might ask if participants are engaged, and if not, why not, and what can we do about it. Very important, we use participant observation to add validity to our monitoring efforts. Participant observation helps us to see and understand what people are doing, which we can compare to what people are saying.

It helps us to see if people are doing something different from what they say that they do. Similarly, we use participant observation to add depth to our evaluations , as it allows us to witness and understand behavioral or attitudinal change.

We see and understand how participants are using their new skills, for example. As above, it also adds validity to our evaluation efforts if we can compare what people say with what they do. We need to consider ahead of time what we will observe when we use these methods.

My advice as you use observation and participant observation is to observe everything that is relevant to a project. A well-known participant observer, Spradley , notes that we should consider what people do cultural behavior , what people know cultural knowledge , and what people make and use cultural artifacts.

As per Spradley, we should view:. While this type of research may seem quite simple, to do it properly requires the creation of detailed coding schemes and long hours poring over transcripts and other existing materials. Advantages of Archival Research An advantage of archival research is that researchers do not need to collect the data themselves, which saves a lot of time and money. The nature of archival data also enables the researcher to obtain a relatively large, representative sample.

Large samples enable investigators to use complex, sophisticated statistical approaches to test different models or theories against one another. Some databases also enable researchers to access data that would be very difficult and costly to collect on their own and might be beyond the scope of what an individual researcher could collect in a reasonable amount of time.

Disadvantages of Archival Research A disadvantage of archival research is that your research questions are limited to the specific data that have been collected. Meta-Analysis Meta-analysis involves summarizing and synthesizing past a body of research to compare results across a number of studies. You could read the entire body of research and write a review paper that captures the overall conclusions from the individual reports.

You could also count the studies that show one outcome, the studies that show the opposite outcome, and the studies that are inconclusive. Finally, you could opt for a third and more effective method by conducting a meta-analysis that compares the effect sizes across different studies. Effect size refers to the strength of the relationship between or magnitude of the difference of two variables.

When conducting a meta-analysis, researchers need to figure out how to classify and combine data from different scales that assess either similar or somewhat different variables, how to code data into meaningful categories that can be used in the analysis, and what to do with low-quality or missing data.

Advantages of Meta-Analysis You do not need to collect data to conduct a meta-analysis. Meta-analysis also provides an objective way to compare findings across many studies. Researchers can sift through a large number of studies to determine an overall effect that, without the use of meta-analysis, might have remained unknown due to the variety of results reported in multiple studies.

Disadvantages of Meta-Analysis The quality of a meta-analysis depends on finding high-quality research reports, which may simply be lacking in some areas of interest. In addition, only studies that find statistically significant effects tend to be published, leading to biased reports.

Another disadvantage of meta-analysis is that it is time consuming to search for studies, code each study, and conduct the analysis. About the Authors. Instructor Resources. Student Resources. Chapter Outlines. Chapter 1.