RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

STRUCTURED OBSERVATION 403
or event categories described above, i.e. it is
continuous behaviour rather than a single event.
For example, a child may remove her shoes only
once, but she may continue to be without her
shoes for a twenty-minute period; a child may
delay starting to do any writing for ten minutes,
again a single behaviour but which continues for
longer than each of the intervals in interval or
instantaneous recording; a child may have a single
tantrum which continues for twenty minutes, and
so on. What we need is an indication of the
duration of a particular behaviour. The observation
is driven by the event, not the frequency of the
observation. This means that the observer needs
to structure the recording schedule to indicate the
total duration of a single continuous behaviour.
For all the kinds of schedules discussed above,
a decision will have to have been agreed in
advance on how to enter data. Consistency of
entering by a single and multiple observers will
need to be found on what counts as evidence,
when, where and how to observe, and how many
people on whom to focus. For example, how
will the observation schedule distinguish between
one person being observed demonstrating the
same behaviour twelve times (1 person × 12) and
many people demonstrating the same behaviour
fewer times (e.g. 2 people × 6times each, or
4 people × 3times each), i.e. is the focus to be
on people or on behaviour
While structured observation can provide
useful numerical data (e.g. Galton and Simon
1980; Bennett et al. 1984), there are several
concerns which must be addressed in this form
of observation, for example:
The method is behaviourist, excluding any
mention of the intentions or motivations of
the people being observed.
The individual’s subjectivity is lost to an
aggregated score.
There is an assumption that the observed
behaviour provides evidence of underlying
feelings, i.e. that concepts or constructs can
be crudely measured in observed occurrences.
This last point is important, for it goes to the very
heart of the notion of validity, since it requires
researchers to satisfy themselves that it is valid
to infer that a particular behaviour indicates a
particular state of mind or particular intention or
motivation. The desire to operationalize concepts
and constructs can easily lead researchers to
provide simple indicators of complex concepts.
Further, structured observation neglects the
significance of contexts – temporal and spatial –
thereby overlooking the fact that behaviours may
be context specific. In their concern for the overt
and the observable, researchers may overlook unintended
outcomes which may have significance;
they may be unable to show how significant are
the behaviours of the participants being observed
in their own terms. If we accept that behaviour is
developmental, that interactions evolve over time
and, therefore, are, by definition, fluid, then the
three methods of structured observation outlined
above appear to take a series of ‘freeze-frame’ snapshots
of behaviour, thereby violating the principle
of fluidity of action. Captured for an instant in
time, it is difficult to infer a particular meaning to
one or more events (Stubbs and Delamont 1976),
just as it is impossible to say with any certainty
what is taking place when we study a single photograph
or a set of photographs of a particular
event. Put simply, if structured observation is to
hold water, then the researcher may need to gather
additional data from other sources to inform the
interpretation of observational data.
This latter point is a matter not only for structured
observation but, equally, for unstructured
observation, for what is being suggested here is the
notion that triangulation (of methods, of observers,
of time and space) can assist the researcher to
generate reliable evidence. There is a risk that
observations will be selective, and the effects of
this can be attenuated by triangulation. One way
of gathering more reliable data (for example about
aparticularstudentorgroupofstudents)isby
tracking them through the course of a day or a
week, following them from place to place, event
to event. It is part of teaching folklore that students
will behave very differently for one teacher
than for another, and a full picture of students’
behaviour might require the observer to see the
students in different contexts.
Chapter 18