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Observational Studies In Psychology

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Describe the use of observational studies in psychological research discussing the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. To fully be able to do this we must first outline the different types of observational study and their key differences, i.e. the naturalistic, systematic and structured methodologies. For each of these methodologies this essay will not only provide a definition but also present real life studies extracted from peer reviewed sources and for each of these it will outline a brief description of their aims, methods and findings and will be concluded with the relative advantages and disadvantages of each study based on their method. Finally this essay will conclude by expressing the important role each method plays …show more content…
“Gender Differences in preschool aggression during free play and structured interactions”. The aim of this study was to, after looking at the results of survey based studies into the prevalence and types of childhood aggression, to verify the findings via direct observation of the children in their “natural” setting as to remove the potential for any gender bias, i.e. that boys are more physically aggressive than girls and that girls show more relational aggression than boys. Their method included using archival evidence to attain a foundation on which to conduct their research followed by the direct observation of forty eight pre-school children with a mean age 64 months in the playground and classroom. The study was conduct mid-way through the year to ensure all the children were well acquainted. The researchers who were left to observe the children were not informed of the hypothesis in order to increase the internal validity of the experiment and were given specific coding to also enhance the experiments internal validity. The results were expressed in two ways, one as the frequency of which each type of aggression (physical, verbal & relational) was displayed by a child …show more content…
This is often the setting of systematic and structured observational study. A systematic observational study is where researchers will measure one or more highly precise variables in a highly specified setting. While on the other hand a structural observational study is one which specific behaviours which can be quantified are observed in a particular setting, this method involves less manipulation compared with a systematic study, however, it is subject to more manipulation than naturalistic studies. An example of the use of a structural observational study comes in the form of “The development of attachments in separated amd divorced families” conducted by Solomon & George (1999). This study took 145 mothers and their children, 44 of the children saw their fathers a minimum of once a month and had overnight stays (overnight group), 49 saw their fathers a minimum of once a month but did not stay with them overnight (No Overnight Group) and 52 were recruited from still in-tact families (Married Group). The researchers in the laboratory estranged and reunited the children with their mothers twice over twenty minute period and classified the child’s behaviour into attachment classifications, this task was undertaken by highly trained experts in the field to increase internal

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