Making Observations
(Exercises)
- Cheating in college examinations appears to be a continuing
and perhaps growing problem. As a researcher you want to learn
how much cheating is done during examinations, how the cheating
is carried out, who does the cheating, and how successful it is.
You are going to study this in your school by using a
combination of unobtrusive and participant observational
methods, and you realize there are ethical issues involved in
such research.
A. Develop and describe your methods of observation.
B. Explain how you will guarantee the rights of the students who
will be observed.
- Think of five or six research problems in which unobtrusive
and/or participant observation procedures would be useful, and
perhaps even be the best methods to use.
- For each of the following situations, identify at least one
unobtrusive way of measuring the critical variable.
- You would like to bring people into the laboratory for
one task, while you are really interested in noticing how
they get to know a stranger.
- You want to see how people respond to a situation where
it appears that someone needs their help and what factors
affect their likelihood of helping.
- You want to see how people respond to insulting remarks
from someone they barely know.
- You want to know if men behave differently toward a
woman they meet in a bar depending on how much she appears
to have drunk.
- For each of the following situations, identify at least one
participant observer way of measuring the critical variable.
- You want to understand the process by which some
politicians are able to negotiate acceptable compromises,
whereas other politicians are unable to get people to agree.
- You are interested in understanding how high pressure
sales people approach their job and what techniques they
use.
- You want to study the coaching techniques of a
particularly successful college basketball coach.
- You want to understand how children respond to a
placement in a day care center.