you may be interested to know how children studying in Class XI spend their time in school. Two things are possible at this stage. As a researcher, you might think that you have a fairly good idea about what happens in school. You might prepare a list of activities and go to the school with a view to finding out their occurrences.
Alternatively, you might think that you do not know what happens in the school and, by your observation you would like to discover it. (b) Recording : While observing, a researcher records the selected behaviour using different means, such as marking tallies for the already identified behaviour whenever they occur, taking notes describing each activity in greater detail using short hand or symbols, photographs, video recording, etc. (c) Analysis of Data : After the observations have been made, psychologists analyse whatever they have recorded with a view to derive some meaning out of it. It is important to know that making good observations is a skill.
A good observer knows what s/he is looking for, whom s/he wants to observe, when and where the observation needs to be made, in what form the observation will be recorded, and what methods will be used to analyse the observed behaviour. Types of Observation Observation can be of the following types : (a) Naturalistic vs Controlled Observation : When observations are done in a natural or real-life settings (in the above example, it was a school in which observation was made), it is called naturalistic observation . In this case the observer makes no effort to control or manipulate the situation for making an observation. This type of observation is conducted in hospitals, homes, schools, day care centers, etc.
However, many a times you might need to control certain factors that determine behaviour as they are not the focus of your study. For this reason, many of the studies in psychology are conducted in the laboratory. For example, if you read Box . , you will come to know that smoke could only be introduced in a controlled laboratory situation.