OBSERVING


OBSERVATION is a technique of
gathering data whereby you personally
watch, interact or communicate with the
subject of your research.
Observation is a method of collecting
research data, involves observing behaviour
and systematically recording the results of
those observations.
 
Observation is the central method
in qualitative types of research ,
most specifically ethnography , in
which you observed the lifestyle
of a cultural group. (Letherby 2013;
Snort 2013)
 TYPES
Participant observation: The observer
takes part in the situation he or she
observes. 
(For example, a doctor hospitalized with a
broken hip, who now observes hospital
procedures ‘from within’.)
To record your finding through this type of
observation , used the diary method or
logbook.
Descriptive Observation
Narrative Account
Non-participant/Structured
observation: The observer

watches the situation, openly
or concealed, but does not
participate
Recording this non – participation
observation happens through the
use of checklist others called this
checklist as an observation schedule.
 
METHODS OF
OBSERVATION
 Direct Observation

 Direct observation this involves the observation of
behaviour as it occurs. This method makes you see and
or listen everything that happens in the area of
observation.
For instance , things happening in a classroom , court trial ,
street trafficking and the like, come directly to your
senses. How ever to avoid the waste of energy , time
and effort in observing , you have to stick to the
questions that your research aim to answering.
 Indirect Observation
This method is called “behaviour archaeology “Often, referred to as

unobtrusive measures i , occurs when the researcher uses evidence of
behaviours in order to demonstrate that specific behaviours have occurred. The
researcher creates a list of the types of possible evidence of the occurrence of
the behaviour of interest. This ,method observes the traces of past events to
get information or measure of behaviour, trait , or quality of your subject.

Such observations may include:

Evidence of wear and tear, e.g. the path that students use to cross the
university campus is clearer and wider than paths that are used less often

Evidence of rubbish or litter that has been left behind, e.g. after a soccer
match the amount and type of litter might indicate the amount and type of
food and drink that has been consumed.
 

METHODS OF INDIRECT
OBSERVATION
 Continuous Monitoring or CM

Here, you observe to evaluate the way people
deal with one another . As such, this is the
main data gathering technique use in
behavioral psychology, where people’s
worries, anxieties, habit and problems in
shopping malls , play areas, family homes ,
or classrooms serves as the focus of studies in
the field of discipline.
 Spot Sampling

 This was done first by behavioral psychologists in
1920 with a focus on researching the extent of
children’s nervous habits as they would go through
their regular personality development. For a
continuous or uninterrupted focus on the subjects ,
you record your observations through spot
sampling in an oral manner , not in a written way.
 Named also as scan sampling or time sampling, spot
sampling comes in two types: time allocation (TA) and
experiecnce sampling.
 
 Time allocation (TA)-In TA, what goes into the
record are the best activities of people you observed
in undetermined place and time.
 Experience Sampling –Lets you record people’s
response anytime of the day or week to question
their present activities , companions , feelings and so
on. Data gathering in this case is facilitated by
modern electronic and technological gadgets like
cell phone, emails and other online communication
methods and techniques.
 Advantages

 It uses simple data collection technique and data
recording method.
 It is inclined to realizing its objective because it just
depends on watching and listening to the subjects
without experiencing worries as to whether or not the
people will say yes or no to you observation activities.
 It offers fresh and firsthand of knowledge that will help
you come out with an easy understand and deep
reflection of data.
 It is quite valuable in research studies about
organizations that consider you , the researcher , a part
of such entity.
 Disadvantages

It requires a long time for planning.
Engrossed in participating in the subject
activities, you may eclipse or neglect the
primary role if the research.
It is prone to your hearing derogatory
statements from some people in the group
that will lead to your biased stand toward
other group members.
 
INTERVIEW
PROCEDURES
 Interview

In research, interview is a data gathering technique that
makes you verbally ask the subjects or respondents
questions to what your research study is trying to look for.
Done mostly in qualitative research studies, interview aims
at knowing what the respondents think and feel about the
Topic of your research.
 

Types of Interview
 Unstructured interview. The interviewer uses at most
an 'aide memoir' - notes to jog the memory - rather
than a list of questions. The interview may be like a
conversation, with the interviewer responding to the


interviewee and letting them speak freely.
 Semi-structured interview. The interviewer has a list
of questions or key points to be covered and works
through them in a methodical manner. Similar
questions are asked of each interviewee, although
supplementary questions can be asked as
appropriate. The interviewee can respond how they
like and does not have to 'tick a box' with their
answer.
 Structured interview. The interviewer asks the
interviewee a series of specific questions, to which a
fixed range of answers are possible ('ticking a box').
This is the typical form of interview used in social
survey research, and can provide quantitative data, as
in a questionnaire.
 Approaches

 Individual Interview
Only one respondent is interviewed here. The reason
behind this one-on-one interview is the lack of the
interviewees have among themselves. One example
of this is the refusal of one interviewee to let other
interviewees to get a notion of or hear his responses
to the questions. Hence, he or she prefers to have
individual interview separate from others. This is a
time- consuming type of interview you have to
interview a group of interviewees one by one.
 Group Interview
In this interview approach, you ask the question
not to one person , but to a group of people at the
same time. The group members take turns in

answering the question. This approach is often used
in the field of business, specifically in marketing
research. Researchers in this field, whose primary
aim in adhering to this interview approach is to
know people’s food preferences and preferences and
consumer opinions; they also call this as focus group
interview. The chances of having some respondents
getting influenced by the other group members are
one downside of this interview approach.(Denzin
2013; Feinberd 2013)
 Mediated Interview
No face to face interview is true for this interview


approach because this takes place through
electronic communication devices such as
telephones, mobile phones , email, among others.
It is a synchronous mediated interview if you talk with
the subjects through the telephone, mobile phone,
or online chat and also find time to see each others.
It is asynchronous if only two persons are interviewed
at different time through the Internet, email,
Facebook, Twitter, and other social network media.
( Goodwin 2014 ;Barbour 2014)
 
Steps in
Conducting an
Interview
 Step 1: Getting to know
each other

The interview starts from the time you, the
interviewer , and your respondents see each
other at the place of interview. Naturally,
seeing each other for the first time , your
tendency would be to talk with each other
to establish friendship and a relaxed mood
for both of you.
 Step 2: Having an Idea
of the Research

This second step requires you to tell the
respondents about the nature of the interview
– its purpose, importance, scope, and so on.
Telling them of this salient features of the
activity enables them to anticipate not only
the kind of questions they will get to face ,but
also the appropriate answers they will give.
 Step 3: Starting the
Interview

You open this step with a question to
encourage the respondent to talk about
himself or herself, including his or her age ,
family, current activities, and other think
you think appear special or interesting to
him or her. Following these self-
introduction questions are questions on the
subject’s thoughts, attitudes, or performance
of his/her job or any company assignment.
 Step 4:Conducting the
Interview Proper

 Interview questions in this step are on the
interview’s open and extensive talking of things
related to the research theme or research questions
and on those anticipated by him/her or emanating
from his/ her from his or her explanations ,
descriptions or narrations of things. Open or
unstructured questions asked in this step of the
interview aim at investigating the respondents
interest and eliciting substantial or profuse
responses to questions.
 Step 5: Putting an End
to the Interview

 Signs of approaching end of the interview work to
alert the respondent in winding up with his or her
talking . For instance using words expressing your
decision , wish or attempt to ask the very last
question serves a s the clue for the respondent to
think that the interview is nearing its end. This step
also reminds you of your responsibility to let the
respondent be free in airing whatever doubts or
questions he or she has the research design ,
method , interview time, and other aspects of
interview.
 Step 6: Pondering Over
the Interview

Afterthoughts
This last step of the interview gives the
respondents the opportunity to ask
questions about the interview activity and let
him or her have and idea about what will
happen next to the interview results. (Denzin
2013;Bernard 2013; Rubin 2012)
 Questionnaire

 A questionnaire is paper a list of questions including
the specific place and space in the paper where you
write the answers to the questions . This prepared
set of questions elicits factual or opinioned answer
from the respondent’s through his/her act of
checking one chosen answer from several options or
of writing on a line provided for any opinionated
answer (Babbie 2013)
 Purpose of Questionnaire

 To discover people’s thoughts and feelings about
the topic of the research
 To assist you in conducting effective face – to – face
interview with your respondents
 To help you plan how to obtain and record the
answers to your questions.
 To make the analysis , and coding of data easier and
faster
 Types of Questionnaire

 POSTAL QUESTIONNAIRE
As the name connotes , this type of questionnaire goes to the
respondent through postal service or electronic mail. It is through the
mail or postal system that the accomplished will be sent back to the
researchers . Ins some cases, the researcher can personally collect
finished questionnaires.
 SELF-ADMINISTERED QUESTIONNAIRE
This kind of questionnaire makes you act as the interviewer and
interviewee at the same time. First, you ask question either in person
or through phone; then you will be writing the interviewee’s answer
on a piece of papre. A questionnaire e like this structured kind of
interview.
 Advantages

 It is cheap as it does not require you to travel to
hand the questionnaires to a big number of
respondents in faraway places .
 It entails an easy distribution to respondents
 It offers more opportunity for the respondents to
ponder their responses.
 It enables easy comparison of answer s because of a
certain degree of uniformity among questions.
 It has the capacity to elicit spontaneous or genuine
answer from the respondents.
 Disadvantages

 There are possibilities that some questions you distributed
do not go back to you, and this prevents you from getting
the desired rate of response.
 Confusing and uninteresting questions to respondents fail
to the desired responses.
 Owing to individual differences the selected subjects and
those in the population, in general ,the questionnaire is
hard up in obtaining unbiased results to represent the
characteristics of the target population.
 It prevents you from being with respondents physically to
help them unlock some difficulties in their understanding
of the questions.
 FDG – Focus Group
Discussion

 An FDG is an informal in-dept discussion in which
small member of participant (6-12), under the
guidance of a moderator/ facilitator talk are
purposively selected from a defined target population
whose opinions and ideas are relevant to the research
(AIDCAP,FHI, 1994)
 FDG data can provide relatively quick answers to
specific questions and are often used in the
formulation of hypothesis before surveys are designed
or to clarify ambiguous survey findings.(Scrimshaw,
et al. 1991)
 FDG cannot be used to generalized to a larger
population , so the methodology s not appropriate for
testing a hypothesis in the tradition of an
experimental design.(AIDCAP,FHI, 1994)

 SOME FEATURE OF FGDs
 FDG are participants are purposively selected from
defined target population whose opinion and ideas
are relevant to the research
 Usually more than FGD is necessary to adequately
cover the rage of participants characteristics and
issues
 The FDG facilitator stimulates participants to talk to
each other about certain issues/topics rather than
talk to the moderator
 Important ideas/ facts brought up during the
discussion are recorded an later analyzed and used as
bases for recommendation.
 WHEN AND HOW TO USE FDG’s

 FDG are increasingly used by the researchers
,practitioners and educators in the context of needs
assessments and formative evaluation.
FGD PROCESS
1.)DESCRIBE TEHE PURPOSE OF THE FGD
 

THE END