Research Methodology

Chapter 9
Research Methods - Part II
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 List of Contents
 Observational Method
• Types of Observations
• Naturalistic Observation
• Controlled Observation
• Participant Observation
• Non-Participant Observation
 Case Study
• Definition
• Examples of Case Study
 Correlation Method
• Examples of Correlational
Method
• Type of Correlational Method
 Content Analysis Method
• Conceptual Analysis
• Relational Analysis
 2. Observational Method

 The observational method is a non-experimental and qualitative

research method in which the behavior of the subject under research is
observed.
 An observational method is a great tool for data collection in
psychology because the researcher does not require any special types
of equipment to collect the research data.
 We observe several items throughout our day, but researches are
different from our daily observations as it involves some important
steps such as selection of the area of interest, noting the observations,
and analyzing the obtained data.
 2. Observational Method…

 Gathering the data through observation is itself a skill as an observer should

be well aware of his actual area of research and he/she should have a clear
picture in mind that what qualities or attributes he should observe, and
what he should avoid.
 The researcher should have a good understanding of the correct methods of
recording and analyzing the gathered data.
 The major problem of the observational method is the observer’s biases,
there are high chances that the observer may judge the event according to
his/her biases rather than interpreting the event in its natural form.
 Types of Observations

 The observational methods are broadly categorized into the following

types,
1. Naturalistic Observation

 If the researcher has made the observations in real-life or natural

settings such as schools, institutes, homes, open environments, etc.,
without interfering with the phenomena under observation, then it is
known as naturalistic observation.
 In this type of observation, the researcher does not manipulate or
control any situation.
 i. Naturalistic Observation…

 And he/she only records the spontaneous behavior of the subject

(individual or event under investigation) in their natural
environment.
 Naturalistic observations provide more generalized results
because of the natural settings, but it’s difficult to manage the
extraneous variables in natural observations and ethical issues of
privacy interference and observer bias are some other major
problems of naturalistic observations.
 ii. Controlled Observation

 The observations that are conducted in the closed settings, i.e., their
various conditions and variable are highly under control, are known as
controlled observations.
 In these observations, variables are manipulated according to the
need of the research.
 Controlled observation is a research method where researchers watch
participants in a contained environment, such as a laboratory.
 Example of Controlled Observation

 If the researcher wants to study the effect of induced workload on

the worker’s performance, the research should be conducted in a
controlled setting as the researcher can control the independent
variable (workload).
 However, due to the controlled settings approach, these observations
are far less to ecological validity than the naturalistic observations,
and the behavior of the participants or subjects that are being
studied may change because of their awareness of being observed.
 iii. Participant Observation

 The types of observation in which the observer or the researcher

itself becomes part of the research are called participant
observations.
 The other participants in the research may or may not be informed
about the presence of the observer in the group.
 However, if the participants are not aware of the observer’s
presence, then the results gathered will be more reliable and
satisfy ecological validity.
 iii. Participant Observation…

 In participant observation as the researcher acts as an active member

of the observed group, the observer has to be cautious about the fact
that other members of the group won’t recognize him/her, and he/she
should maintain the proper relationships and a good rapport with the
participants under investigation.
 The strength of the participant observation is that it provides the
researcher a holistic approach to understand the process not only from
his/her own perspective but also from the participant’s perspective,
which reduces the research biases.
 iv. Non-Participant Observation

 In this type of research, the observer is not present in the research, but
he/she uses other means to observe the spontaneous activities or
behavior of the individual or group members, this may include
installing the camera in the rooms that need to be observed.
 The main benefit of non-participants’ observation is that the actual
behavior of the participants can be observed without making them
aware of being under observation.
 An example of non-participation observation is a school principal who
observes the classroom activities of the teacher and students through
the CCTV cameras in his/her office.
 3. Case Study

 In the case study method, the researcher does qualitative

research and in-depth analysis of a specific case (subject under
investigation).
 The results obtained from this method are highly reliable; in fact,
many famous theories such as the psychoanalytic theory of
Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget’s cognitive development theory
are the results of well-structured and proper case studies of the
subjects.
 3. Case Study…

 The case study method allows the researcher to deeply study the
psyche of the cases.
 The researcher does the case studies of the people or events that
provide some critical information about the new or less
discovered phenomena of the human mind.
 The number of cases can be one or more, or they are of different
or same characteristics
 Example of Case Study

 A patient suffering from a mental disorder, a group of people

belonging to the same gender, class, or ethnicity, and effect on the
people of various natural or man-made disasters such as flood,
tsunami, terrorism, and industrialization.
 Case studies involve the multi-method approach as it uses various
other research methods like unstructured interviews, psychological
testings, and observations to get detailed information about the
subjects.
 4. Correlational Method

 The researcher uses the correlational method if he/she wants to

examine the relationship between the two variables.
 It is to be noted that here researcher does not vary the
independent variable as he is only concerned about whether the
two variables are linked to each other or not.
 Example of Correlational Method

 If you are interested in finding the relation between yoga and the
psychological health of the person, then you simply try to find the
relationship between these two factors rather than manipulating
anything.
 The degree of the association between the variables is represented by
the correlational coefficients ranges from +1.0 to -1.0.
 Types Of Correlational Research Method
 The correlation can be of three types, i.e., positive correlation, negative
correlation, or zero correlation.
 If we increase or decrease the value of one variable, the value of another
variable also increases or decreases respectively, then it is called a
positive correlation, and the value of the correlation coefficient would be
near +1.0.
 If we increase or decrease the value of one variable, the value of another
variable decreases or increases respectively, then it is called the negative
correlation, and the value of correlational coefficient would be near -1.0.
 If the changes in the value of one variable do not affect the other
variable, then there does not exist any relationship between the
variables, and it is called zero correlation with the correlation value near
or equal to zero.
 5. Content Analysis Method
 In content analysis research methods, the researcher analyses and
quantifies various types of content pieces such as articles, texts,
interviews, researches, and other important documents to get useful
information about their area of research.
 Content analyses involve various steps that are data collection, examining
the research data, and getting familiar with it, developing the set of rules
for selecting coding units, making coding units (coding unit is the smallest
parts of the content that is analyzed) as per the developed rules, and
then, finally, analyzing the findings and drawing conclusions.
 Content analysis is generally of two types, i.e., conceptual analysis, and
relational analysis. These are briefly discussed below.
 i. Conceptual Analyses

 It involves the selection of the concept (word, phrase, sentence),

and then examining the occurrence of the selected concept in the
available research data.
 In conceptual analyses, the researcher selects the sample according
to the research question and divides the content into different
categories, which makes it easier to focus on the specific data that
gives useful information about the research, and then coding and
analyzing the results.
 ii. Relational Analyses

 The initial steps of the relational analyses are the same as the
conceptual analyses like selecting the concept, but it’s different from
the conceptual analyses because it involves finding the associations
or relationships among the concepts.
 In conceptual analyses, we analyze every concept, but in relational
analyses, the individual concepts do not have any importance,
instead, the useful information is assessed by finding the
associations among the concepts present in the research data.