Observation

Example

Research Question: What are common dog walking practices?

To first address this question, I defined the behaviors I would be specifically be observing to answer this question. This included: how many times per day someone walked their dog, the time(s) of day they walked their dog, the number of dogs walked, the breed of dog (estimated), and the size of dog(s) walked.

I observed people walking their dogs in my local neighborhood over the course of three days and created a table to keep track of the observations. I thought these variables were important to observe to learn about dog walking behavior in general. These observations allowed me to identify some trends in dog walking behavior, like most people walked their dogs twice per day, once in the morning and once in the evening.

Things to remember:

• The observations collected highly depend on when you go to observe. Variation in day, time of day, season, etc., will allow for more robust collection of data.

• Can be a good starting point to observe common behaviors that compel further investigation.

Pros:

• Can observe individual behaviors in a natural setting.

• Fairly easy to get access to individuals (topic of interest depending) and low budget.

Cons:

• No context of the situation is collected.

• Can not gain insight into individual differences in users' experiences and knowledge.

References:

1. DeJoode, J. A., Cooke, N. J., & Shope, S. M. (2003). Naturalistic Observation of Airport Incident Command. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 47(3), 663-667. 10.1177/154193120304700386