Human Observation

The behavior that I observed was foot tapping. Foot tapping is a nonverbal behavior that can convey a plethora of emotions for example: anxiety, excitement, impatience, boredom, or anger. 

Foot tapping is a type of fidgeting behavior. I would define foot tapping is pressing the ball of your foot to the ground regardless of the frequency or speed. 

I sat in the Student Forum on the second floor of LSC and the method that I used was interval coding, specifically partial interval coding. I observed the same person for an hour which was divided into 60, 1-minute intervals. If I observed the behavior at ANY point of the interval, I would mark it down using an "x". I did not take note of how long the behavior it took place or if it lasted for the entire interval. 

I took other observations such as what foot was being tapped and hypothesized the cause of the foot tapping. 

Data:

 Tapped for 43/60 intervals, which is approximately 72%

Person tended to favor tapping the right foot. The left foot was never tapped by itself, however, there were times when both feet tapped simultaneously. The person was working on their computer, this is when the tapping tended to occur. When the person was on their phone, the tapping tended to stop. Tapping tended to be quick and frequent, often lasting for the entire interval- this is an observation, I counted the tapping even if it occurred once in the interval. 

The person seemed to have vocal ticks, so the foot-tapping could be associated with the vocal ticks. The person could have been due to boredom or anxiety.