Purpose of the assignment:
a) to sharpen your observational skills
b) to provide experience conducting fieldwork
c) to enable you to appreciate the patterning as well as individual variability in the routines of daily life
1) Choose an activity and setting to observe. Ideally the setting will be one where you can record observations inconspicuously.
2) Do initial observations to get a sense of what is happening and the categories that will be useful to tally your.
observations.
3) Conduct focused observations. Keep a careful record—-either tally or record details. If you can’t record
while you observe, frequently leave the setting to record.
4) Analyze your data. See if you find any patterns or commonalities.
Be careful to report the specifics of what you observed.
Provide the detailed observations upon which you base your
conclusions—indicate how many people you observed and how many fit into
specific categories.
Offer hypotheses to account for
your findings but make it clear that you are aware that the data you collected
are not sufficient to test the hypotheses.
6) If your project requires two people to
participate (e.g. one to observe while the other acts), you can do the project
together with
another student. Write up your results separately and submit your papers
individually.
The paper should be about 3 pages long. Due: Thursday, April 24.
You can either observe a smaller number of people (ca. 6-10) intensively or do more limited observation of a greater number of people. Try to conduct observations at different times and/or different days if you think time may affect the behavior you are observing. Spend at least one hour observing. One hour is the bare minimum.
Literary skill in writing the report will be appreciated and rewarded. But realize that the assignment asks you to exercise the skills of a social scientist rather than a journalist or novelist. Although your focused observations may deal with a narrow topic, provide enough description of the context for the reader to understand the behavior you describe. You will have more to write about if you do not define your topic too narrowly but keep your focus clear.
Examples of possible
activities and/or settings:
Behavior of students in a classroom:
Observe students as they enter the classroom, before the class begins, during the class (observe facial expressions, body movement, note taking, verbal participation…)
Watch people eat
How do they use utensils and/or hands, how do they coordinate with other people eating with them, what topics do they talk about, what do they say about the food
Watch people as they shop for groceries
Do they have lists, do they proceed on a straight line through the store or backtrack, if there is more than one person shopping do they discuss purchases, how do parents deal with children’s requests/demands for purchases
Observe greetings, displays of affection in public, posture when sitting or standing