To guide users and developers of observation systems and manuals, a set of criteria was developed. The criteria were collected and revised during the construction of a system, the System for Analysing Lessons 2, and revised during its use in the field. Thirty-three criteria which observation systems should meet were identified and sorted into three main types: identifying, validity, and practicality criteria. Identifying criteria enable users to select the correct instrument for their purposes. Validity criteria, which include criteria pertaining to the degree of inference, context, reliability and validity, relate to the accuracy with which the instrument represents the observed events. Practicality criteria provide information about the ease of administration and dissemination of results. Examples are provided.

A Guide for Developers and Users of Observation Systems and Manuals

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF file are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Distribution or copying is strictly prohibited without permission of the National Academies Press . Permission is granted for this material to be posted on a secure password-protected Web site. The content may not be posted on a public Web site. ISBN: 0-309-11229-X, 300 pages, 6 x 9, (2007)

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Human Behavior in Military Contexts

Toward an explicit rationale for naturalistic research methods

BERK, LAURA E. Effects of Variations in the Nursery School Setting on Environmental Constraints and Children's Modes of Adaptation. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1971, 42, 839-869. This study asked how specific characteristics of preschool settings affect the naturalistic occurrence of environmental constraints and children's adaptations to them. A taxonomy of 7 varieties of constraints invented by Jackson and Wolfson (1968) and a taxonomy of 14 adaptations were used. The constraints conformed to Schoggen's (1963) definition of conflict environmental force units (conflict EFU). 2 middle-class nursery schools and 2 Head Start programs were studied. These environments enabled the effects of several ecological variablesstructure of the daily program, spaciousness of the schoolroom, and teacher-children ratio-and several personal variables-age, sex, and social class -on the incidence of conflict EFU and adaptations to be determined. Differential linkages of the adaptations with varieties of conflict EFU were also examined. The environmental variable which differentiated preschool settings was the program structure, and significant effects for age, sex, and social class were also found.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED040421.pdf

Barker Rg

Papers

Observation of behavior: ecological approaches.