Educational Research Methods
A site to support teaching and learning...
Observation
Observation is a common data collection technique. There are different kinds of observation, so we might better think of observation as a family of techniques, suitable for adoption within a range of research methodologies. Observation is therefore adopted as part of many research designs.
This is a personal site of Keith S. Taber to support teaching of educational research methods.
(Dr Keith Taber is Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.)
2015
Two key ways in which research observation can vary is (a) in the role of the researcher, in terns of the stance they present to those observed (and related to this, the extent to which observation is naturalistic or interventionist); and (b) in the level of structure imposed upon the observation process.
A Beginner’s Guide to Observations.pdf was produced by educational research students as part of a constructionist class activity.
