You will conduct a naturalistic observation and analysis. This assignment is designed to assess learning goals 1 “Articulate how the child and the child’s contextual experience combine to influence development,” 3 “Use empirical psychological research to inform your understanding of child development,” and 4 “Develop oral and written communication skills.”
Assignment Checklist
Doing the Observation:
- Choose an early learning environment. Please note that for this assignment, I loosely define “early learning environment” as anywhere that young children might have an opportunity to learn something. Really, children learn everywhere, so anyplace will work (e.g. parks, malls)
- Pick a time when children are likely to be present and you can focus for a half-hour.
- Observe, and as you are observing take field notes. Do NOT collect video or audio data! However, taking a picture of the setting is encouraged, preferably without children present (you many end up using this picture in your Recommendations Project assignment).
a. First, describe the setting. Who’s there? What’s there?
b. Next, pick one child to focus on. Subtlety is key to naturalistic observation. If you stare intently at a child you don’t know, nervous (and possibly angry) parents may accost you with questions and/or leave.
c. Observe your focal child for at least 20 minutes. As you are observing your child, take notes. What are they doing? What are they saying? Who are they interacting with? How long do they engage in an activity? Focus on what you see and hear for your objective comments. Any interpretation, evaluation, and judgment about what you see and hear can be written up the subjective comments section of your notes. Keep in mind that as you write up your paper you will likely want a lot of details.
d. As you are observing, try not to disrupt the child’s natural activity. If you become involved in the child’s activity, you’ll need to document the interaction in your notes.
Typing Your Notes:
First describe the setting and your focal child. MAKE SURE TO USE PSEUDONYMS for all people and places! Next, break up your notes into multiple episodes. It is likely that your child did several different things over the course of 20 minutes. For example, she went down a slide, and then went to her mom and got a cracker, and then played in the sand. Describe each of these things as separate episodes. Again, focus on separating your objective observations (what you see and hear) from your subjective judgments. When typing up your field notes, you should follow the format below.
The Setting: Describe the setting where you observed your focal child. Be specific and provide details. Who is present? What is there? (1 paragraph).
My Focal Child: Describe the child. Include details such as what the child is wearing, what they look like, and approximate age (1 paragraph).
Episode Description: Objective Subjective
Episode 1 What did the child do first? (e.g. the child received a cookie from his mom and said “thank you”) What sense do you make of what you saw and heard? (e.g. the child seems polite)
Episode 2 What did the child do next?
Episode 3… (Keep going until you have 10 episodes or about 2 pages of notes)
Writing the Paper:
Write a brief paper (about 3 pages, or more if you wish) that links your child’s behavior with the Washington State Guidelines and an empirical research article.
- Pick one episode from your notes to focus on for your paper. If a few episodes are clearly on the same topic, it is OK to reference multiple episodes in your paper. However, the key thing to do here is focus on one major topic.
- Pick 1-3 of the WA State Guidelines that relates to your episode. Having more guidelines will not improve your paper. It is good to have a clear focus! For this assignment, the Guidelines are the specific bullet points on the “Children May” side of the document. For example, if you observed an infant who cried when separated from their parent, you might reference page 19 of the Guidelines which states that children may “Cry when caregiver is not in sight or cling to caregiver when strangers are nearby.”
- Find an empirical research article that is related to the episode and the Guideline(s) you have chosen. In empirical research articles, the authors describe how they collected data, and present the results. There are several resources for finding empirical research articles including your text, other articles, research databases, and librarians.
- Write a paper that analyzes your focal child’s behavior in light of the Guideline(s) and the empirical research article.
Your paper should contain the following:
a. An introductory paragraph that informs the reader about the topic of the paper. You should move from broad to specific. What general domain are you focusing on? What specific behavior are you focusing on? Conclude with a thesis statement that discusses your child’s age. Is your child’s behavior consistent with an age range in the Guidelines and an age range in an empirical research article?
b. A paragraph describing the episode that you are going to analyze. What did the child do?
c. A paragraph relating the episode to your chosen Guideline(s).
i. What is/are the Guideline(s)? Be specific—provide page numbers.
ii. What did the child do that relates to the Guideline(s)? Is your child’s behavior consistent with the Guideline(s) or not? Be explicit in making connections between the child’s behavior and the Guideline(s). Do not assume that because you stated the behavior in the previous paragraph and then stated the Guideline(s) in this paragraph that the reader will make a connection that seems obvious to you. Instead, be very clear and direct about how you are relating the child’s behavior to your chosen Guideline(s).
d. A paragraph or two relating the child’s behavior to an empirical research article.
i. What did the empirical research article say? Try to summarize the main points of the article in your own words (be sure to parenthetically cite the article even if you do not quote the article!). In your article summary include: the main question addressed by the study, the age group of the participants, the methodology used for the study (what did the participants do?), and a summary of the key results. If the study did a lot of different things, focus on the results that are most pertinent to your paper.
ii. How does the empirical research article relate to the child’s behavior? Is your child’s behavior consistent with the empirical research article or not? For this section, discuss similarities and differences between the behavior you observed and the findings of the research article. Again, be explicit in making connections and discussing similarities and differences. Do not assume that because you stated the behavior in the previous paragraph and then stated the research findings in this paragraph that the reader will make a connection that seems obvious to you. Instead, be very clear and direct about how you are relating the child’s behavior to your empirical research article.
e. A concluding paragraph linking the child’s behavior, the Guideline(s), and the empirical research article. This paragraph will likely take one of two directions. If your child’s behavior, the Guideline(s), and the empirical research article are all in alignment, then you can talk about how your child’s behavior appears to be in accordance with the Guideline(s)s and the research. However, if the three sources of information do not align, then your job will be to provide an explanation for why this is so. For example, your child does something different than suggested in the Guideline(s)s, and you find an article describing cultural differences for this behavior that better reflect your child’s behavior.
Regarding formatting:
a. Your paper should be double spaced.
b. Please proof-read your work.
c. Provide a full reference for your empirical research article. For examples of APA style references, see the last page of the syllabus. There are also several websites that provide guidance on APA style.
Grading Rubric
Notes: 10 possible points
10 = Notes provide a detailed description of the setting, the child, and the episodes. Episode description separates objective from subjective information.
7 = Most notes are detailed, but one area (setting, focal child description, or episodes) is cursory or does not separate objective from subjective observations.
5 = Notes provide a cursory description of the setting, focal child, and episodes.
0 = Nothing turned in.
Paper: 50 possible points
Introductory paragraph: 5 possible points
5 = Introductory paragraph provides a clear explanation of the topic. It also provides a clear thesis statement that addresses the focal child in light of the Guideline(s)s and an empirical research article.
3 = Introductory paragraph is a bit confusing, but a general topic is established.
1 = There is not a clear topic presented in the introductory paragraph.
0 = No introductory paragraph is present.
Behavioral episode description: 5 possible points
5 = Behavioral episode description provides a clear and detailed description of the behavior.
3 = A vague, confusing description of the behavior is provided.
0 = No description of the behavior is provided.
Guideline(s) Description (Focus on Specific Bullet Points in the Guidelines):
5 = Guideline(s) quoted or described in detail. Page number(s) provided.
3 = Guideline(s) vaguely mentioned.
0 = Guideline(s) not mentioned or described.
Linking Guideline(s) to the behavior:
5 = Connection between Guideline(s) and behavior is clear.
3 = Connection between Guideline(s) and behavior is vague and/or tenuous.
0 = No attempt made to connect the Guideline(s) to the behavior.
Empirical research article description:
5 = Main points of the empirical research article are clearly summarized. This includes the main research question or purpose of the study, the age of the participants, a brief overview of the methods, and the pertinent results.
3 = Empirical research article is described, but the main points are unclear.
2 = Article described is not an empirical research article. However, the description is clear and thorough.
1 = Article described is not an empirical research article, and the description is vague/confusing
0 = Empirical research article is not described.
Linking the empirical research article to the behavior
5 = Connection between the empirical research article and the behavior is clear. There is a deep, nuanced discussion of similarities and differences between what you observed and the research findings.
3 = Connection between the empirical research article and the behavior is vague and/or tenuous. The connection between the empirical research article and the behavior focuses on surface similarities.
2 = Connections are made with a non-empirical article, but they are clear and nuanced
1 = Connections are made with a non-empirical article, and are vague/confusing
0 = No attempt made to connect the empirical research article to the behavior.
Conclusion paragraph
5 = Conclusion clearly ties together the behavior, Guideline(s), and empirical research article.
3 = Conclusion is confusing, but attempts to link the behavior, Guideline(s), and research article.
1 = A conclusion paragraph is present, but it doesn’t link the behavior, Guideline(s), and research article.
0 = No conclusion paragraph
Reference
5 = A full reference is provided for your empirical research article. This includes the author(s), year, article title, journal title, journal volume number, and page numbers.
3 = A partial reference is provided for your empirical research article (e.g. just the article title and author).
0 = No reference for your empirical research article is provided.
Paper coherence
5 = All sections of the paper are clearly on the same topic and the paper flows smoothly.
4 = All sections of the paper are clearly on the same topic, but the presentation is disjointed.
3 = Most of the paper is focused on the same topic. The focus wanders, but it eventually comes together.
0 = There is a major disjuncture in your paper. For example, you start off writing about the physical activity of jumping and have a conclusion focused on language acquisition.
Proof-reading
5 = Good effort at proof-reading your paper.
3 = I can generally tell what you’re trying to say, but there are several major errors.
0 = Spell-check was not used. Furthermore, the grammar is so problematic that it is difficult to understand what you are trying to say.