User:Tbgladman/Temp/ObservationProject.doc

Observational Research Project

Due Date: Wednesday, June 10th

For this project you will research the eating behaviors of students through naturalistic observation. Before you do your research you will need to decide the following:

1. Will you be a participant in the research or will you observe from afar?
2. Will you use disguised or undisguised observation?
3. Where will you perform your observation (e.g. Spoon, the cafeteria, Sugisho, etc.)
4. When will you perform your observation (e.g. at lunch, during breaks, ont he weekend, at dinner)?
5. How will you record your observations? Will you use a narrative method or a checklist method?
   • If you use narrative method, will you write notes, or videotape?
   • If you use a checklist, what behaviors will you tally?
   • Will you look at eating latencies or durations?
6. How long will you observe the behaviors (1 hour, 3 hours, 5 hours, 1 long period in 1 day, short periods of time over many days)?

Once you have made all of these decisions, you will complete the observation and collect your data.

You will write a research report that includes the following information:

1. Your research plan (this includes all the decisions you made above)
2. Your results (summaries of your data if in narrative form, total tallies and averages if you use checklist form, time summaries if you measured latencies or durations)
3. Your conclusions (this includes what you think the results mean in terms of eating behaviors of MIC students). Be careful in your conclusions to not go further than the data allow you to.

Your research report should be 3-5 pages long, double-spaced, using 1 inch margins and Times New Roman 12 point font.