OBSERVING AND DOCUMENTING SITUATIONS

OBSERVING AND DOCUMENTING SITUATIONS

1. Observation is...

   • Diffuse
     • The focus is wide-ranging and thedetails get lost.
   • Biased
     • Observations are acted upon with a minimum of reflection.
   • Ephemeral
     • Observations are held in memory for only a very short period of time so that it is difficult to subject them to detailed examination.

2. Ways of observing

   • Direct observation
     • Direct observation of a situation does not require any technical tools except perhaps pencil and paper. Observation always involves selecting from a stream of events. So that this does not become a matter of chance, consider in advance:
       • 1. What are you going to observe?
         • Is it the sequence of events, a pupil’s behaviour, or one specific aspect of your own behaviour? The more limited the focus of observation, the more precisely it can be observed. However, the more limited the focus of observation, the more likely it is that the outcomes will shed light on only a small, possibly even minor, aspect of the original research question.
       • 2. Why are you carrying out the observation?
         • What are the assumptions and expectations on which it is based? Observing is not a mere registering, but also a theoretical reconstruction of a situation. The observer’s assumptions and expectations are theoretical tools for this reconstruction. They are her or his ‘pre-judices’ (pre-judgements), but striving for objectivity in observing does not mean that prejudices can be completely avoided; rather they should be clarified as far as possible, so that the part they play in producing an understanding can be taken into account at the stage of interpretation.
       • 3. When will the observaton be carried out, and how long will it take?
         • It is particularly important for a teacher-researcher to decide beforehand at which times in the lesson it is likely to be possible to devote attention to observation.
   • Audio-recording
     • There are two ways of using tape- recordings:
       • 1. Recording complete teaching sessions, to give an overview or to help in identifying possible research questions; 2. Recording interactions which are narrowly limited in time, and carefully selected to throw light on a chosen research question (e.g. a teacher explaining a concept to one child, a session with the whole class revising a concept taught in a previous lesson, or a small group carrying out an investigation).
   • Photography
     • Photos can be useful for teacher-researchers in a number of ways:
       • 1.to supplement observation notes or tape-recordings of a situation: photographs bring back a holistic impression of what took place and where; 2. as an aid to studying non-verbal aspects of situations and events; 3. as a means of raising questions and stimulating ideas to find a starting point for research.
   • Video-recording.
     • Making good use of video-recordings takes a lot of time. A careful analysis concentrating on events that appear to be essential in terms of the research question requires repeated playings of the tape. Transcribing extracts is more time-consuming and technically ponderous than transcribing audio-tapes: first, because foot-operated switches for playing the tapes are not available; and second, because pictures and sound together contain a lot of information and this makes it necessary to spend time sifting useful data from much that is irrelevant.