began building your skills
Last week, you began building your skills in observation by observing a photograph and a public setting. This week, you will be performing a similar activity by observing a video segment. However, for this activity, you will look for something specific instead of generally observing everything. You will then share your results and compare notes with your classmates.
To prepare for this Discussion:
- Review the reading in Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches and Chapter 6 in Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods for this week. Consider what you have learned this week and last week about observation.
- Your instructor will select a video segment for the class to observe and will post this as an announcement by Day 1 of this week.
- Develop a question, such as a research question, or select something specific to focus your observation. For example, you may focus on how the participants interact with the setting, or how the participants interact with or react to one another.
- Once you have selected a focus, observe the video segment. You may view the video segment more than one time, but you are not required to do so.
- Once you have completed the observation, compare your observation experience this week (a focused observation) to the ones you completed last week (open observations). What are some best practices you have discovered? What techniques should you remember for future observations? What do you need to take into consideration while observing (the role of the researcher, context, environment, etc.)?
With these thoughts in mind:
Post by Day 3, three paragraphs:
- Two paragraphs that include the statement or question that focused your observation of the video segment and the results of your observation
- One paragraph comparison of the open observation techniques and considerations you used last week to the directed observation techniques and considerations you encountered this week.
When appropriate, be sure to support your postings and responses with specific references to the reading(s) and/or video program(s) and use APA format
