Researchers Want to Conduct an Observation Study of Shopping Behaviour in a Large Local Supermarket. Describe and Evaluate a Suitable Procedure for This Observation Study.

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I would conduct a naturalistic observation in the local supermarket. The observation would take place on a weekday morning between 9.00 and 11.00 a.m. At this time, there may only be a certain type of person shopping e.g. mothers with small children, shift workers, retired people, etc. so I am missing out on other members of the target population who would use the supermarket throughout the course of the week. I would use opportunity sampling and record the behaviours of all shoppers I happen to see during the course of the observation. I would use participant observation so that the observers would pretend to be shopping and therefore the participants would not feel that they needed to act in a more socially desirable way e.g. shoppers would perhaps want to get the shopping done as quickly as possible or might not engage in inappropriate behaviours (eating a grape without paying for it, shouting at their child, etc). As demand characteristics would be avoided the reliability and validity of the study would be increased. However, as the observation is undisclosed I would be practising deception as the participants wouldn’t know they’re part of a study. Therefore, immediately after the observation I would place a poster in the supermarket giving details of the study and giving a contact number so anyone who does not want their details used can contact me. I would ensure that there were 2 observers who were trained in the coding system beforehand. Their observations would then be compared at the end of the study to see if there is a correlation (agreement) between their observations. If the correlation is 0.8 or greater then the observation will have inter-rater

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