Tma 02 Essay

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TMA 02 (methodology) 1. Identify which of the following are correct descriptors of this study. The best descriptors of this study between mother and infant gestures are a natural experiment and an observational study as natural experiments are observational studies that are not controlled in the traditional sense of a randomised experiment. The main reason for using the natural experiment is that it is an empirical study in which the experimental conditions are determined by nature or other factors out of the control of the researcher. Holly did not want to replicate existing studies on imitation that had been conducted in the unnatural surroundings of a laboratory. Instead she wanted to observe the mother-infants interaction in a coffee shop where she felt they would interact more naturally with no knowledge that they are being observed. The objective of observational studies is to make clear cause and effect relationship between the amount of hand and facial gestures mum makes the more the baby may make in return. Holly…show more content…
Reliability is about being able to replicate the measures over time and yield similar outcomes regardless of who administers the measure this is called test-retest reliability. To increase the reliability of the measures in this research, Holly could have had another person observe the behaviour of the mother and infants with her this is known as inter-observer reliability. By having two or more observers working independently recording the data this would mean that Holly could compare her results with another researcher thus increasing the reliability of her results. Holly could also ensure that behaviour categories are correctly and objectively operationalised making sure that the behaviour being observed can only be that behaviour as she had no control over the extraneous variables some imitations between mothers and infants could have been
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