Activity 1: Structured observations

Watch this video of a structured observation, used for looking at parent/child interaction. Note that the observers have a list of behaviours that they are looking for, which has been decided beforehand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgTpAoJEXaE (accessed 11 March 2017)

Now consider another situation that you may be observing: practitioner/child interaction during a nappy changing routine. Draw up an observation sheet similar to the one you have seen in the video, but with the kind of behaviours appropriate to this situation. You may think, for instance, that you would like to record when the child initiates the communication, the number of times the adult responds to the child, etc.

Activity 2: Tronick child observation video

Observations used for research are often recorded so that researchers can take their time over analysing what they have seen. This video is one of the originals from Tronick et al’s 1975 Still Face experiment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9wTdCfVlbs (accessed 11 March 2017)

Tronick, E., Adamson, L.B., Als, H. and Brazelton, T.B. (1975, April) ‘Infant emotions in normal and pertubated interactions’. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.