Naturalistic Observation

Naturalistic observation refers to the scientific study of the social interactions of children and adults within their native environments, such as in school or at home, or within artificial situations designed to elicit specific behaviors of interest that occur in native environments, such as child social and problem-solving skills with peers or parents. In educational psychology, the phrase is most commonly used to describe studies in which researchers or practitioners attempt to observe subjects of interest as unobtrusively and impartially as possible. Observation techniques were developed throughout the 20th century but came into prominence with the rise of behavior therapy and behavioral assessment in the 1960s. Naturalistic observation is particularly useful for describing the social, physical, and temporal contexts within which educational activities occur. Observation data can be used to address a wide variety of basic and applied research questions in relevant areas such as learning, instruction, assessment, evaluation, diagnosis, and intervention.

An early proponent of naturalistic observation was Arnold Gesell, a student of founding American psychologist G. Stanley Hall, who developed coding systems to record the behavior of infants during the 1920s. Gesell employed a variety of techniques that would become commonplace in observational studies, including the use of one-way screens to minimize observer influence and motion picture cameras to capture observations for later study. Florence Goodenough developed a short-sample technique, whereby children were observed for brief periods of time and the presence or absence of specific behaviors were noted. Over the next decade, a variety of other psychologists observed children in nursery [Page 723]schools and other commonplace settings and used coding systems to record social interactions.

Henry Murray employed observational techniques with adults during the late 1930s, which he then applied to personnel selection for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services during World War II. His work included the early use of role-playing as a way to sample behavior during normally occurring social situations. During this same time period, Kurt Lewin favored observation techniques over psychological tests and played a key role in popularizing the use of observational techniques. Roger Barker worked with Lewin in studies of frustration in children, and with colleagues later coded the moment-to-moment behaviors of a child documented in One Boy's Day. Another seminal figure in naturalistic observation was Robert Bales, who developed a method for categorizing behaviors documented in the influential book Interaction Process Analysis.

The rise of behavior therapy during the 1950s and early 1960s brought observational techniques into widespread use in psychology. Operant behavioral procedures pioneered by psychologist B. F. Skinner and colleagues had particular influence in educational psychology. In early studies, observational measures of child behaviors were employed to monitor the effectiveness of various techniques to change behaviors within the school context. Two key research groups that were among the first to employ behavioral observational techniques extensively were those of Sidney Bijou and Gerald R. Patterson. During the late 1960s, Patterson, John B. Reid, and colleagues spear-headed the development of sophisticated behavioral observation coding systems to study child aggression and other antisocial behaviors within family and classroom settings. Since this period, a wide variety of coding systems have been developed by educational, clinical, and developmental psychologists to monitor various aspects of social interactions within school, home, clinic, and laboratory settings.

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