Inclusion of Audio and Video Analysis System in Teaching Observational Methods in Developmental Psychology

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Through this project, the teaching of observational research methods in an upper-level undergraduate psychology class are being improved. The specific goals pertain to the improvement of the students' understanding of the relationship `etween empirical data and psychological theory. Three areas of weakness in the thinking of undergraduates about psychological research are being addressed. First, students come to understand how psychology maintains methodological rigor in spite of fuzzy, real-world conditions of research. Second, students perceive observed phenomena as data, not personal experience. Third, students learn that psychological measurement does not apply to real things, but is constructed. The desired change in students can be best achieved through instructional methods that require students' active involvement and that adequately scaffold student activity. Seminar on Childhood and Culture provides students with the opportunity to engage in observational research with an instructor's guidance. Groups of students in this course are responsible for planning and carrying out a research project, which involves a brief survey, two semi-structured interviews with an adult and a child, and four sessions of systematic observation of adult child and child child interaction in formal and informal contexts. The project includes audio and video recording and computerized coding and analysis of audio and video data. The benefits of this approach include increased efficiency of student research; firm scaffolding of code scheme development by The Observer software; use of materials in class for longitudinal illustrative purposes, when direct student observation is inaccessible; and the repetition and sharing of the same recorded material as many times as necessary. *