Observational Study
I think observational study is the most valuable because I find seeing and describing behavior is more valuable than predicting it. It's where the subject is being observed in a completely natural and unchanged environment. It simply describes individuals naturally without interfering with their surroundings. And this helps a lot of research especially when I feel that some subjects cannot be observed any other way; for example, an athropologist who wanted to study a tribe without affecting their normal behavior. Or another popular form of observational research include the mystery shopper or mystery customer technique to test quality of the consumer experience or quality of customer service. Or on a personal note working at mental state hospital we are constantly having to watch clients behaviors, body language and so forth 24 hours a day. We also have a lot of 1:1 who are on suicide precautions, where we are their shadow. We watch these clients shower, sleep, eat and how they interact with others. We then document every 15 min. of what we saw or did with these clients. This close observation as we call it really helps us to protect other clients from being harmed as well as harming themselves. These are all good observational research that help benefit us in a lot of ways. Not like case study, a lot of them have serious drawbacks, information is often missing or can be very hard to interpret. Or even psychological tests these test require people to answer a series of written or oral questions. But do you ever ever question those tests validness? I feel like knowing it is better than questioning it. Direct observation you can reduce "self report" data that is subject to many sources of error, including memory effects, and unconcious motivations of respondents to tell the interviewer what they want to hear or in some cases (what they don't want to hear). Observational study don't rely on impression or memory, careful record. They count rate, or measure behavior...
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