What do case studies and naturalistic observation have in common...?

...as psychological research methods.

What do case studies and naturalistic observation have in common...?
The following are excerpts from my notes of 2 of my 2nd year psychology classes.





Naturalistic observation - observe and record behaviours of children in natural settings


Pro- real life behaviours – antecedents and consequences


Con – possible confounding variables – rare behaviours may not occur.





Case Studies


In-depth examination of psychological characteristics/behaviours of single individual. Cannot generalize.





Naturalistic observations – field methods. – descriptive research. Does not interfere with observation. Just observe and report what is spontaneously occurring. Description of real life behaviour, as opposite to constructed lab settings. Good external validity. No control over behaviour of which you are interested in. may have to wait a long time for behaviour to materialize. Natural settings very complex. Many things happening at once, can’t observe all. Potential bias on part of observer my distort data observers presence may change behaviour. Settings always changing, difficult to replicate.





Case Studies


interviews, review of records, testing. Often by clinicians to diagnose problem. Also in research – Freud. Find one specific factor, can expand. GENERATE HYPOTHESIS – needs to be tested on other people. Often much info from past comes from interviews with subjects, family, friends all problems of self report. Limited external validity – might not be true for other individuals.








Hope this helps.