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Observation in the natural sciences [1] is an act or instance of noticing or perceiving [2] and the acquisition of information from a primary source. In living beings, observation employs the senses. In science, observation can also involve the perception and recording of data via the use of scientific instruments. The term may also refer to ...
In probability and statistics, a realization, observation, or observed value, of a random variable is the value that is actually observed (what actually happened). The random variable itself is the process dictating how the observation comes about.
The unit of observation should not be confused with the unit of analysis.A study may have a differing unit of observation and unit of analysis: for example, in community research, the research design may collect data at the individual level of observation but the level of analysis might be at the neighborhood level, drawing conclusions on neighborhood characteristics from data collected from ...
In statistics, the frequency or absolute frequency of an event is the number of times the observation has occurred/been recorded in an experiment or study. [1]: 12–19 These frequencies are often depicted graphically or tabular form.
Examples of observer bias extend back to the early 1900's. One of the first recorded events of apparent observer bias was seen in 1904, with the case of "Clever Hans". Clever Hans was a horse whose owner, Wilhem von Olson, claimed could solve arithmetic equations. Von Olson would ask Clever Hans a series of questions involving arithmetic ...
In probability theory, an event is a subset of outcomes of an experiment (a subset of the sample space) to which a probability is assigned. [1] A single outcome may be an element of many different events, [2] and different events in an experiment are usually not equally likely, since they may include very different groups of outcomes. [3]
In statistics, where classification is often done with logistic regression or a similar procedure, the properties of observations are termed explanatory variables (or independent variables, regressors, etc.), and the categories to be predicted are known as outcomes, which are considered to be possible values of the dependent variable.
Lastly, disguised observation raises some ethical issues regarding obtaining information without respondents' knowledge. For example, the observations collected by an observer participating in an internet chat room discussing how racists advocate racial violence may be seen as incriminating evidence collected without the respondents' knowledge.