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Observational research is a method of data collection that has become associated with qualitative research. [1] Compared with quantitative research and experimental research, observational research tends to be less reliable but often more valid [citation needed]. The main advantage of observational research is flexibility.
Anthropological survey paper from 1961 by Juhan Aul from University of Tartu who measured about 50 000 people. In fields such as epidemiology, social sciences, psychology and statistics, an observational study draws inferences from a sample to a population where the independent variable is not under the control of the researcher because of ethical concerns or logistical constraints.
For a great example of disguised research, see the Rosenhan experiment in which several researchers seek admission to twelve different mental hospitals to observe patient-staff interactions and patient diagnosing and releasing procedures. There are several benefits to doing participant observation.
The observational interpretation fallacy is the cognitive bias where associations identified in observational studies are misinterpreted as causal relationships. This misinterpretation often influences clinical guidelines, public health policies, and medical practices, sometimes to the detriment of patient safety and resource allocation.
Observational data forms the foundation of a significant body of knowledge. Observation is a method of data collection and falls into the category of qualitative research techniques. There are a number of benefits of observation, including its simplicity as a data collection method and its usefulness for hypotheses.
An example might be a drug with many adverse effects given first, making patients taking a second, less harmful medicine, more sensitive to any adverse effect. Second is the issue of "carry-over" between treatments, which confounds the estimates of the treatment effects. In practice, "carry-over" effects can be avoided with a sufficiently long ...
Under longitudinal research methods, the reduction in the research sample will bias the remaining smaller sample. [ citation needed ] Practice effect is also one of the problems: longitudinal studies tend to be influenced because subjects repeat the same procedure many times (potentially introducing autocorrelation ), and this may cause their ...
Naturalistic observation, sometimes referred to as fieldwork, is a research methodology in numerous fields of science including ethology, anthropology, linguistics, the social sciences, and psychology, in which data are collected as they occur in nature, without any manipulation by the observer.