Observations: Behavioural Categories & Inter-observer Reliability (AQA GCSE Psychology)

• Categories of behaviour are observable behaviours which researchers will be looking out for during the observation
• The researchers will have previously agreed on which specific behaviours should be recorded so that all observers are in agreement before the observation 
• The behaviour categories should be clear and unambiguous, e.g. in an observation of children’s aggression the categories could be:
• ABL = Aggressive body language
• AGB = Aggressive behaviour
• NABG = Non-aggressive behaviour
• The behaviour categories have to be operationalised to make sure they are specific and cannot be confused with anything else, for example:
• ABL could be subdivided into ‘pointing’, ‘shaking fist’, ‘baring teeth’
• AGB could be subdivided into ‘punching’, ‘kicking’, ‘shoving’
• NABG could be subdivided into ‘smiling’, ‘arm-linking’, ‘hugging’
• These categories could then be arranged into whether it is boys or girls who are being aggressive/non-aggressive and to whom the aggression/non-aggression is directed i.e. at another boy/boys or another girl/girls for even more detail and information

• Even with categories of behaviour an observation can still be affected by researcher bias
• Researchers can test the reliability of their observations by comparing them with another researcher's recording of their behaviours: the level of consistency between the two records is then compared
• Inter-observer reliability is the level of consistency between two or more trained observers when they conduct the same observation. This is summarised as follows:
  • All observers must agree on the behaviour categories and how they are going to record them before the observation begins
  • The observation is conducted separately by each observer to avoid conformity (i.e. one observer may be influenced by one or more other observers)
  • After the observational period:
    • The observers compare the two independent data sets (often designed as a tally chart)
    • They then test the correlation between the two sets
    • If there is a strong positive correlation between the sets then this shows that there is good inter-observer reliability and that the behaviour categories are reliable
• Establishing good inter-observer reliability means that there is less chance that researcher bias has interfered with the observation

An example of a tally chart with behaviour categories.