Direct observation as a research technique

DIRECT OBSERVATION AS A RESEARCH TECHNIQUE’ JOHN HERBERT

The Ontario Institute fur Studies i n Education and University of Toronto

Thirty years ago, in his article on observation in the Review of Educational Research, Jersild wrote: “Direct observation is the oldest, and remains the com- monest instrument of scientific research. Its systematic use in research in child development and education has become especially prominent during the past fifteen years [Jersild & Meigs, 1939, p. 4721.” Since that time, it is generally agreed, the number of studies using observation techniques has declined as a proportion of all the research on children and teachers. In 1955 Gellert wrote: “From the late thirties on the popularity of systematic observation as a research method declined [p. lSO].” In 1960 Wright reported that between 1890 and 1958 only about eight percent of studies in child development reported each year had involved any systematic observation.2 In 1963 Medley and Mitzel found that although observation was still the most obvious approach to research on teaching, “. . . it is a rare study indeed that includes any formal observation at all . . . [p. 2471.” The persistence of this trend is confirmed by the fact that while the 1960 edition of the Encyclopedia of Educational Research had a separate chapter on observational techniques, the edition merely includes observation in a chapter on “Research Methods.”

The opposite might have been expected, especially in view of the recent emphasis 011 individual differences, the trend from prescriptive to descriptive studies, and the enormous increase in ease and accuracy of recording made possible by the new technological devices. Yet such instruments as tests and questionnaires continue to be used much more frequently than observation. I should like to consider two out of many possible reasons for the failure of researchers to use observation techniques: the misconceptions which have arisen about the practical difficulties of using observation; and the need to clarify or revise theoretical assumptions about the design, interpretation, and reporting of observation studies. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss some of these problems in the hope of instigating a more general re-examination of the potentialities of observation as an instrument of educational research.

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS Observation has been reported to be expensive in time, money and skilled

effort, to incite resentment in teachers and administrators and to distort the behaviour to be observed (Medley & Mitzel, 1963). There is some support for this position, though I have been able to find little hard evidence which would make possible clear comparison among research techniques. Considering that many of the reports are based on practical difficulties encountered in studies undertaken before the recent spate of technological improvements, there is no evidence that the reputed disadvantages of observation over other techniques still exist. Today, with new wireless and tape recording techniques, the same data obtained by these studies could be gathered much more simply, inexpensively and accurately.

‘Some of the material in this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educa- tional Research Association in Los Angela, 1969, under the title “Observing the Observer and the Observed.”

ZThough he also found that observation studies increased at 30-year intervals, during 1900-1909 aiid 1930-1939. If this continues we were due for a bumper decade during 1960-1969.

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Cost The argument that the cost of observation is high has undoubtedly reduced the

number of researchers who might have used this technique. By the usual standards of expenditure for research in education and the social sciences, some of the more notable recent observation studies have undoubtedly been elaborate and expensive. But the costliness of these projects is not inherent in the use of observation as a research tool. For example, Ryand study of the charactastics of teachers (1960) involved the construction of a special rating instrument, the Classroom Observation Record, which was based on 500 critical incidents gathered by a team of interviewers. Twenty-four observers were trained for five weeks; over three thousand teachers were observed; elaborate studies were conducted to assess the reliability of the observers. Upper echelon staff as well as trainees acted as observers, and travelled all over the country. Observations of 2,043 teachers were recorded and analyzed by complex statistical techniques. All these are expensive items. However, if equally detailed and sophisticated procedures had been followed without any observation, for example, using interviews and questionnaires, as Ryans in fact did for part of the study, the costs would probably not have been less. In practice, moreover, the “returns” on observations were much higher than on the questionnaires, since not many more than half of these were properly completed.

Another of the most elaborate studies, the development of OScAR 111, was also very costly; but this does not give a true picture of the cost of observation studies, because in OScAR 111 television tape recordings were being used extensively at a time when this was still a new technique, and much of the expenditure of about 1,000 dollars per teacher went for prototype designing work and new equipment which was subsequently used for teacher preparation.S The study by Barker and Wright (1954) is an example of the cost reduction which results from using modern observation equipment. They found that they needed six observers to record the interaction of one child with his environment, and had to have interrogators to check the observers’ written reports. Even so only a m a l l part of the daily interactions were recorded. Using a wireless observation technique, two observers could probably record a much greater part of the interaction at a fraction of the cost,

The costs of even the most elaborate observation studies in education and child development are, of course, minute by comparison with those of observation in the physical sciences, which may involve electron microscopes, telescopes, or visits to the Arctic, the moon, or the ocean floor. And when one looks through the many excellent reviews of observation studies in the pedagogical and social sciences, one finds that many useful studies were not elaborate and could not have been very expensive (Boyd & DeVault, 1966; Gellert, 1955; Heyns & Lippitt, 1954; Heyns & Zander, 1953; Jersild & Meigs, 1939; Medley & Mitael, 1963; Webb, Campbell, Schwartz,& Sechrest, 1966; Weick, 1968; Withall, 1960; Wright, 1960; Wrightstone, 1960). Indeed, some seem to have involved little more than the time of graduate students employed as observers and researchers. Some studies (Ober, Wood, & Roberts, 1968) have used school pupils as observers,’ while others have used the normal teacher supervision process, or student teachers, or supervisors in training, to obtain records of observations. Wright (1960), in his review of observational

SPersonal communication from Medley, 1968. ‘The author has also used elementary school students as observers.

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studies of children, comes to the conclusion that ‘ I . . . this must be the simplest way of all to study child behaviour [p. 711.”

Unfortunately, speculation about the relative costs of various types of research instruments is limited by the fact that we have no definite information about the costs of observation studies. Such information would be perfectly possible to obtain if researchers willing to report on their expenditures would use standard accounting procedures-for example, in assessing costs where existing facilities are used or where new equipment has a life exceeding that of the project for which it is pur- chased. Costing has been done for interviewing and questionnaire studies-with the predictable result that sometimes telephone interviews and sometimes questionnaires. are cheaper. In other words, it seems highly improbable that any given research instrument is intrinsically more-or-less expensive than others. Technical and practical decisions have to be made with respect to specific objectives and cir- cumstances.

Resistance to Observation The second objection is that observation is resented by school administrators

and teachers. As a generalization, this is clearly false. One measure is the number of times that teachers do in fact admit observers into their classrooms. Professor Rysns informs me that in the portion of his study in which observation was used, the rate of refusal by teachers was very, very low, and that he does not remember a single instance in which a principal refused to co-operate. Yet the same teachers returned only fifty to fifty-five percent of the questionnaires which they were asked to complete. Similarly, Wallen and Wodke (1963) report that in their study only one out of sixty-five teachers refused to be observed. In my own experience of observation studies made in hundreds of classrooms in England, the United States, and Canada, I have met only very rarely with objections, usually when a teacher felt unwell, or when some crisis was expected to occur in the handling of a particularly difficult child. Even then, had it been my purpose to observe teachers working under such stresses, I feel sure that I could have obtained permission to do so. Frequently I have observed in situations where the teacher had a perfectly valid reason to deny admission but where I was nevertheless cheerfully permitted to make elaborate recordings of everything that went on. I have, in fact, more often had to refuse an invitation to visit a classroom than to accept a refusal to permit observation.

As Selltiz, Jahoda, Deutsch, & Cook (1959) point out, “In field observation. . . a faulty approach to a key person may have dire consequences for the entire inquiry [p. 2181.” They provide some guidelines for obtaining co-operation in field studies, including the inventing of pretexts or of “dressing up.” In educational research this is rarely necessary. My own experience has been that treating teachers as colleagues, giving them some control over access to observation records, and offering them some gain in knowledge from the experience is all that is needed-and often more than is required-to secure full co-operation.

Observer Efects Finally, the argument is advanced that observation distorts the events to be

observed. The effect of observation on the data observed is, of course, a theoretical

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question, and will be dealt with later. But it has practical and administrative aspects. The practical question is whether the presence of observers and their technical crews and equipment may disorganize the school program or create an impression of disruption to such an extent that a loss of pupil time or of public approval results. Again, we lack information to resolve this issue decisively; but the impression of most researchers, including myself, is that the day to day work of a school is not likely to be changed by the presence even of large numbers of researchers. Where members of the public are led to think otherwise, it is a problem in public relations to make clear the actual impact of observation teams and the benefits to education that are likely to result from observation research. What can change the educational program is the substantial influx of visitors which sometimes results from publicity in the popular and educational press, but probably not from publication in research journals. Administrators of research projects can anticipate and avoid practical difficulties by making specific decisions about the kind, calibre, and numbers of observers and technical devices best suited to any given setting or project. Information about such factors would be invaluable in the planning of projects, if researchers could be persuaded to supply it in their reports.

Although more information is needed, it seems to be a reasonable presumption that there are few if any practical barriers to using observation in research studies. But most practical questions have a theoretical side. What are the effects on the data of such practical or technical decisions as the manner in which subjects are approached by the researcher, the devices chosen to record data, the settings used, and so on? Perhaps the greatest barrier to resolving theoretical questions is the absence or incompleteness of reports on observation techniques in the research literature. Direct observation is after all the only technique which enables us to say what actually goes on in an educational setting and what impact innovations have on educational processes. A failure to observe in natural settings will in- evitably lead to incorrect assumptions. There are studies which suggest that there is a decisive difference between the information that subjects give on questionnaires and in interviews and the information which observers gather about their behaviour during the actual event (La Piere, 1934; Franzen, 1950; Siersted & Hansen, 1951; Ryans, 1960).

THEORETICAL PROBLEMS We have seen that practical objections to observation as a research tool are

fairly easily overcome. Theoretical problems are more serious. One reason is that they have been neglected. We have been much less willing to examine the assumptions we make when deciding how to observe behaviour for educational research than have workers in such fields as social psychology, child development, anthro- pology, and sociology. And, on the whole, we have ignored work in other fields from which we might be able to profit. The scarcit8y of methodological discussion in our discipline and the astonishing lack of overlap with related disciplines can be illus- trated by a comparison of two recent summaries of work on observation, one in the new Handbook of Social Psychology, and the other in the Review of Educalional Research for 1966. The first, “Systematic Observational Methods,” by Karl Weick, contains two hundred and eighty-eight references in the bibliography. The second, “The Observation and Recording of Behaviour,” by Robert Boyd and N. V. De-

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Vault contains ninety-nine references. The extraordinary fact is that amongst these three hundred and eighty-seven references, only seventeen occur in both chapters. It could conceivably be argued that we have less need in education than in other fields to examine our observational methodology, or that we have less need for methodology, or that the methodology used in education is so different that we have little to learn about observation from other disciplines. No one has argued so, to my knowledge, and I certainly do not intend to do so.

Wittgenstein (1963) asks: “When do we say that anyone is observing?” He answers: “Roughly: when he puts himself in a favourable position to receive certain impressions in order (for example) to describe what they tell him [p. 1871.” As observers for purposes of educational research, however, we may wish to restrict our concept of observation so that we may designate the kinds of impressions that are IikeIy to Iead to appropriate descriptions of educational behaviour. Or we may stipulate that a favourable position is not a sufficient condition of observation, but that communicable results must be obtained, or that the behaviour of the observer must be methodical or systematic. We might, for example, use Weick’s (1968) definition: “Planned methodical watching that involves constraints to improve accuracy [p. 3581.”

Scientist or Artist In determining the criteria that define the act of observation for educational

research, perhaps the first question to ask is whether the observer acts as a scientist or realistic artist. Both the scientist and the artist seek order in nature, but they have different objectives and use different techniques. The scientist is concerned with the common or general or quantifiable properties of the phenomena he observes, and he must be able to replicate the conditions or a t least the procedures of his observation. Here is a characteristic definition of scientific observation: “Observation becomes a scientific technique to the extent that it (1) serves a formulated research purpose, (2) is planned systematically, (3) is recorded systematically and relates to more general propositions rat,her than being presented as a set of interesting curiosa, and (4) is subject to checks and controls on validity and reliability [Selltiz, et al., 1959, p. 2001.” The artist observer, on the other hand, seeks not numbers or propositions but images that represent vividly even while they interpret what is unique or valu- able in behaviour. Here, for example, is the view of the novelist Flaubert as quoted by Guy de Maupassant in his preface to Pierre et Jean: “When you pass a grocer sitting in his doorway, a porter smoking his pipe, or a cab stand, show me that grocer, and that porter, their attitude and their whole physical aspect, including, as indicated by the skill of the portrait-their whole moral nature, in such a way that I could never mistake them for any other grocer or porter [1902, p. LXI].”

It might well be that educational researchers would find it useful to be able to convey vividly the unique styles and attitudes of particular teachers. But this alternative seems never to be considered as a controlled research technique.5 Perhaps &s a result of the great success of the physical sciences and of the measurement

Weick’s definition does not answer this question.

6There are exceptions according to Barker (1963): “literary langu e has been suspect as a tool of science and the effort to achieve greater precision via formulae, graBs, numbers, meter readings, photographs, etc. continues. However, rich descriptive language is at the present time the recording medium par excellence of the stream of behaviour and it appears that it is likely to remain so [p. 201.”

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movement, the Scientists have been in the ascendant for four decades. Thus Jersild, in other ways a humanist, writes that: “Systematic observation concerns itself with systematic recording in objective terms of behaviour in process of occurring in a manner that will yield quantitative, individual scores [Jersild & Meigs, 1939, p. 4721.” This definition is quoted verbatim by Gellert (1955) and accepted as her own. Medley and Mitzel (1963) agree, and also restrict the term “observational technique” to “. . . refer only to procedures which use systematic observations of classroom behaviour to obtain reliable and valid measurements of differences in the typical behaviours which occur in different classrooms or in different situations in the same classroom [p. 2501.”

But we do not seem to have followed the scientists in their precise study of the tolerances and limitations of their observation tools snd devices. In psychology, which has adopted the physical sciences model even more completely than education, some studies have begun to approach the question in a critical spirit. For example, Friedman, Kurland, and Rosenthal (1965) point out that “. . . within the traditional view of psychological experimentation there was no room for a process of mediation of E (experimenter) effect and E bias. Es have been regarded ideally as inflexible, programmed, and interchangeable [p. 4881.” Some studies give the impression of a frantic attempt to quantify something that cannot even be described precisely, which might almost be a reversion to the time when theologians asked how many angels can dance on the head of a pin instead of asking whether angels have cor- poreal substance. Thus in educational and psychological research the physical science model has led to a reliance on statistics and observers trained to see and report the same things and on taxonomies and category systems designed for this purpose.

Recently a number of humanist observers-for example, John Holt (1964), Martin Mayer (1961), Philip Jackson (1968), Harry Woolcott (1967), and Jules Henry (1963)-have observed in classrooms and have sought to report with a degree of artistic vividness and particularity the quality and significance of their experiences (Christie, 1960; Kaufman, 1964). Having rejected the scientific model for their inquiries, these observers have been free to react sensitively, intuitively, and flexibly to the complex and fluid context of the classroom, to perceive unexpected patterns of behaviour, to reveal the school and the child in a new light. While the educational arguments which they have themselves based on their observations have perhaps been unsubstantiated, nevertheless suggestions and insights emerge from their work which might very usefully be followed up by methodical and impartial inquiries. We also might consider how to use such descriptions in research. As Murray Sidman (1960) points out: “The discovery of new phenomena is, above all, a creative enterprise [p. 241.’’

The point is that decisions about how to observe ought to be made deliberately by researchers after considering their particular significant question and the full range of available alternatives for seeking answers and for communicating results. What is, in Wittgenstein’s phrase, “a favourable position to receive . . . impressions” and “to describe what they tell” will depend on the purpose of the observer a t that time. We need quantitative and correlative information about teaching and learn- ing, and therefore we must have observation techniques through which we call obtain quantifiable results. But we also need answers to questions about cause and


effect, and often we need to raise exploratory questions which invite the researcher to use his ability to reason or his theoretical grounding in a social science or his sensitivity to human relations or his ability to make brilliant guesses.

One way to identify or describe the alternatives available to a researcher might be in terms of models for observation: the novelist, the journalist, the anthro- pologist or psychologist or physical scientist, and so on. In selecting a model, of course, the researcher must be aware of the danger that he may, as Thomas Edison warned, fish with a net with a three-inch mesh and prove that all fishes are more than three inches wide. The secret is perhaps to know and state precisely the range and limitations of the technique used and the degree of regularity or generality of the phenomena observed, so that one can detect spurious accuracy as readily as unfounded generalizations. Each of these models would tend to place emphasis on a different aspect of information gathering. For example, reliance on the natural science model would lead to neglect of problems which the social scientist might stress: the effect of the various procedures used to gain entry to the field and to maintain relationships with the observed, the effect on the data of the expectations of observers and of their cultural status, and the effect on observers of their relationships with the observed.

In choosing among alternative models, researchers would have to consider in detail theoretical assumptions which have for a long time been made unconsciously or uncritically: for example, the assumption that observers and the observed do not affect one another; that the observation medium or device does not influence the data or the findings; that verbal discourse is representative of all social interaction; and that statistical manipulations can take the place of a rational analysis of the procedures used or the questions asked. I should like to examine these in turn.

The Observer and the Observed It is obvious that interaction takes place between observer and observed, and

that such interaction in some way affects the results of observational studies-so obvious, in fact, that the first question most laymen ask about observational research is based upon this insight. What is the effect, they ask, of observation on the observed? The standard answer, that awareness of being observed soon wears off, is enshrined in the books on research methodology. Selltiz, et al. (1959), for example, write: “On the whole, people seem to get used to observers if the behavior of the observers convinces the group members that they are no threat [p. 2331.”

If this remark represents the most rigorous assessment we can make, then researchers may well persist in their reluctance to use observation techniques. The first difficulty is that the statement is just too vague. One immediately wants to know: What does “on the whole” mean? What are the exceptions, and how can one tell when they occur? Under what conditions is a group likely to feel that observation is a threat? How can these conditions be avoided?

A second difficulty is that the statement, though partly true, is misleading. People under observation may respond to aspects of the situation that are not threatening. For example, despondent protesters trudging through the streets have been known to turn themselves suddenly into high-spirited rioters when television camera lights were turned on. Teachers in “show” schools often give the impression t#hat they are performing for visitors. School boys may “act up” for their

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classmates as well as for visitors, and even experienced judges have been known to play to the gallery. As Boorstin (1961) has suggested, the presence of observers may create many kinds of “pseudo-events” whose (‘. . . relationship to the underlying reality is ambiguous [p. 111.” Moreover, even though “people seem to get used to observers,” the “pseudo-eventsl’ generated by the initial impact of observation may well continue to affect behaviour even after everything has apparently returned to normal. Evidence is provided by many research studies, ranging from the Haw- thorne studies of the 1930’s to the work of Rosenthal and Jacobson in 1968, that subtle but significant changes take place in the behaviour of people who are being studied, whether by direct observation or other means. Behaviour may change, for example, because observation satisfies certain needs of the observed, or because the expressed or presumed judgments of the observers have a suggestive power.

In other words, we need to acquire much more precise knowledge than we now have not only of the effect of observation on the observed but also of the ways in which direct observation resembles and differs from other research instruments in its effects on the subjects of research. Before observation can become a rigorous research technique, however, we also must examine the effects of observation on the observer-the influence of the setting, the subjects, and the media or devices (including technical crews, if any) of observation on the data obtained. In educational research we have been slow to examine this problem. Although Boyd and DeVault (1961) find that “considerable evidence is available to show a reciprocal effect between the observer and the situation or the person observed [p. 5441,” not one of the six references they cite is from the pedagogical literature.

The fundamental difficulty arises from a paradox inherent in all social science research. To enter the field of observation, directly or through a proxy or observation device, the researcher must have a theory of social structure and action within the field that controls his mode of entry, the role he assumes, and his selection of behaviour to observe. Yet as soon as the observer enters the field, he submits himself to control by the observed. For example, when he walks into a school in the role which teachers and pupils, administrators and janitors, recognize as that of the education professor, he is shown a different set of events from those he would see if he came as a nurse, a headmaster, a visiting dignitary, or a new boy. And if he wishes to remain in the field, he has to continue to behave according to the con- ceptions that the observed have of his role. Their expectations in this way control the observation.

The reciprocal influence of the observer’s theory and the data of observation operate in other ways, too. An observer cannot collect data without making some selection, interpretation, and prediction of events a t the time of observation, often including unseen events whose significance he must infer. For example, an observer sees the teacher addressing a child: “Tim?” and he infers that this means: ‘(Tim, I would like you to give the answer within about the next minute. If you cannot do so, I will ask the next boy. I doubt that you can answer, because you probably didn’t read the material. . . .” These inferences help him to decide what are the important elements of the situation. This decision, based both on his theory of social action and on the data observed, will in turn determine his next decision: whether to focus on the boy who has just been called upon, or on the teacher, or on the boy who might be chosen next, or on the blackboard that holds the answer,


or on the impatient pupil who knows the answer, and so on. Similarly, of course, the data that he subsequently collects may lead him to modify his initial inference and in turn to modify the theory on which it was based.

The observer’s view of the structure of the field, his method of entry, and the role he assumes are therefore part of the research design, and should be reported as such. This has only rarely been done. Ryans (1960, p. 15) presents an interesting examination of his assumptions in the part of the Teacher Characteristics Study called “Step Towards a Theory of Teacher Behavior.” Reports on entrance into the field and ways of avoiding threat may be found in studies by Harvey, White, Prather, and Alter (1966), Gump (1967), and Kounin, Friesen, and Norton (1966).

The scarcity of such reports suggests that researchers are insufficiently aware of decisions which must be made, consciously or otherwise, in the design of a research study using observation. Much work will need to be done before it is possible to discuss the full range of alternatives and the complex relationships of theoretical, practical, and technical decisions. What remains of this paper will be devoted to suggesting some important considerations that ought to go into design of an observation study and the report of the data.

As has been suggested, a researcher using observation must decide on his model of observation-artistic and scientific-and the particular style he favours-for example, journalist or realistic novelist, game analyst, clinical diagnostician, or nineteenth-century naturalist. The basis for his decision will probably lie in the purpose of the study, but will also include an examination of the kinds of observer bias and observer effects that are characteristic of each model or style of observation. The model chosen will limit the next set of decisions that can be made: the kinds of controls that will be appropriate, the mode of entry into the field, the selection and training of observers, the preparation of the people to be observed, and so on. In order to make his chosen model effective, the researcher also needs to select his theory of social action as it applies to the milieu to be observed, and to decide on the corresponding role the observer should adopt in the observational setting. The selection and training of observers determines their frame of reference, and the researcher must therefore also make decisions on such questions as whether his purposes will best be served by observers who are naive or sophisticated with respect to the theoretical constructs of his study, and whether it is desirable to secure observer agreement to facilitate quantitative analysis or the richer and more complete data that may result from diversity among observers.

Each model chosen will emphasize some aspects of the data and neglect others, and each model has its own discipline and controls, which need to be reported. We have hardly begun to work out the alternatives open at each stage of research design. For example, usually the only controls considered are those of statistical manipulation of data and observer agreement. Sometimes categories are carefully designed and, very rarely, the relationship of categories is examined. Similarly, little is known about ways to assess the effect on the data of such matters as the observers’ expectations about the outcome of the study, or the techniques used to reduce the effect on the observed, the observers or the observation media. We shall be much better able to obtain such knowledge when researchers begin to take these and similar problems into account in planning and reporting their studies.

The interdependence of technical, practical, and theoretical considerations

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can perhaps most readily be seen in decisions about observer behaviour and the choice between live observers and the various kinds of observation devices. For example, the researcher must decide what range of observer behaviours are likely to take place as a result of observation. Some possible research designs to test for such changes were mentioned earlier. In making such decisions he must consider the behaviour of technical crews as carefully as that of professional staff entering the scene. Technicians who are pretentious, boisterous, or unbusinesslike, or who eye the girls or discuss observed events may well have an undesirable influence on the behaviour to be observed yet subjects under observation may have quite different expectations of technical crews than of other personnel. For example, we have used, without creating a stir, crew members with beards and long hair in schools where a similar absence of conventional grooming in the other observers would have resulted in immediate rejection of the study.

This presumption is also confirmed by producers of television documentaries, who find that directors and crews who adhere most closely to their expected behaviours seem to have the least effect on the natural action of subjects. Neil Andrews, the director of such CBC documentaries as “Youth and the Law,” finds that when the crew is businesslike and when the observed are filmed in settings and activities which they would normally engage in, the “actors1’ seem to be extraordinarily unaware of the observers. Thus a judge continued to counsel a “juvenile delinquent,” who actually was an actor, after the cameras had ceased to roll.

Observers as Receptors, Recorders and Reproducers However, it should not be assumed that electronic observation devices that

require technical crews are superior to live observers for every research purpose. In choosing his media of observation, the researcher must be aware of the advantages and limitations of the various available alternatives. Live observers are highly sensitive multimedia receptors, capable of receiving and synchronizing many very different and subtle impressions. They are also incredibly flexible and can shift their frames of reference drastically when requested to do so. Many reported instances which purport to prove the poor observation capacity of live observers actually demonstrate the ability of such observers to select their frames of reference. Naturally, this flexibility can create problems. Observers sometimes shift when not required to do so by the research design. In addition, when unexpected events occur, there may be a delay while the observer selects a new frame of reference and decides which categories are vital.

Live observers differ greatly from one another in their recording capacity; and their potentiality for development has hardly been examined. It may prove, for example, that with hypnosis the recording capacity of human beings can be vastly increased. It is fascinating, too, to read of the elaborate aids to memory the ancient rhetoricians used to recall their long orations. As reproducing devices, however, live observers are extremely limited.

Technical devices such as tape recorders, cameras, and video tape have much greater powers of reproduction than live observers, even though their powers of observation are more limited. However, there are vast differences among various pieces of equipment. On multi-track audio, separation of channels is vital. Video reproducers must be chosen with extreme care when small gestures, facial ex-


pressions, or writing on the blackboard need to be recorded, since most video reproducers do not permit this type of detail to be seen. Technical devices also have certain powers of observation which human beings lack : infra-red photography can be used in darkened rooms, for example, and wireless microphones are not seriously impeded by walls. Here, too, the researcher must be aware of differences among apparently similar devices, and of their limitations as well as their advantages. The choice among particular types of microphone can drastically influence the amount that is picked up and recorded. The sample of sounds heard by a wireless microphone is quite different from that heard by a live observer. Videoscopes have a long, continuous audio-visual record, but are usually fixed to one location and have the additional limitation that the frequent need for repair makes sampling procedures hazardous.

Although observation studies are at present relatively infrequent in educational research, there are signs that a new trend may be developing. Among these auguries are reports of the establishment of data and tape banks containing recordings of lessons and other educational interactions. If we intend to rely on such materials for the testing of hypotheses, we should make a serious effort to obtain information about the procedures used in making recordings and about the extent to which they may be shaped by reciprocal influences of the observer and the observed. Our findings and the uses to which they are put may be grossly defective unless we can learn much more than we now know about the implications of every decision that may be made in securing data by means of direct observation.

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Direct observation as a research technique