Humpty Dumpty HAD A GREAT FALL...

Naturalistic research metholodigies are an appropriate methodology for a qualitative study because the goal of naturalistic observation in psychology is to study the behavior of an individual in it's natural and or original setting.This type of research design is often utilized in situations where conducting lab research is unrealistic, or would unduly affect the subject's behavior. Naturalistic observation differs from structured observation in that it involves looking at a behavior as it occurs in its natural setting with no attempts at intervention or disruption on the part of the researcher.

This study will provide answers to my research questions in different ways. As a researcher I would have to utilize different techniques to collect data from naturalistic observation. This would involve writing down the number of times a certain behavior occurred in a specific period of time, and or making a video-recording of the subject(s) that are being observed. Tally counts would be used keep a quantifiable account of a certain behavior. Narratives will act as qualitative data to deduce behavior patterns from. All of the aforementioned data can be collected at random times or set intervals of time.

The sort of bias that a research may encounter during a naturalistic research approach is observers bias. Observer bias occurs when the researchers' biases determine which behaviors they choose to observe and which to overlook. This leads to not taking all actions into account when compiling data and thus leads to skewed results. When a researchers' expectations about behavior leads to systematic errors in identifying and recording behavior this greatly affects the validity and integrity of the research design as a whole. A researchers expectancy can add to biases because when researchers are aware of hypotheses for the outcome of the study or the outcome of previous studies they tend to only seek to identify behaviors that will justify their hypotheses. To ensure that a researcher does not succumb to observer biases, or expectancy errors, it helps to keep the researcher blind to the goals and the hypotheses of the study. That way it is ensured that all aspects of the subjects behavior is notated, recorded, and taken into account for the data and results.