Observational Research and Its Value

        Observational research is also known as field research. This is a type of research which describes the non-experimental research, in this type of research an individual observes the kind of behavior which is being displayed without performing any experiments. There are several types of observational research and very type has its own strengths and weaknesses. The types are discussed below on the extent of their part in an experiment in controlled environmental conditions. Evaluation of observational studies is done by calculating the percentage of occurrence of particular activity in an experiment. The most common use of this kind of research is in comparison of two studies and this is the reason it is common research methodology among across individuals and observations (Smart, Peggs & Burridge, 2013).

            Observational research is a common practice in fields like marketing and social sciences. It is a practice of social sciences as it allows the observation of a phenomenon in its original and natural state. This is the factor which separates the observational research from the practical research as it involves the artificial environment in which artificial environment is created and conditions are induced and one or more factors are manipulated to observe the change. It is normally divided into two sections; a) naturalistic observation and b) participant observation. The archived researches and case studies have special kind of observational research. Naturalistic observation is also known as non-participant research as it does not involve any participants; it does not possess any involvement of the researcher. In this only behaviors are studied with respect to their natural exteriors which differ from the format of experimental research which involves artificial setup and controlled environment in a laboratory. Moreover another important aspect is that no manipulation is required to do this kind of research. It allows the measurement of the behavior. Somehow, it has some limitations which include the lack of information that is causing the behavior. This result in doubtful conditions that the representative data or phenomena are truly valid or not (Angrosino, 2007).