In the A level Psychology course, we have a few oppurtunities to conduct our own psychological studies. One of these oppurtunities was the year 12 students planning, carrying out and writing up our own observations in the school, on any topic that we wanted to. This was incredibly fun – and at some times very silly – so we hope you enjoy reading a few of our years’ summaries of their observations!
How does behaviour in house rooms change throughout the day?
-Freya Timmes
Our group decided to conduct an experiment with the aim to see the effect of what the time was in relation to behaviour in the house rooms. We decided to carry out a covert observation whilst working in pairs, to ensure inter-observer reliability, and visited Churchill houseroom three times a day for three days. Our hypothesis was that behaviour in the houserooms would change as the day goes on. To focus our research we created a table prior to the experiement with different behavioural categories to note down, this also gave us quantitative data making it easier to compare the results over the three days. We could not get informed consent as it will result in demand characteristics. Instead we gathered presumptive consent before the observation took place. As it was a natural experiement we decided to use oppurtunity sampling, to make sure the data was still fair we noted how many people were in the room when the observation started. We found that more pupils went to the house room during lunchtimes compared to morning and afternoon breaks. Despite there being more people during lunches, there were less people on their phones as more people spent this time catching up with friends. Our hypothesis at the beginning was non-directional as we did not know what the results would be however we were correct as there was a big difference in behaviours between the three breaks.
To what extent do people obey signs around school?
-Siena Consentino
For our observation, my group aimed to investigate the effect of signs on how people conform and whether or not people would be more likely to disobey a sign if they saw others disobeying too. To do this we created a sign to stick on the door of one of our house rooms. With the permission from my head of house, we ensured the sign was realistic, signing his name at the bottom. On our first trial we simply stuck the sign on the door and turned off the lights, while hiding in the room and recording the number of people who ignored the sign and walked in anyways. After that, for the next 30 minutes, we left the sign on the door and the light off but two of us sat at the main table inside the room where we were visible to anyone who came to the door. Again, we recorded the number of students who entered. We found that when the room was empty, no one entered, despite many people coming to the door. When we were in the room 22 people came in. In comparison, during the same time period a week prior, there was around 30 people in the room. When asked why they ignored the sign, many said they felt the consequences that came with disobeying would be less harsh as it wouldn’t be just them getting in trouble. From our findings we concluded that people are much more likely to disobey a sign if they see others disobeying as well.
How do students behave in their free time?
-Anoushka English
The aim of our study was to observe the behaviours that students engage in during their free periods at school. We chose this topic as we were eager to observe if sixth form students at Berkhamsted make the most out of their free periods to get work done or if they choose to use it for socialising. This was a covert and naturalistic observation as the student’s weren’t aware that we were observing their behaviour and it took place in a natural environment, eliminating demand characteristics. Additionally, it was structured since we created a frame of categories for specific behaviour that we looked out for.
Firstly, we had two observers go to each location at the same time (careers library, café, and lower library). Once the observers found a spot to locate themselves, they would then count how many people were in the room. For the duration of 10 minutes, the observers made a tally of the number of times that one of the behavioural categories were done. Each observer made a tally individually, to ensure high levels of inter-rater reliability. Once the time was up, they made sure to debrief all the participants one by one and give them a retrospective consent form.
From our data, we found that in the Careers Library a significant number of students spend their time socialising. 90% of the people in the room were talking to other people and 50% were laughing, compared to only 30% doing work on their surface. Similar behaviour was found in the Café, where 83% of people in the room were talking to other people whilst only 2 people were doing work on their surface. On the other hand, in the lower library more people were seen to be doing work than socialising.
In the absence of a teacher, pupils are more likely to socialise with one another. In houserooms and the café, noise levels are comparably higher which could be linked to them being collaborative spaces. There is a variation between how students use free periods depending on the location they are in and if a teacher is present. However overall, the majority of sixth form students use it for socialising, laughing, and talking, which confirms our hypothesis.
‘The Book Drop’
-Molly Light
Our aim was to observe students and teachers’ reactions to a confederate dropping a big pile of books on the floor. We decided to use a covert and naturalistic observation, meaning that the participants were not aware that they were being watched, and the observation was completed in a natural setting and not controlled by us. To conduct this, one of us dropped 14 psychology textbooks onto the floor when one person was walking past us. The other members of the group observed the participants’ reactions from a close proximity and noted down their reactions in 1 of four behavioural categories: laugh, help, continue or console (eg. Saying ‘are you ok’). We repeated this multiple times in 4 different locations: grass quad, outside the careers library and outside the sixth form café.
The most common response to the stimuli of dropping the books was to just carry-on walking past, this response was most frequent on the grass quad which is where the event was most visible. The next most frequent response was to laugh at the confederate, and not help them. This laughing may have taken place by the confederate’s side, or once they had passed the confederate. Consolation but no practical help was the next most common but happened around 60% less than laughing. This took various forms, such as steadying the confederate and then moving on, without picking up books, or asking ‘are you ok’ before walking on. Additionally, more people laughed than helped, with laughing also being more frequent on the quad where people’s reactions were more open for others to see
We concluded that our observation can be useful in understanding the culture in the school surrounding embarrassing moments, and the majority of people don’t want to be associated with such events and therefore remain distanced from them. This we dubbed ’embarrassment culture’. Interestingly, all situations only had a few people present (maximum 4), underlining how deeply ingrained this self-preservation and embarrassment culture is.
We hope you have enjoyed reading our observation studies. What do you think of them, and do you have any observations that you would like to conduct around school?
Lets us know in the comments below…