Evidence of Practice:
Practical Observation
Aim: to investigate the difference in play preference in pre-school males and females
Background: The differences in mothers' and fathers' interactions with their children, particularly in play situations, may
influence toddlers' associations of specific behaviours with male and female genders. According to Eric Lindsey from Penn State
Berks in the US, "It would appear that children in the same family have different experiences in their play interactions with their
mothers and fathers. Such differences may teach children indirect lessons about gender roles and reinforced gender typed
patterns of behaviour that they then carry into contexts outside of the family."
We are going to investigate whether there are measurable differences in the way that boys and girls play. Our focus will be on
the type of toys played with rather than the way the toys are played with.
To start with we asked a number of people to come up with a list of toys that would be associated with boys in particular, like
cars and construction tools. They also came up with a list of ‘girls toys’, like dolls and tea sets, and a list of ’gender neutral toys’
like phones and building bricks. Once we had agreed which toys we were going to identify as typically boys, girls and neutral we
created a check list consisting of 9 different types of toys. (see below). We decided to observe video footage of children playing
to save time and because of ethical considerations!
Alternate Hypothesis H1: There will be a significant association found between the gender of the child and the
types of toys they select to play with. Boys will play with typical ‘boy toys’ (gender specific toys) and girls will play
with typical ‘girls toys’.
Null Hypothesis H0: There will be NO significant association found between the gender of the child and the types
of toys they select to play with. Boys will not play with typical ‘boy toys’ (gender consistent toys) and girls will not
play with typical ‘girls toys’.
Procedure: Standardized footage of a nursery was used. Participants were children who attended the same nursery
school. ......Fully..... Informed... consent...... would have been obtained for all children prior to filming. Parents
would have been debriefed and allowed to review the footage taken.
Prior to the observation a behaviour check list was created
Play Behaviour............. playing with...
Dolls/babies/soft toys (G)
Tea set/food (G)
Toy kitchen/ironing etc (G)
Toy phone (N)
Dressing up (N)
Play food (N)
Toy castle/soldiers (B)
Cars/garage (B)
construction toys/ saws screw drivers, hammers (B)
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Observation checklist
Boys
Girls
Before the observation commenced the observers agreed which toys could be considered typically boys’ toys, which
were typically girls’ toys and which were gender neutral. There were 4 of each category. The behaviour sampling
method used was...... EVENT SAMPLING
The footage was watched through once so that observers could agree on which children they were observing, and
practice completing the observation check list. The film was then watched for a second time. A tally was put on the
check list every time behaviour was observed. Results were then compared across different observers/raters to
improve.....INTER-RATER/INTER-OBSERVER RELIABILITY More than one observer was used to
reduce......EXPERIMENTER/OBSERVER BIAS and to make the observation more...OBJECTIVE
Time sampling Experimenter bias,
objective, subjective
event sampling,
validity, inter rater reliability,
What is Time Sampling? Choosing specified intervals of time in which to observe behaviour, e.g. you could
observe for 30 seconds every 10 minutes for 2 hours.
What are the strengths and limitations of Time Sampling? This type of behaviour sampling gives you a good
overview of what the ‘subject’ is doing over a longer period of time. However key activities could be missed as
they could fall outside the time frame being observed.
What is Event Sampling? This is where only the behaviour of interest is observed, for example you could choose to
only observe when the ‘subject’ is playing with toys. The rest of the time the behaviour would be ignored.
What are the strengths and limitations of Event Sampling? You are able to observe the exact behaviour you are
interested in but it could misrepresent what is happening over a longer period of time.
Is this an overt or covert observation? Covert – the children we observed were unaware of the camera
What sampling method was used to obtain ppts? We used an opportunity sample
How would you describe the research method? Naturalistic observation
Observable
Behaviour
Gender
consistent
Gender
inconsistent
Gender
Neutral
Instances of
behaviour for the
Male Participant
Instances of
behaviour for the
Female Participant
(Tally)
1111111
(Tally)
1111111111111111
111
111111
Frequency of gender
consistent play
Frequency of gender Inconsistent play
Frequency of gender
Neutral play
Total number of
Behaviours recorded
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11
Male ppts
7
Female ppts
16
3
0
6
2
16
18
Use this graph paper to represent the differences in male typified vs female typified play
Title.............................................................................................................................................................
Ensure you label the axes.
This graph shows that .......................................................................................................................................
Chi-squared Test - What is it and when is it used?
Unlike Spearman’s Rho for CORRELATION, or the Mann-Whitney U which is a test of DIFFERENCE, the Chi-Squared
is a test of association . The data must be NOMINAL
At the end of the test, we are left with an observed value which we call (chi square) χ2. The ‘df’ refers to Degrees
of Freedom and is used for looking up the critical value in the table. To know if this is significant, we need both of
these pieces of information.
You will also need to consider whether your study had a directional (one tailed) or non directional (two tailed)
hypothesis. Look at your hypothesis. Which did you use? ONE TAIL
Using this information, we compare our observed value (the one you calculate) with the critical value on the table. If
our observed value is equal to or HIGHER than the critical value, we accept the alternate hypothesis and reject the
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null hypothesis. If the results are not statistically significant then we accept the Null and reject the alternate
hypothesis
Name the statistical test used to analyse the data.
CHI SQUARE test
What where the results of your analysis.
Calculated chi square value
χ2 = 5.4
Critical value for significance at 0.05 =
df = 1
3.8
(directional hypothesis)
χ2 is greater/less than the critical value. Therefore this IS significant at 5% level.
P≤/≥0.05. This means the
probability of the results being a fluke is greater / less than 5%.
Is it possible that we can be even more certain that 95%? Could we be 99% certain ..how would you know?
LOOK AT THE TABLE BELOW
Upper critical values of chi-square distribution with degrees of freedom
Probability of exceeding the critical value
0.10
0.05
0.025
0.01
0.001
1
2
3
4
5
2.706
4.605
6.251
7.779
9.236
3.841
5.991
7.815
9.488
11.070
5.024
7.378
9.348
11.143
12.833
6.635
9.210
11.345
13.277
15.086
10.828
13.816
16.266
18.467
20.515
State your conclusions, including statements of significance relating to the hypothesis.
The results of our observation were/were not significant at the 5%/1% level therefore the alternate
hypothesis can be ACCEPTED/SUPPORTED and the null hypothesis REJECTED . The results do not
support/support the hypothesis that males and females play with different types of toys.
Evaluation - GRAVE..C
Generalisability:
This refers to how far the sample represents the target population. Who was the
target population? Was the sample big enough for us to generalise our findings? Was there a wide range of
ages sampled?
The children we observed were not a representative sample of children aged 3-5. The sample was very
small and there were more girls than boys in the sample. The sample was taken from one nursery in the
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UK and therefore it was ethnocentric. Because the sample was not representative we cannot confidently
generalise our findings to make conclusions about gender and types of toys played with.
Reliability: This refers to the extent to which a test or other instrument is consistent in its measures.
Observations are often highly unreliable as information may be missed, or miss interpreted, and
behaviours may be viewed differently according to the observers own past experience. Using video is one
way to improve consistency. Suggest one other way, and explain how you could use this to improve the
reliability of your observation.
The reliability of the observation could be improved by having more than one observer. A comparison
could then be made between the different observers to see if they were all observing the same things in
the same way. This is a way of improving inter-observer reliability. Usually the results of the different
observations are correlated. The higher the correlation coefficient the more likely it is that the observation
is reliable. It is worth running a pilot study first to train the observers and to check for consistency.
Validity: Validity refers to whether the observation check list is actually measuring what we think it’s
measuring. As observational raters, we are all affected by our own preconceptions, upbringings, current
trends and cultural and social norms. To what extent did your observations measure gender specific play
behaviours?
This observation only examined the type of toys the children played with not how they played with them,
this lowered the validity of the observation. For example some girls played with bricks but they pretended
they were microphones and sang into them. Because our observation checklist did not allow us to observe
the way the toys were played with the validity of the observation was affected.
The setting was a natural one so the study has ecological validity. However the participant’s behaviour
may have been influenced by the presence of the video camera. How could this have been overcome?
Ideally the cameras would have been set up a couple of weeks in advance so that the children got used to
them and learned to ignore them. Alternatively they could have been disguised so the children didn’t know
they were there.
Application: – was this observation useful? How could we apply these findings?
It was useful to see that children still select gender specific toys. It can be assumed that this must reflect
the way they perceive gender roles. It is worth noting that gender stereotyping is still evident, even though
the role of woman in our society has been changing over the last few decades.
Ethical: Was this observation ethical?
No ethical guidelines were broken. The children’s parents were required to give signed consent, were fully
informed and were able to review the footage. No children were harmed in the making of the film.
Does this observation have credibility?
This research looked at the toy choice of the children we observed. However because the sample was small
and not evenly balanced for gender, and because we didn’t look at how the toys were being played with
the study lacks credibility.
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