Background:
My practical looks at society’s focus on gender behaviour with regard to children’s play behaviour.
According to learning theories children play differently because they are reinforced for doing so by
their parents, family etc. OR they play differently because they accept their gender and copy the
behaviour of others of the same gender. The focus of my observation is gender and I used a
recording of children playing to observe their behaviour.
Aim: My aim is to test the idea that children are reinforced in a way that suits their gender. This
means, and previous studies have shown, that girls play more quietly than boys whereas boys are
more physical in their play. I carried out a non-participant, overt, naturalistic observation using a
recording of children playing.
Hypothesis: The null hypothesis is that any difference between boys and girls behaviour in the book
corner and on the climbing frame is due to chance.
The alternative hypothesis is that there is a difference in play behaviour in these two areas which is
due to gender. This is a non-directional (two tailed) hypothesis because I am not predicting which
gender will play more in which activity.
The IV is gender, the DV is the number of tally marks made, using time sampling, for each activity.
Time sampling occurs when the researcher decides on a time, say 5 seconds, and then records what
behaviour is occurring at that time. A problem with time sampling is that some behaviours will be
missed and therefore the observation may not be representative (different to event sampling… what
is that?).
Design: I used time sampling with tallying to record the behaviour of the children in the video which
lasted 30 minutes. I did this alongside another student to check for inter-rater reliability (the degree
of agreement among raters). We watched the video first to agree what behaviour should be classed
as each activity and recorded using a tally mark what was happening every 30 seconds. I used a pre
prepared table to record my results and repeated the observation to check for reliability and then
compared my tally with my partner.
Results: I drew up a two by two table using the raw data so that I could carry out a chi-squared test.
This is the correct test because I have nominal data as I made tally marks according to the two
categories of play and whether the children playing in the categories were boys or girls. Also, it is an
independent groups test because the children are in different gender groups. It is a test of
difference because the alternative hypothesis states there will be a difference in play behaviour
depending on gender.
Play Behaviour
Playing on the climbing
frame
Boys
9
Girls
3
Total
12
Playing in the book
corner
Total
3
7
10
12
10
22
As my hypothesis is non-directional, the correct test is a two-tailed test. I chose a level of
significance of p ≤ 0.05 which means, if accepted, that the probability of the results being due to
chance will be 1 in 20 (5%) and the null hypothesis will be rejected. At this level of significance when
df (degrees of freedom) is 1, the critical value that has to be equalled or exceeded is 3.84. My results
were 4.44 (the value of chi-squared) so I accept my alternative hypothesis that there is a difference
in activity use depending on gender.
Evaluation: Validity-I used a DVD of real play behaviour so the results are likely to be valid and as it is
a naturalistic observation, there is ecological validity as the children were in a natural setting.
However, there is an issue with the behaviour being recorded as I am not sure if someone was
operating the camera or if it was left to roll discretely and so I am not sure how the recording of the
play could have affected the validity. If the children had forgotten about their play being recorded
then their behaviour should have been natural but there may have been unnatural behaviour due to
demand characteristics.
Reliability- Although generally naturalistic observations cannot be replicated and therefore only
show one moment in time which means they lack reliability, in this study the material was watched
twice and my tally was compared with my partners so there is inter-rater reliability as well as
reliability.
Generalisability- I can only say my results are true of the children in the DVD which means there is a
lack of generalisability as I did not choose the sample and have no knowledge of the children’s
background.
Credibility-My results lack credibility because of the issues with validity and generalisability. I may
have watched the part of the DVD/day when the behaviour was as I found and later boys may have
used the book area more etc. so to make my finding more credible, I would have to conduct the
observation in more than one setting, using a larger sample and over more than just one period of
behaviour before I could claim that boys and girls show different behaviour.
Ethics-I assume that the children/parents had given their consent to being filmed and published as
the DVD was a secondary source used in child development courses. The children’s confidentiality
was maintained as none of them were identified or discussed. I did not carry out an observation of
real children as it would be difficult to obtain the necessary consent, give the right to withdraw and
ensure the competence of those observing them.