Behavior Observation

Frequency Measure

Q: What is operational definition of the target behavior?

A: Operational Target Behavior defines the behavior in terms of what the observer sees; its' something which, even observers who are disinterested can pick out. Here the target behavior to be oberserved is nail biting habit of children.

Q: Why frequency chosen over interval recording?A: Frequency measurement is much more accurate at identifying the patterns of recurrence of any behavior. The frequency also denotes the severity of the condition. For instance, if a child has a case of nail biting, the frequency of his actions can help the observer determine if there are factors triggering the action or is it an impulse or habitual which repeats after intervals.

Q: When and for how long will you monitor the behavior? Explain your decision.A: I shall be monitoring the behavior for a total of an hour. The reason for limiting the observation to an hour is because firstly, nail biting is a habit which is triggered by either circumstances or impulse. If it is impulse oriented then I would be able to identify multiple instances in the time frame since it is mostly an unconscious action, while if it is triggered by some factor, the infrequency of it during the majority of the time while

Q: Is behavior restricted or not? A: Restrict Behavior is defined as limited interest, activity, or focus, for instance obsession with a game, television program, or single toy. Nail biters have no such restricted behaviors except the fact that once they get involved in their nail biting, they continue it until the trigger is removed.

Q: Did you use any type of contrived methods?A: Yes, after naturally but obtrusively observing the child for the first ten minutes, I was able to surmise that his nail biting was indeed triggered from stress. So I deliberately but subtly, contrived the situations in such a manner that the child felt stress, which increased the intensity and frequency of his nail biting.

Q: Express behavior in occurrences/unit of time

A: In the first ten minutes, I observed the child to bite his nails only two to three times, whenever he was confronted by the teacher or a particularly difficult task. After developing the hypothesis I tested it out by deliberately focusing the attention of the teacher on the child for a full five minutes, during which he was constantly biting his nails. After only a few seconds when the teacher left him at my signal, he stopped his behavior. In the last five minutes I had him set a difficult task and observed him biting his nails the whole time.

Time Interval Measure

Q: What is operational definition of the target behavior?

A: as it is already stated that the behavior which can be clearly observed by both interested and not interested people is called target behavior so while measuring the time interval, the target behavior is thumb sucking of children.

Q: Why interval chosen over frequency?A: Sometimes time-interval observation is given preference over frequency because some habits become ...