Jim is planning an observational study about the way people respond to facial expressions. He intends to go to a train station and either smile or frown at people. He wants to see how people respond to him.

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (Feb/Mar 2019). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. [10] Three major omissions for an observational study are: What: behaviours that will be recorded e.g. named 1 (detail e.g. definition/operationalisation) How: any two of: structured / unstructured overt / covert participant / non-participant (detail is how they are achieved) The minor omissions are: where - location of participants when data is collected (train station) who - participants (must be people at train station) Indicative content for an observational study: ∞ what: identification and of behavioural categories ∞ operationalisation of each behavioural category ∞ how: whether the observation is (at least two of): structured / unstructured ∞ overt / covert ∞ participant / non-participant ∞ sampling technique ∞ sample size ∞ description of how tallying will be done ∞ description of how data will analysed, e.g. use of averages/bar charts ∞ ethical issues
2. [4] Answer will depend on problem identified. If the problem was an obvious omission in (a), fewer marks will have been awarded in (a), so they can be awarded here. Problems may, for example, be matters of: Validity ∞ operationalisation (of smiling, frowning, responses) Reliability ∞ standardisation ∞ intra-rater consistency (of Jim's 'smiling'/'frowning' recording responses) Ethics ∞ issues with lack of informed consent (as participants do not know they are in a study) ∞ issues with lack of right to withdraw