Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

  1. Identify and define the naturalistic research design.
  2. Distinguish between natural and contrived research settings.
  3. Identify and describe how researchers make unobtrusive observations.
  4. Describe how researchers operationalize observation periods in a naturalistic or contrived setting.
  5. Describe how researchers quantify and manage observation periods in a naturalistic or contrived setting.
  6. Identify and describe three existing data research designs: archival research, content analysis, and meta-analysis.