Unobtrusive Measures of Behavior
1. Nature of the unobtrusive measures of behavior.
2. Varieties of unobtrusive measures:
a. Physical traces
- Use traces
- Products
b. Archival research
- Census data
- Court records
- Genealogical data
- Corporate annual reports
- Patent office records
- credit history
- health history data
- educational records
- personal correspondence
- diaries
- etc.
c. Varieties of archival research
- Program evaluation
- Content analysis
d. Pros and cons of archival research
ADVANTAGES:
- the amount of information available
- can converge with the results of laboratory research, thus increasing external validity.
- archival research is non-reactive.
DISADVANTAGES:
- The possibility that data is missing or is not representative
- Experimenter bias – selecting only information that supports the hypothesis