To conduct a naturalistic observation, I visited the University of Arizona’s food court in the Student Union. I observed a convenient sample of people on September 18, 2011, around 7:15 pm. In a span of 15 minutes, I observed 23 individuals, consisting of 16 males and 7 females. Respectfully watching without interfering, I observed their eating habits, social interactions, and movements within the food court. However, my focus was primarily on one specific behavior: how often people used their phones. To define this behavior operationally, I considered the frequency of people glancing at, texting, or talking on any mobile device while in a public space.
Using the scan sampling method, I observed the target behavior for 15 minutes and logged it in my notebook. Whenever I spotted someone using thei
...r phone, I made a tally mark. After the allotted time, I had recorded 14 tallies for males who were alone, 5 tallies for males in a group (two or more individuals), 9 tallies for females who were alone, and 4 tallies for females in a group. Based on this data, one might mistakenly conclude that males use their phones more frequently than females. However, this conclusion is inaccurate because there were actually more males present in the food court during that specific time period.
Despite some other observations, one stood out prominently - individuals who were alone in the food court tended to use their phone more often compared to those with at least one companion. This observation was significant, and if I conducted a correlational study, I would examine the relationship between the number of people (single individuals or grou
size) and the frequency of phone usage.
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