Give Details of the sample you observed.
There were 60 subjects observed, out the those sixty they were broken down into male or female, and student or staff, thus there were two age ranges one was 16-19, and the other was a far more broad range of 25-65.
The sampling used for this observation was an opportunity sample, this was mainly due to the ease of application, as within the frame of Franklin 6th Form College, and the target being 6th form students and teachers, the subjects were in ample supply.
Outline the procedure you followed.
The observation took place near an entrance to the college. However, the door used was in the main corridor as there would be more through traffic at this door than had an external door been used during the day.
Situated close to the door in question was a staircase and so I observed from this point. Recordings were taken whenever anyone walked through the door, as recording at time intervals would have been inappropriate in this type of observation. Conversely, if a subject was to walk through the door as an individual or if the next subject was more than 2 meters away then their actions were not recorded, also if the subject did not hold the door open the results were not included.
Summarise your findings
The following table shows recordings of the raw results.
The below pie chart shows what percentage out of the 60 subjects actually held the door open, regardless of whom it was for.
Give your conclusion.
Unfortunately these results did not represent the aim of the observation as it would appear from the results that the vast majority of female students held the door open for others, especially other female students, as apposed to female staff who neglected to hold the door open more than twice for anyone.
However, that was not the case, because out of the sixty people whose results were recorded, 65% of them were female students thus it would be expected that they would hold the larger portion of the results. In light of that information it could been seen that the male staff held the door open for others regardless of their sex or stature 100% of the time, whereas several female students did not hold the door open at all.
To obtain more reliable results the test should have continued until and equal number of results were recorded in each of the different categories.
