Sequential Analysis and Observational Methods for the Behavioral Sciences

Behavioral scientists – including those in psychology, infant and child development, education, animal behavior, marketing and usability studies – use many methods to measure behavior. Systematic observation is used to study relatively natural, spontaneous behavior as it unfolds sequentially in time. This book emphasizes digital means to record and code such behavior; while observational methods do not require them, they work better with them. Key topics include devising coding schemes, training observers and assessing reliability, as well as recording, representing and analyzing observational data. In clear and straightforward language, this book provides a thorough grounding in observational methods along with considerable practical advice. It describes standard conventions for sequential data and details how to perform sequential analysis with a computer program developed by the authors. The book is rich with examples of coding schemes and different approaches to sequential analysis, including both statistical and graphical means.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction to observational methods; 2. Coding schemes and observational measurement; 3. Recording observational data; 4. Representing observational data; 5. Observer agreement and Cohen's kappa; 6. Kappas for point-by-point agreement; 7. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for summary measures; 8. Summary statistics for individual codes; 9. Cell and summary statistics for contingency tables; 10. Preparing for sequential and other analyses; 11. Time-window and log-linear sequential analysis; 12. Recurrence analysis and permutation tests.

About the Author :
Roger Bakeman is professor emeritus in the Psychology Department at Georgia State University. A graduate of Antioch College, Bakeman earned his PhD from the University of Texas, Austin in 1973 and previously worked in computer programming at the Yale University Computer Center and at the Brookings Institution. He is a fellow of the American Psychology Association and the Association for Psychological Science and has served as program co-chair for biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) and the International Conference of Infant Studies (ICIS). For the National Institutes of Health (NIH), he served on the Advisory Board for the Study of Early Child Care, the Advisory Committee for the Division of Research Grants and on various review panels. He was an associate editor for Infancy and has served on editorial boards for Behavior Research Methods, Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Infant Behavior and Development and Psychological Methods. He is author, with John M. Gottman, of Observing Interaction: An Introduction to Sequential Analysis; with Vicenç Quera, of Analyzing Interaction: Sequential Analysis with SDIS and GSEQ; and with Byron F. Robinson, of Understanding Statistics in the Behavioral Sciences and Understanding Log-linear Analysis with ILOG. He has consulted widely, primarily on topics related to infant and child typical and atypical development and health matters. Vicenç Quera earned his BA (1981) and PhD (1986) in psychology from the University of Barcelona, Spain. He is a professor in the Department of Behavioral Science Methods, Faculty of Psychology, at the University of Barcelona. His research is focused on sequential analysis and modeling and simulation of collective behavior. He is a member of the Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior and leads the Adaptive Behavior and Interaction Research Group at the University of Barcelona. He has been director of the Master and Doctorate Programme in Primatology and has served on the Advisory Committee for Tenure-track Lecturers at AQU Catalunya (Quality Assurance Agency for the University System in Catalonia, Spain) and on various review panels. He is co-author, with Roger Bakeman, of Analyzing Interaction: Sequential Analysis with SDIS and GSEQ. He has served on the editorial board of Behavior Research Methods, Psicológica and other journals, and has published articles on observational methods, observer agreement, sequential analysis, single-case designs, and computer modeling of collective behavior in Psychological Bulletin, Psychological Methods, Behavior Research Methods, Social Science and Medicine, the Journal of Experimental Education, Psicológica, Perceptual and Motor Skills and the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation.

Review :
"...Bakeman and Quera’s text is a useful reference guide for how to apply sequential analysis, with several examples of its actual use. It should be a useful guide to those sequential analysis researchers already applying such methods to their work but would have benefited from more discussion of when to apply such methods (to alert nonusers to its potential applicability to their work)..." --Dr. David P. Nalbone, Purdue University Calumet, PsycCRITIQUES