1

Research Methods In Environmental Psychology

Submitted By: ZAINAB KHAN

Roll Number: 20117

Submitted To: Ma’am Sumera Ayaz

Subject: Environmental Psychology

Department of Psychology

3rd Semester (GPGC, Haripur)

Date 24 January, 2022

 2

Table Of Content

________________________________________________________________________
S No : Topics page no
________________________________________________________________________
1: Environmental Psychology 3

2: Research Methods 3

3: Observational Methods 4

4: Simulation Research Methods 7

5: Self Reports 8

6: Behavioural Mapping 9

7: Field studies 11

8: Reference 14
 3

Environmental Psychology:

Environmental psychology is an emerging interdisciplinary, problem-oriented field concerned

with the interrelations among physical settings and human behavior and experience.

Research Methods:

Environmental psychologists use both quantitative and qualitative approaches, choosing one that

best fits the research question or using multiple methods if resources allow. Many of the methods

are commonly used in psychology and, thus, are introduced in most undergraduate research

methods textbooks. Other techniques are specific to research in environmental psychology. The

environmental psychologist’s job is to know which methods of gathering information will yield

quality answers to the questions at hand, and to use these methods well.

Research methods and techniques commonly used in environmental psychology include:

● Self-reports, such as questionnaire surveys, attitude and other rating scales, and

interviews

● Experiments conducted in a laboratory

● Field studies and quasi-experiments conducted in everyday physical settings

● Analyses of archival data, such as census data, police crime reports, park visitors logs

● Naturalistic observation and recording of behaviours in an unobtrusive and systematic

manner

● Physiological measurements (e.g., cortisol level, skin conductance to measure stress

level)

● Case studies of particular places

● Content analyses of documents and messages (e.g., media reports)

 4

Some techniques used specifically (or more often) in environmental psychology are:

● Behaviour mapping (i.e., keeping a visual record of people’s behaviours in a space; for

example, where visitors are distributed in an art gallery at a particular time)

● Cognitive mapping (i.e., drawing an individual’s mental representation of a place in a

sketch map)

● Analyses of physical traces, including accretion (i.e., the deposit of material, such as

litter) and erosion (i.e., the selective wear of material, such as floor tiles)

1. Observational Methods:

With such an emphasis today on survey methods in behavioral sciences, one might easily

forget that observation is the true foundation of the scientific method. Indeed, “simple

observation” was the tool by which Babylonians pioneered the earliest forms of

astronomy. Later, the formation of empiricism in ancient Greece required a movement

away from purely philosophical and (often) supernatural explanations of causes to more

concrete approaches founded on observation and induction.

● In its simplest form, observation can be defined as receiving information through one of

the five human senses. By this definition, however, nearly every study of behavior within

an environment involves observation. 0002580856 .indd 10 8/8/2015 12:22:40 PM

Observational Methods 11 Certainly, watching people explore a space or use a recycling

bin is a form of observation, but so too would be viewing the results of cortisol tests or

listening to answers from an interview. Given that topics such as interviewing, participant

observation, and surveying will be covered elsewhere in the book (mainly Chapter 5),

this chapter will focus solely on research methods pertaining to direct observation.
 5

Indirect observation, another important tool for the study of environment– behavior

relationships, involves methods such as personal diaries, informants, or trace measures.

These will not be examined in depth here, only to say that they can be quite effective.

● Direct observation, on the other hand, involves researchers learning about human–

environment interactions using any or all of the five senses. To understand the effects of a

restaurant on its diners, for instance, a researcher should smell the air, eat the food, feel

the temperature in the room, listen to the background music, and watch how people

respond to the whole experience. Certainly, our senses and abilities to record information

could be enhanced with a variety of tools, but just watching (or listening, smelling, etc.)

can provide a great deal of information as well. Arguably, although sense‐enhancing

technologies, such as microscopes, are vital for advancing science, the naked eye

provides information in human‐sized units that are at least equally important for the

understanding of human–environment interaction as are other “enhanced” measures.

● Finally, observational research methods can (and are) used for the study of both humans

and the physical environment. Despite a focus on direct observation of human behavior,

most of the observational methods discussed below are also applicable to environmental

observation. Specifically, recording attributes of the physical environment also requires

multiple observers, systematic procedures, and replicability. Sometimes researchers

observe physical aspects of environment as possible predictive variables for human

behavior. In addition to the fictitious example at the start of this chapter, Wachs (1990)

noted the physical aspects of infants’ homes and tested whether they predicted the

infants’ future development. In these cases, principles of observation, coding, and inter‐

observer reliability (as described later) continue to be important. Why use observational
 6

research? There are two primary reasons why researchers choose to directly observe

individuals within their environments: measurement accuracy and preliminary

investigation. In some cases, direct observation may be more accurate or useful than

other forms of measurement. As a method of data collection, direct observation is more

immediate and objective than self‐reports 0002580856.indd 11 8/8/2015 12:22:40 PM 12

Reuven Suss man which rely on participants’ abilities to remember events and recall

them without bias. Research on human memory and cognition demonstrates that, despite

their best efforts, participants often forget details or recall them based on their current

knowledge and frame of mind. In addition, participants are often motivated to describe

their behavior in the best possible light or to tell the researcher what they think he or she

wants to hear. Therefore, even if participants accurately remember their behavior, they

may present it in an inaccurate (but socially desirable) manner.

● Environmental simulations, ranging from static photos to videos, physical mock-ups,

computer-generated images, to computer games and virtual reality applications. These

simulations are particularly useful for studying the responses of future users to

environments that are yet to be built.

● Needs assessment (architectural programming, before the project is built) and post-

occupancy evaluation (did the building design work as planned?)

2. Simulation Research Methods:

 7

Computer simulation is growing in popularity as a methodological approach for

organizational researchers. Other research methods must make various assumptions about

the exact cause and effect nature of the system under study; for example, in survey

research, one must define the form and content of cause and effect a priori in order to learn

from the data observed. Simulation allows for researchers to assume the inherent

complexity of organizational systems as a given. If other methods answer the questions

“What happened, and how, and why?” simulation helps answer the question “What if?”

Simulation enables studies of more complex systems because it creates observations by

“moving forward” into the future, whereas other research methods attempt to look

backwards across history to determine what happened, and how. Because the nature of

living systems is to either increase in entropy (disorder) or complexity (order), looking

backwards is inherently more difficult than moving forwards. There are three main

schools of simulation practice:

• Discrete event simulation, which involves modelling the organizational system as a set of

entities evolving over time according to the availability of resources and the triggering of events

.• System dynamics, which involves identifying the key “state” variables that define the behavior

of the system, and then relating those variables to one another through coupled, differential

equations.

• Agent-based simulation, which involves agents that attempt to maximize their fitness (utility)

functions by interacting with other agents and resources; agent behavior is determined by

embedded schema which are both interpretive and action-oriented in nature. Simulation

researchers typically remain in one camp and are not facile and do not working all three
 8

domains. This will likely change in the future, however, as complex organizational systems

really require elements of all three approaches in order to be their complexity to be appropriately

captured.

3: Self Reports:

The most common method is self-report, in which people respond to questions about themselves

regarding a wide variety of issues such as personality traits, moods, thoughts, attitudes,

preferences, and behaviours. In fact, much of social science knowledge and theory are based

largely on self-report data.

ADVANTAGES OF SELF-REPORT

The main advantage of self-report is that it is a relatively simple way to collect data from many

people quickly and at low cost. A second advantage is that self-report data can be collected in

various ways to suit the researcher’s needs. Self-reports are the preferred method of data

collection for the majority of researchers, owing to their low cost, relative ease of use, and

flexibility. Questionnaires can be completed in groups or individually and can be mailed to

respondents or made available on the Internet. Self-report data can also be collected in an

interview format, either in person or over the telephone. Researchers can thus obtain data from

respondents across a large geographic area or to whom they do not have direct access.

DISADVANTAGES OF SELF-REPORT
 9

There are several disadvantages of self-report that threaten the reliability and validity of

measurement. Researchers must ensure that measures are reliable—meaning the outcomes of

measurements are repeatable—and valid— meaning the intended variable is measured.

4: Behavioural Mapping:

Behavioural mapping is a direct-observation method that tracks people’s behaviour in specific

space and time. This method was started to use in the late 1960’s to study how physical

environment features affect the people’s behavior , including the activity level, type of activity,

etc. (Cusco, Moore and Islam, 2010) This method has been used to study people’s behaviours in

supermarket, school, hospitals, children-care center and grocery stores. From the early days,

pencil and paper were used to record, and then some digital means like video and radio recording

were used (van Adel, 1985). However, the pencil-and-paper method should still be the common,

clear and efficient method to record the data today (Kinoshita, 2007).

Basically, the behavioural mapping has 3 principles: The first is behavioural mapping aims to

define the desired outcome or the problem. The second is diagnosing the psychological and

behavioural issues that keep people from achieving the desired outcome. The third involves

designing small and low-cost tweaks to help people overcome the obstacles

Types of Behavioural Mapping;

There are two types of analysis ways for behaviour mapping. Analysis can be centred on a

specific setting or behaviours of an individual, i.e. place-centerd and individual-centerd.

 10

Place-centred behaviour mapping aims to record people’s behaviour through time in a specific

space so that the researcher know which type of people, at what time, and what kind of activities

are performed in different areas in this pace.

Individual-centred method focuses on the activity of a specific individual through space, in

person or with the help pf technology (Alessandro, 2013). Sometimes the researcher has to ask

the individuals' written consent to perform the prolonged observations (Simmer and Simmer

2001), so it is really time-consuming and labour-consuming.

Case Study I

Physical activities of children could be affected by behaviour settings, environmental factors, and

design policy. When a pre-school childcare centre is designed, some factors like the layout of

facilities, rules of children activities and weather factors should be considered. Nelda’s paper

illustrates the application of Behaviour mapping on assessing the relationship between outdoor

design (including behaviour settings, environmental characteristics) and pre-school physical

activities.

Apart from home, preschools are possibly the most common built environment experienced by

children, potentially offering substantial evidence-based health benefits. Nilda’s team speculate

that pre-school policies and practices may affect the physical activities of children, but they lack

the evidence to clarify that. They need to observe the activities in different environments or

behaviour settings and meanwhile collect the data to analyse based on that. For the behavioural

mapping here (See Figure 3&4), the observers use a paper map to record subject locations and a
 11

handheld computer to code for gender, behaviour setting type, physical attributes, and physical

activity level in two different centres.

Possible Weakness in this case:

1. Activities of children could be tracked and traceable. In this paper, the transforming of

locations is hard to see though locations of children and the intensity of activated are recorded. It

could be better if the specific route for each student, and the specific time spent in each spot of

the route can be recorded.

2. The research targets for this paper are children, which could be a very suitable user group for

the Behaviour Mapping method.

3. This method can be very time and labour consuming. Observation, recording, and coding for

results costs much more time than methods like interviewing. Also, when comparing the results

of different sites, researchers need to observe and record in different settings at the same time.

5. Field studies Research method:

Field research is defined as a qualitative method of data collection that aims to observe, interact

and understand people while they are in a natural environment. For example, nature

conservationists observe behavior of animals in their natural surroundings and the way they react

to certain scenarios. In the same way, social scientists conducting field research may conduct

interviews or observe people from a distance to understand how they behave in a social

environment and how they react to situations around them.

 12

Methods of Field Research:

Field research is typically conducted in 5 distinctive methods. They are:

Direct Observation

In this method, the data is collected via an observational method or subjects in a natural

environment. In this method, the behavior or outcome of situation is not interfered in any way by

the researcher. The advantage of direct observation is that it offers contextual data on people,

situations, interactions and the surroundings. This method of field research is widely used in a

public setting or environment but not in a private environment as it raises an ethical dilemma

.Participant Observation

In this method of field research, the researcher is deeply involved in the research process, not just

purely as an observer, but also as a participant. This method too is conducted in a natural

environment but the only difference is the researcher gets involved in the discussions and can

mould the direction of the discussions. In this method, researchers live in a comfortable

environment with the participants of the research, to make them comfortable and open up to in-

depth discussions.

Ethnography

Ethnography is an expanded observation of social research and social perspective and the

cultural values of an entire social setting. In ethnography, entire communities are observed

objectively. For example, if a researcher would like to understand how an Amazon tribe lives
 13

their life and operates, he/she may chose to observe them or live amongst them and silently

observe their day-to-day behavior.

Qualitative Interviews

Qualitative interviews are close-ended questions that are asked directly to the research subjects.

The qualitative interviews could be either informal and conversational, semi-structured,

standardized and open-ended or a mix of all the above three. This provides a wealth of data to

the researcher that they can sort through. This also helps collect relational data. This method of

field research can use a mix of one-on-one interviews, focus groups and text analysis.

Case Study

A case study research is an in-depth analysis of a person, situation or event. This method may

look difficult to operate, however, it is one of the simplest ways of conducting research as it

involves a deep dive and thorough understanding the data collection methods and inferring the

data.
 14

References

● https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/31313406

● https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Case_study_method

● https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-

magazines/self-report-method