ANECDOTAL RECORD

Introduction:
An anecdotal record is an observation that is written like a short story. They are descriptions of incidents or
events that are important to the person observing. Anecdotal records are short, objective and as accurate as
possible .These short reports describe, in a factual way, the incident, its context, and what was said or done by the
participants. In most cases, anecdotes focus on every 5 simple, everyday interactions among student, student and
teacher as well as student and materials in the - environment.

Definition:It is a brief description of an observed behavior that appears significant for evaluation purposes. An
objective description by the teacher of a significant occurrence or an episode in the life of the pupil. It is the
written description of a specific incident for which a teacher has observed.
Anecdotal records are factual description of the meaningful incidents and events which the teacher has
observed in the practice of pupils. They are prepared by teachers or supervisors working with the students in the
laboratory or clinical areas. The report may be negative or positive incidents or outstanding performances or
behaviors. It does not include teacher's judgment or impression and personal interpretation.
Types of Anecdotal Records
 General : This record is maintained with no specific focus in mind

 Specific: Behavior- It includes cooperation, reasoning and social participation

 Event: It includes snack time, group time,arrival, departure,dramatic play

CHARACTERISTICS OF ANECDOTAL RECORDS
 Simple reports of behavior. They should contain a factual description of what happened,
when it happened and under what circumstance the behavior occurred.
 Each record should contain a record of a single incident
 Gives context of the child's behavior: The incident record should be, that is considered to be
significant to the pupil's growth and development.
 Objective description of the behavior should be mixed up with the subjective comments.
 The exact behavior of the student should be recorded Inference, guesses or assumptions
must be avoided unless it signifies.
 The record should be regarded as confidential. It should not fall into irresponsible hands.
 The record act as a supplement for other records.
 Result of direct observation.
 Accurate and specific.
 Records typical or unusual behaviors.
 The interpretation and recommended action should be noted separately from the description.
PURPOSE OF ANECDOTAL RECORDS
Anecdotes capture the richness and complexity of the moment as students interact with one another and
with materials. These records of students' behavior and learning accumulated over time enhance the teacher's
understanding of the individual student as patterns or profiles begin to emerge. Behavior change can be tracked and
documented and placed in the child's portfolio resulting in suggestions for future observations, curriculum planning
and student or parent conferences.
 To substitute for vague generalizations about students specific exact description of behavior.
 To stimulate the teacher to look for information, ie. pertinent in helping each student realize good sell
adjustment.
 Useful in supplementing and validity observations made by other means.
 To understand the individual basic personality pattern and his reactions in different situations.

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 The teacher is able to understand her pupil in a realistic manner.
 It provides an opportunity for healthy pupil-teacher relationship.
 Help the student to improve their behavior, as it is a direct feedback to an entire observed incident.
 It can be used by students for self-appraisal and peer assessment.
 Anecdotal record can be maintained in those areas of behavior that cannot be evaluated by other
more rigorou systematic methods.
 It can be used in helping students to understand and improve their behavior. Since, it is a direct
feedback of entire observed incident,the student can analyze his or her behavior better.
MERITS OF ANECDOTAL RECORD
 Use of formative feedback
 Economical and easy to develop.
 Provision of insight into total behavioral incident.
 It helps in clinical service practices.
 They record critical incidents of spontaneous behavior in setting.
 They can be used as a supplement to quantitative data.
 Provide the teacher with objective descriptions, rather than make her rely on vague
generalizations.
 Direct the teacher's attention to a single pupil.
 Provide for a cumulative record of growth and development, if collected over time.
 It can be used by the counsellor as a source of information upon which to base her discussions
with the pupil.
 Provide for a more thorough description of the pupil's behavior than will checklists, rating
scales, or sociogram's, because they contain the setting in which the behavior was observed.
 They are very good for young children who are unable to use the paper pencil test.
 It provides description of actual behavior in a natural situation.
 Anecdotal records make it possible gathering evidence on events that are exceptional but
significant and which are excluded by other evaluation techniques.
 This technique is especially useful for evaluating nursing students in clinical setting.
 It can be used for supplementation and validation of other more structured instruments.
 They can be used to record observations related to clinical Competencies.
 provides evidence evidence for evaluation of student's performance.
 They provide specific and exact description of personality, ability or skill and minimize
generalization

DEMERITS

 The major problem in using anecdotal records is being selective in deciding what
incidents, actions, or events should be recorded and which one should or could be ignored.
 If collected over a period of time for many students, they can create a storage problem.
 It is difficult for the observer to maintain objectivity when she records the incident
observed. Observers are human and are prone to include interpretive words or phrases in
their descriptions. This can be minimized by thoroughly training teachers in the manner of
recording and reporting incidents.
 Mostly the incident is described without including the Situation in which the behavior was
observed. When incidents are read out of context, they may lose their meaning.
 They tend to be less reliable than other observational tool as they tend to be less formal
and systematic.
 They are time consuming to write. It is difficult for the observer to maintain objectivity
when he/she record the incident observed.
 The observers tend to record only undesirable incident and neglect the positive incident.
 The nursing teachers may not have the skill to write anecdotes correctly and use them
properly
 There may be subjectivity.

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  Anecdotal records lack standardization, has difficulty in scoring and have limited
application.
 The anecdotes may be used not to help but to harm students sometimes.
How to Use Anecdotal Record Effectively
Criteria for observation of student nurse are:

 Initiative and skill in recognizing and meeting patient's needs (Physical, emotional, spiritual, social).
 Ability to make nursing assessment in the clinical setup.
 Initiative in planning nursing care to the patients.
 Precautionary measures used to safe guard the patients and personnel.
 Maintaining patient-nurse relationship.
 Initiative in assuming professional responsibility.
 Accuracy and judgment in carrying out medical prescriptions.
 Effort in self-development by using self-evaluation techniques.
 Evidence of scientific understanding of nursing principles.
 Adaptation of procedures and environment to needs of patients.
 Accuracy in observation and professional judgment.
 Skill in meeting emergency situations. • Skill in providing patients comfort.
 Team work.
 Organizational skill.
 Accuracy, pertinence and completeness in recording promptness in reporting.
 Neatness of workmanship.
 No incident should be recorded that produces an emotional reaction in the clinical instructor for she will
be unable to picture it objectively.
 Specify the behavior to be assessed in advance
 Limit observations to those categories or qualities.
 Record enough of the situations to decrease subjectivity. Minimum time gap to record is necessary.
 Avoid too much dependency on memory by recording it time to time. It will increase its objectivity,
validity and reliability.
 A single specific incident has to be recorded (positive and negative aspects) and consider both in making
inferences.
 Relates anecdotal records directly to the clinical objectives.
FORMS OR STYLES OF ANECDOTAL RECORDS
It should contain the following items:
 Identify the student observed (name of the student, institution name , class)
 Date of observation
 Name of observer
 .Setting and background of the incident
 .Incident
 Signature of the observer
 .Interpretation of behavior
 Recommendations concerning behavior.
THE TEACHER’S ROLE IN ASSESSMENT
In the classroom, teachers are the primary assessors of students. Teachers design assessment tools with two broad
purposes: to collect information that will inform classroom instruction, and to monitor students’ progress towards
achieving year-end learning outcomes. Teachers also assist students in developing self-monitoring and self-
assessment skills and strategies. To do this effectively, teachers must ensure that students are involved in setting
learning goals, developing action plans, and using assessment processes to monitor their achievement of goals.
Teachers also create opportunities for students to celebrate their progress and successes. Teachers learn about
students’ learning and progress by regularly and systematically observing students in action, and by interacting

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with them during instruction. Because students’ knowledge, and many of their skills, strategies, and attitudes are
internal processes, teachers gather data and make judgments based on observing and assessing students’
interactions, performances, and products or work samples. Teachers demonstrate that assessment is an essential
part of learning. They model effective assessment strategies and include students in the development of
assessment procedures such as creating rubrics or checklists. Teachers also collaborate with parents and with
colleagues regarding student assessment.

ATTITUDE SCALE
An attitude scale is a special type of questionnaire designed to produce scores indicating the intensity and
direction (for or against) of a person’s feelings about an object or event. Attitude scales are often used in attitude
change experiments. One group of people is asked to fill out the scale twice, once before some event, such as
reading a persuasive argument, and again afterward. A control group fills out the scale twice without reading the
argument. The control group is used to measure exposure or practice effects. The change in the scores of the
experimental group relative to the control group, whether their attitudes have become more or less favourable,
indicates the effects of the argument.
Some important characteristics of attitude scale are:
 These are used for measuring the social attitudes.
 A questionnaire is prepared; by the items in the questionnaire assess the attitude of an individual towards
a matter, thing, an object or system and score is allotted for each item.
 The individual is asked to express his response towards an object or system, on the basis of his responses,
he is assigned a score which indicates the position.
 Some relevant and indirect statements can also be used to reveal the attitude.
 The scale also specifies the crucial shades of opinions.
 Most of the scales used are ordinal in nature, though there is attempt to treat the resulting data as
intervallic scaled. The simplest possible type of such scale has the respondent classifying the
object/issue/product/himself into one among two dichotomous categories.
 The attitude measurement scales can be categorised into those which are unidimensional in nature and
those which are multidimensional.
TYPES OF ATTITUDE SCALES
 Itemized category scales: Are those in which respondents have to select an answer from a limited
number of ordered categories
 Rank order scales: They are comparative scales where respondents were asked to rate an item in
comparison with another item or a group of items on a common criterion.
 Comparative scales: The researcher provides a point of comparison for respondents to provide answers
Therefore, all respondents will have a uniform point of comparison for selecting answers
 Multi-item scales: These are applied when it is difficult to measure people's attitude based on only one
attribute Example: Ask a person whether he/she is satisfied with Indian Railway.

Nominal Scale

This is a very simple scale. It consists of assignment of facts/choices to various alternative categories which are
usually exhaustive as well mutually exclusive. These scales are just numerical and are the least restrictive of all
the scales. Instances of Nominal Scale are - credit card numbers, bank account numbers, employee id numbers
etc. It is simple and widely used when relationship between two variables is to be studied. In a Nominal Scale
numbers are no more than labels and are used specifically to identify different categories of responses. Following
example illustrates –
1. What is your gender?
[ ] Male
[ ] Female

Ordinal Scale

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 Ordinal scales are the simplest attitude measuring scale used in Marketing Research. It is more
powerful than a nominal scale in that the numbers possess the property of rank order. The ranking
of certain product attributes/benefits as deemed important by the respondents is obtained through
the scale.
Example 1: Rank the following attributes (1 - 5), on their importance in a microwave oven.
1. Company Name
2. Functions
3. Price
4. Comfort
5. Design
The most important attribute is ranked 1 by the respondents and the least important is ranked 5. Instead of
numbers, letters or symbols too can be used to rate in a ordinal scale. Such scale makes no attempt to measure the
degree of favourability of different rankings.

Interval Scale

Here in the distance between the various categories unlike in Nominal, or numbers unlike in Ordinal, are equal in
case of Interval Scales. The Interval Scales are also termed as Rating Scales. An Interval Scale has an arbitrary
Zero point with further numbers placed at equal intervals. A very good example of Interval Scale is a
Thermometer.

Ratio Scale

Ratio Scales are not widely used in Marketing Research unless a base item is made available for comparison. In
the above example of Interval scale, a score of 4 in one quality does not necessarily mean that the respondent is
twice more satisfied than the respondent who marks 2 on the scale. A Ratio scale has a natural zero point and
further numbers are placed at equally appearing intervals. For example scales for measuring physical quantities
like - length, weight, etc. The ratio scales are very common in physical scenarios. Quantified responses forming a
ratio scale analytically are the most versatile. Rati scale possess all he characteristics of an internal scale, and the
ratios of the numbers on these scales have meaningful interpretations. Data on certain demographic or descriptive
attributes, if they are obtained through open-ended questions, will have ratio-scale properties. Consider the
following questions :

Q1)What is your annual income before taxes? ______ $

Q 2) How far is the Theater from your home ? ______ miles

Answers to these questions have a natural, unambiguous starting point, namely zero. Since starting point is not
chosen arbitrarily, computing and interpreting ratio makes sense. For example we can say that a respondent with
an annual income of $ 40,000 earns twice as much as one with an annual income of $ 20,000.

Graphic Rating Scale:

The respondents rate the objects by placing a mark at the appropriate position on a line that runs from one
extreme of the criterion variable to another.
Example:

BRAND 1

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This is also known as continuous rating scale. The customer can occupy any position. Here one attribute is taken
ex-quality of any brand of ice-cream.

BRAND 2
This line can be vertical or horizontal and scale points may be provided. No other indication is there on the
continuous scale. A range is provided. To quantify the responses to question that “indicate your overall opinion
about ice-ream Brand 2 by placing a tick mark at appropriate position on the line”, we measure the physical
distance between the left extreme position and the response position on the line.; the greater the distance, the
more favourable is the response or attitude towards the brand. Its limitation is that coding and analysis will
require substantial amount of time, since we first have to measure the physical distances on the scale for each
respondent. Itemized Rating Scales
These scales are different from continuous rating scales. They have a number of brief descriptions
associated with each category. They are widely used in Marketing Research. They essentially take
the form of the multiple category questions. The most common are - Likert, Sementic, Staple and
Multiple Dimension. Others are - Thurston and Guttman.

Likert Scale

It was developed Rensis Likert. Here the respondents are asked to indicate a degree of agreement
and disagreement with each of a series of statement. Each scale item has 5 response categories
ranging from strongly agree and strongly disagree.

Likert Scale are of ordinal type, they enable one to rank attitudes, but not to measure the difference
between attitudes. They take about the same amount of efforts to create as Thurston scale and are
considered more discriminating and reliable because of the larger range of responses typically
given in Likert scale.
A typical Likert scale has 20 - 30 statements. While designing a good Likert Scale, first a large
pool of statements relevant to the measurement of attitude has to be generated and then from the
pool statements, the statements which are vague and non-discriminating have to be eliminated.
Thus, likert scale is a five point scale ranging from ’strongly agreement ‘to ’strongly disagreement’.
No judging gap is involved in this method.

Semantic differential scale

This is a seven point scale and the end points of the scale are associated with bipolar labels.

Suppose we want to know personality of a particular person. We have options-

1. Unpleasant/Submissive
2. Pleasant/Dominant

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Bi-polar means two opposite streams. Individual can score between 1 to 7 or -3 to 3. On the basis of these
responses profiles are made. We can analyze for two or three products and by joining these profiles we get
profile analysis. It could take any shape depending on the number of variables. When Semantic Differential Scale
is used to develop an image profile, it provides a good basis for comparing images of two or more items. The big
advantage of this scale is its simplicity, while producing results compared with those of the more complex
scaling methods. The method is easy and fast to administer, but it is also sensitive to small differences in
attitude, highly versatile, reliable and generally valid.

Stapel’s Scale

It was developed by Jan Stapel. This scale has some distinctive features:-
 Each item has only one word/phrase indicating the dimension it represents.
 Each item has ten response categories.
 Each item has an even number of categories.
 The response categories have numerical labels but no verbal labels.
For example, in the following items, suppose for quality of ice cream, we ask respondents to rank from +5 to -5.
Select a plus number for words which best describe the ice cream accurately. Select a minus number for words
you think do not describe the ice cream quality accurately. Thus, we can select any number from +5,for words
we think are very accurate, to -5,for words we think are very inaccurate. This scale is usually presented
vertically.

Multi-Dimensional Scaling

It consists of a group of analytical techniques which are used to study consumer attitudes related to perceptions
and preferences. It is used to study-
The major attributes of a given class of products perceived by the consumers in considering the
product and by which they compare the different ranks.
 To study which brand competes most directly with each other.
 To find out whether the consumers would like a new brand with a combination of characteristics not
found in the market.
 What would be the consumers ideal combination of product attributes.
 What sales and advertising messages are compatible with consumers brand perceptions.

It is a computer based technique. The respondents are asked to place the various brands into different groups like
similar, very similar, not similar, and so on. A goodness of fit is traded off on a large number of attributes. Then
a lack of fit index is calculated by computer program. The purpose is to find a reasonably small number of

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dimensions which will eliminate most of the stress. After the configuration for the consumer’s preference has
been developed, the next step is to determine the preference with regards to the product under study. These
techniques attempt to identify the product attributes that are important to consumers and to measure their relative
importance.
The limitation of this scale is that it is difficult to clearly define the concept of similarities and preferences.
Further the distances between the items are seen as different.

Thurston Scales

It is based on the idea that items can be arranged along a continuum in such a way that a person who agrees with
an item or finds an item acceptable will also agree with or find acceptable all These are also known as equal
appearing interval scales. They are used to measure the attitude towards a given concept or construct. For this
purpose a large number of statements are collected that relate to the concept or construct being measured. The
judges rate these statements along an 11 category scale in which each category expresses a different degree of
favorableness towards the concept. The items are then ranked according to the mean or median ratings assigned
by the judges and are used to construct questionnaire of twenty to thirty items that are chosen more or less evenly
across the range of ratings. The statements are worded in such a way so that a person can agree or disagree with
them. The scale is then administered to assemble of respondents whose scores are determined by computing the
mean or median value of the items agreed with. A person who disagrees with all the items has a score of zero.
So, the advantage of this scale is that it is an interval measurement scale. But it is the time consuming method
and labor intensive. They are commonly used in psychology and education research.

Guttman Scales/Scalogram Analysis

It is based on the idea that items can be arranged along a continuem in such a way that a person who agrees with
an item or finds an item acceptable will also agree with or find acceptable all other items expressing a less
extreme position. For example - Children should not be allowed to watch indecent programmes or government
should ban these programmes or they are not allowed to air on the television. They all are related to one
aspect.In this scale each score represents a unique set of responses and therefore the total score of every
individual is obtained. This scale takes a lot of time and effort in development.

They are very commonly used in political science, anthropology, public opinion, research and
psychology.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, our seminar on anecdotal reporting and attitude scales has provided valuable insights into two
critical aspects of research methodology. Anecdotal reporting offers a qualitative lens through which to
understand individual experiences and perspectives, enriching our understanding of complex phenomena.
Meanwhile, attitude scales offer a quantitative approach to measure attitudes and opinions, providing researchers
with structured tools to analyze and interpret data.
Throughout our discussions, we've highlighted the strengths and limitations of each method, emphasizing the
importance of complementing qualitative and quantitative approaches in research endeavors. By integrating
anecdotal reporting and attitude scales effectively, researchers can gain a comprehensive understanding of human
behavior, attitudes, and experiences.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Text Book of Nursing Education KP Neeraja, Second Edition, Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers, New
Delhi, 2021.
2. .BT Basavanthappa, "Communication and Educational Technology for Nurses," Jaypee Brothers Medical
Publishers PT Ltd, New Delhi, 2011.
3. .Jaspreet Kaur Sodhi, "Comprehensive Textbook of Nursing Education," The Health Sciences Publisher,
2017.

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 4. .R Sudha, "Nursing Education: Principles and Concepts," Jaypee Brothers Publishers, New Delhi, 2013.
5. Janice Ridor Ellis and Celia Love Hartley, "Nursing in Today's World," New York, London, 2008.

JOURNEL REFFERENCE

 Moattari M, Abdollah-Zargar S, Mousavinasab M, Zare N, Marvdast PB. Reliability and validity of

OSCE in evaluating clinical skills of nursing students. Journal of Medical Education. 2009 Jul 30;13(3).
 Bates CC, Schenck SM, Hoover HJ. Anecdotal records. YC Young Children. 2019 Jul 1;74(3):14-9.
 Petróczi A, Aidman E. Measuring explicit attitude toward doping: Review of the psychometric properties
of the Performance Enhancement Attitude Scale. Psychology of Sport and Exercise. 2009 May
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https://community.goodays.co/en/blog/customer-satisfaction-and-attitude-scales#:~:text=Attitude
%20scales%20are%20mainly%20used,rich%20your%20analyses%20can%20be.