“Good observational skills can help teachers capture those moments [working, playing, living together] in a child’s life.”

Time Sampling: observes individual children’s behavior at different times and can help with understanding group dynamics. (Ex. Types of play: parallel, associative, cooperative every five minutes)

Event Sampling: observes an event rather than time frames to understand behaviors.

Checklists: observes information with detailed lists to be recorded in a short period of time or in specific tasks. Rating scales and shadow study are similar and can be useful in getting rough ideas of information or for a particular child with a follow-up study done shortly thereafter.

Evaluation: observes to know what the children are learning.

Narrative observation: recording everything as it happens, trying to stay objective.


By: Dianna Dammir