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Lecture Notes

The second way that we could learn and measure peoples' physical activity is to watch it, observation. A researcher could go into any type of setting, so, for example, a gym class in school physical education class. That researcher could go and observe and record physical activity behaviors. It could record the types of activities, how long kids spend doing a particular activity versus another. And so the good thing is that there's much less chance for over-reporting, right, the kids not reporting their own physical activity, so there wouldn't be that chance for over-reporting. The researcher would simply be observing, recording what they see or don't see, and they would get to watch people in their natural environment, so what actually happens when people are in their natural environments being physical active? The bad things about observing physical activity as a method for physical activity measurement is that it's not very cost-effective, so it costs money and it takes manpower to put people into that situation, and it's not often feasible for larger studies. The final reason, or negative or con, is that the researcher presence can often affect those that are participating in physical activity. So let's say the children in that physical education class knew that the researcher was there to study physical activity, maybe they would act a little different that day. So that's some of the downsides to this measurement tool.