Observations

For my Observations, I chose to sit in the library and watch people study/interacting with their study materials. I was lucky enough that my friend with a learning disability who I have known for a long time offered to study next to me. Since we are used to studying together, I hoped that my observing him would still be a natural environment.

3/30/2018 : Second Observation Set Here

Condensed Field Notes :

I chose to take my field notes on my iPad so that I could quickly write down my surroundings, make any diagrams I needed (I didn’t end up needing these), and could export them quickly to a medium post.

Expanded Field Notes :

My Friend worked on his assignment for two to three minutes before looking up from his work. This might not be an exact time average, I timed it once and it was three minutes. The rest seemed to be about this same time.

Didn’t stay on one page long. Flips through his text book quickly, maybe looking to scan. When I payed more attention to this, the majority of the time he was flipping from the chapter he was studying and the glossary at the back of the book.

When my friend noticed that I was not writing things down or looking like I was working, he took a break from what he was doing to make a joke/comment/small talk. He did this much less if I was looking attently at something or writing things down. Occasionally he would interupt me to show me something on his phone or a joke, but it was rare if it looked like I was working.

After watching him flip through his book, I started looking at the people around us. Most people who were looking at just one thing like a textbook or a paper and appeared to be reading on it stayed on task about ten mintues compared to the people flipping around between things which stayed on task for about five. (I decided that since I couldn’t see what was on their laptop screens, I couldn’t deduce if they were looking at one thing or switching between a lot.)

I defined breaking task as looking distracted or off task. Normally this was people checking their phones, going to the bathroom, going for coffee, or closing their book and putting their heads in their hands.

Towards the end of the night, my friend starts getting tired and expresses to me how frustrated he is.

Breaks start coming more and more quickly.

Brief Account of Observations :

I was mostly suprised at how short the uninterupted study time was. I think that even if people had put their phones away, they still would have shown behavior like putting their heads in their hands or getting up to stretch. It would be interesting to next observe myself and see what my average study time without interuptions is because I didn’t even realize how short it is. Most people were more productive if they focused on just one source of text, and flipping through to look for things also detracted from productivity. While my friend had a learning/attention disability, most other people in the library had simliar study patterns, just with different time intervals. I would also be interested at trying to during different times of the day/week.

Written Reaction to Project :

At first I felt slightly uncomfortable about this project. I was worried that people around me were going to notice that someone was watching them and writing things down. This turned out not to be a problem because most people were so involved in what they were doing, they did not notice me. I did get distracted really easily and had a hard time picking a focus of one or two people versus the room as a whole. I find this observation method much more comfortable than an interview or a survey would be because I got to stay “in the shadows” and observe people from afar without interacting with them. There were occasions where I was interested in asking them why they did something a certain way, but I think I got much more natural observations than people who knew that I had been watching them.