Observational Data Collection
Observational data is essential to most human factor assessment. At its core, it is the process of observing an individual as the go about doing something that the researcher is interested in it. It could be related to performance, so how is this individual going about completing a task. It could also be about how that individual interacts with the tool provided to complete a job. It may also even be about how that individual reacts to the task itself. There are endless possibilities for why a person would use observational data collection methods and it revolves around what question they are trying to answer.
​
Some Observational Methods
​
​
​
​
​
​
Dahlbäck, N., Jönsson, A., & Ahrenberg, L. (1993). Wizard of Oz studies — why and how. Knowledge-Based Systems, 6(4), 258–266.
​
Dejoode, J. A., Cooke, N. J., & Shope, S. M. (2003). Naturalistic Observation of Airport Incident Command. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 47(3), 663–667.
