Unobtrusively record observations in a public place of your choice for at least thirty minutes or more. The place must have at least ten people to observe. Since you are playing the role of an unobtrusive investigator, you must not disturb the people and must be positioned so that the people will not really take notice of you. You should watch people and focus on behaviors. The behaviors might be ordinary or interesting. You might even choose to look at behaviors related to a theme, such as how people relax or you can look at dyadic interactions. No matter what you choose to observe, you should describe what you witness.

After observing mothers and children in the park, I would like to investigate whether mothers with multiple children allow the children to venture further away from them as compared to mothers with one child.
You must also state hypotheses for at least two of your study ideas.

1.Hypothesize on whether mothers with only one child will keep their child closer than mothers with multiple children.

                                                                 SAMPLE SOLUTION

Location: St. Joseph Recreational Ground

Date: Saturday, September 10, 2016

Period: Mid-morning, 11am to 1pm

Objective: Having noticed children playing fun games at the St. Joseph Recreational Ground, I would like to investigate whether mothers would be interested in the actual activities by their children during play or they would simply consider the time as a moment of relaxation and bond with other mothers.

Hypotheses: First, recreational grounds are effective spaces for both mother and child relaxation. Second, mothers will focus more on their own relaxation through interacting with other mothers with limited attention to their children’s own activities while at the ground.

Unobtrusive Observation

            Even as the weather favored an opportunity to take a walk along the different social places of Tunapuna, I came across the St. Joseph Recreational Ground along Priest Hill Road, next to St. Joseph River. This clean and well decorated playing ground is well fenced and cleaned and by 11am, the number of children in the ground was relatively high, about 30 children were already utilizing the various play facilities while others simply played with sand in one end of the playground. Along the fence lines of the ground, I noticed various outdoor benches already occupied with at least two women and in some cases, a man and a woman who were either engaging in deep discussions while others kept starring at the children playing and making short breaks to rush to a kid to pick them up and return to sit and continue talking. I found this interesting to me and therefore got into the playground to clearly investigate whether mothers would be interested in the actual activities by their children during play or they would simply consider the time as a moment of relaxation and bond with other mothers.