Behavioral Observation Coding

Behavioral observation coding is the systematic practice of recording who does what, when, by applying an explicit sampling rule and a predefined coding scheme to observed behaviour. Rather than jotting impressions, the observer commits in advance to a rule — focal-individual, scan, ad libitum, or continuous sampling — and to a list of mutually defined behaviour categories, so that records are reproducible and comparable. Because two trained observers should code the same scene the same way, the method also requires measuring inter-observer reliability before the data are trusted.