Sylvia is interested in studying the parental behaviors displayed by sea turtles. She spends 3 months scuba diving off the Mexican coast observing and recording the range of behaviors that occur. This research method would best be categorized as:________

Naturalist observation involves observing and studying the spontaneous behavior of participants in natural surroundings,i.e, the non-experimental, primarily qualitative research method in which organisms are studied in their natural settings.The researcher simply records what they see in whatever way they can without any manipulation.

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ogechukwubenedict ogechukwubenedict · Answer 2 · 2020-03-23T04:28:50+01:00

Answer: naturalistic observation

Explanation: Naturalistic observation is a technique used in the study of subjects in their natural habitat without any manipulation or interference from the observer. The aim of naturalistic observation is to describe in detail the behaviour of an organism in their natural setting, situation or habitat.

Conducting a naturalistic observation offers some advantages which include:

I) allowing investigation of behaviours that occur in complex social settings.

II) allowing the researcher to gather qualitative as well as quantitative data and

III) allowing the development of theories based on collected observations etc.

However, it is less useful in studying well-defined hypotheses under precisely specified conditions since they are typically designed not to confirm previously formed hypotheses.