Observing Animal Behaviour: design and analysis of quantitative data
Marian Stamp Dawkins
Abstract
This book introduces the power of observation prior to, and sometimes instead of, experimental manipulation in the study of animal behaviour. It starts with simple methods suitable for student projects, before going on to demonstrate the possibilities that now exist for far more sophisticated analyses of observational data. At a time when animal welfare considerations are attracting political as well as scientific debate, the potential for non-intrusive studies on animals is being increasingly recognized. Observation emerges as a valuable alternative approach, often yielding highly informative ... More
This book introduces the power of observation prior to, and sometimes instead of, experimental manipulation in the study of animal behaviour. It starts with simple methods suitable for student projects, before going on to demonstrate the possibilities that now exist for far more sophisticated analyses of observational data. At a time when animal welfare considerations are attracting political as well as scientific debate, the potential for non-intrusive studies on animals is being increasingly recognized. Observation emerges as a valuable alternative approach, often yielding highly informative results in situations (such as in zoos, on farms, or for wild animals) where more invasive experimental techniques would be undesirable, unethical, or just plain impossible. However, to justify its place alongside experimentation as a rigorous scientific method, observation needs to be just as disciplined and systematic, and have just as much attention paid to project design in the way that observations are made and recorded. The book travels through all these stages, from the initial observations, to the formulation of hypotheses, and their subsequent testing with further systematic observations.
Keywords:
animal welfare,
observation,
alternatives,
research methods
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2007 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198569350 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2008 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198569350.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Marian Stamp Dawkins, author
Professor of Animal Behaviour, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, UK.
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