Download My history and approach to using behavior measurement:= (30

Short-Course in Behavior Measurement:
Overview, Recall and SPSS
I. My Background in Behavior Measurement

PhD in anthropology from UCLA (1985) under Johannes Wilbert and Allen
Johnson with a focus on South American cultural ecology (Yukpa).

Dissertation focus: Yukpa Indians of Venezuela Cultural Ecology of Coffee
Introduction into a Subsistence Economy.

As a graduate student, worked on UCLA time allocation project, which led to
HRAF Time Allocation Series; (cross-cultural behavior coding scheme).

SSRC reviewer comment: “you know, there’s more than just behavior!”

Time allocation fieldwork in Venezuela, Kenya, Nepal, and Honduras (twice).

Teach quantitative approaches to applied anthropology (University of Maryland),
which includes a focus on collecting and analyzing time and behavior data.

Random spot observation (RSO) got me my first job (International Center for
Research on Women (ICRW));

Currently undertaking cognitive-environmental research on Chesapeake Bay,
which has cultural links to behavior measurements (e.g., fisheries);

Current research climate for cultural-behavioral research: decision-making under
uncertainty (e.g., health and climate change).

Mining of large digital databases for behavior
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II. Rationale and approach for behavior measurements in anthropology

A desire to test and refine our long-term ethnographic observations; We
typically do not study behavior for behavior sake, but as part of holistic,
ethnographic description (Johnson and Sackett: 302).

Flesh out qualitative insights, check for biases, raise questions, provide systematic
holistic insights.

Contribute insights to theoretical and applied problems: causes of warfare,
economic change (shifting from hunting and gathering to agriculture, from
extensive agriculture to intensive agriculture); social group formation (fission and
fusion), application of ecological and economic theories to human behavior (e.g.,
ecosystem regulation and optimal foraging theories, substantivist versus formalist
theories of economic behavior), social and nutritional consequences of changing
work patterns.
Today: cultural-cognitive

Systematic behavior measurement allows us to make cross-cultural comparisons.
Time is the common denominator shared by all (granted that we may value time
differently, the underlying measurement is useful and generates lots of questions.
(See HRAF Time Allocation Series).

All of the above requires systematic observations of behavior. However, all this is
done within an anthropological/ethnographic focus.
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III. Goals for the Short Course

For participants to come away with the beginning of a toolkit for measuring
behavior: interview and observation approaches.

Network of others who can be called upon for assistance.

Beginning of some ideas of how you can incorporate behavior research in your
own teaching and research.

The devil is in the details. You need to experience the devil.
IV. Activity Recall Exercise

Activity recall: a reporting of an individual’s behaviors during a previous period
of time.

Period of time: level of reporting influences validity and time period (1 month, 1
week; previous 24 hours).

Implementation: Interview or self reporting.

Recording of Activities: qualitative description to standardized codes.
Practice (60-90 minutes):

Interview of fellow course participants for their activities for the last 24hrs.

From 4:00am yesterday until 4:00am today.

Record activities as short descriptions in whatever format you want.
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
Prepare a qualitative summary of the activities.

Prepare a methodological critique of your research (e.g., useful, what worked
well, what didn’t work; issues, strengths and weaknesses). (paired)

Make a short presentation: (paired)
V. SPSS Practice
SPSS basics:
Help in SPSS
Data View and Variable View (template 2013)
Data View Drop Down Menus: (Beaufort combined
Data
Analyze
Graphs
Variable View: Set up database for 24hr recall (Tuesday work)
Descriptive Analysis: use combined data from 2012 Beaufort
Levels of measurement: nominal, ordinal and interval
Practice Select Cases
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