EDITORIAL published: 24 April 2019 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00864 Editorial: Systematic Observation: Engaging Researchers in the Study of Daily Life as It Is Lived M. Teresa Anguera 1*, Angel Blanco-Villaseñor 2 , Gudberg K. Jonsson 3 , José Luis Losada 2 and Mariona Portell 4 1 Faculty of Psychology, Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 2 Faculty of Psychology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 3 University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland, 4 Department of Psychobiology and Methodology of Health Sciences, Faculty of Psychology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain Keywords: systematic observation, methodological developments in systematic observation, areas of application in systematic observation, observational design, advances in systematic observation Editorial on the Research Topic Systematic Observation: Engaging Researchers in the Study of Daily Life as It Is Lived The Research Topic Systematic observation: Engaging researchers in the study of daily life as it is lived (Section Quantitative Psychology and Measurement) faithfully reflects the interest of many researchers to conduct studies based on a methodology that is essentially characterized by being highly flexible and rigorous, and that aims to capture reality as it happens when studying it scientifically. The analysis of a part of reality is complex, given the multifaceted nature of any aspect of daily life. This complexity is manifested in numerous aspects to be considered, from the initial filtering that must be done to conveniently delimit the part of reality to be studied, to the structuring of Edited and reviewed by: the ideal observational design, the construction of a customized instrument that allows to properly Pietro Cipresso, channel all the behaviors/elements to be observed around the axes or dimensions around which Istituto Auxologico Italiano (IRCCS), Italy the studied reality pivots, the materialization of a suitably coded record, the management of the records, data quality control, its subsequent analysis, and the interpretation of the results. *Correspondence: This process is none other than the scientific method, although adapted to the reality of natural M. Teresa Anguera mtanguera@gmail.com situations, in which it is not possible or convenient to apply the control that other methodologies offer, given that the spontaneity of behavior and the habituality of the context are of primary Specialty section: concern. In a schematic way, we could say that in the systematic observation the face and cross of This article was submitted to a same coin are focused: “Face” because its proven versatility and adaptability make it extremely Quantitative Psychology and interesting and demanded in innumerable situations, and “cross” because the rigor of the own Measurement, scientific method gives it a very estimable value that prestige such studies, as shown in the a section of the journal scientific community. The fact that Frontiers in Psychology, a prestigious scientific journal of high Frontiers in Psychology visibility around the world, had accepted the proposal of this Research Topic, gives more body and Received: 07 March 2019 arguments in favor of systematic observation to the scientific community. Accepted: 02 April 2019 The 23 articles that make up the Research Topic Systematic observation: Engaging researchers in Published: 24 April 2019 the study of daily life as it is lived are organized from a substantive point of view in different criteria, Citation: although each of the published articles could have been “classified” from several points of view. Anguera MT, Blanco-Villaseñor A, Jonsson GK, Losada JL and Portell M (2019) Editorial: Systematic METHODOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS Observation: Engaging Researchers in the Study of Daily Life as It Is Lived. Given the incessant development of systematic observation over the last quarter of a century, this Front. Psychol. 10:864. Research Topic has been an occasion to complete aspects that required progress, in order to be doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00864 taken as a point of reference in future studies and new developments. Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 April 2019 | Volume 10 | Article 864 Anguera et al. Editorial: Systematic Observation Basically, we differentiate four different aspects that mark a Morillo et al. address the study of referees in handball, also procedural path, and we consider that they are the following: taking advantage of the extraordinary possibilities of systematic On the one hand, the conceptualization, development and observation. As in the articles by Castañer et al. and Maneiro and analysis possibilities of indirect observation (Anguera et al.), Amatria, they apply polar coordinate analysis. which is strongly emerging in recent years, and revealing a wide With the exception of the Zurutuza et al. article, which field of application. More and more researchers are obtaining requires complementing the observation with physiological texts, either by transcribing oral conduct, or by applying new variables, all the other studies mentioned here constructed a forms of communication, or by direct writing, and they are custom observation instrument. provided with a procedure to follow. b) Health Psychology The weak current of systematic observation has traditionally From a broad definition of Health Psychology, three articles been the psychometric, and the article by Chacón-Moscoso et al. were published in the Research Topic. focuses, in an applied study, on the measurement of quality On one hand, Sanduvete-Chaves et al. have built a scale that of observational studies based on content validity, and taking allows measuring the quality of the work climate in emergency advantage of the possibilities of the Osterlind index. services, in which there is usually tension due to the responsibility One aspect that to date had been absent in systematic involved in making decisions and the necessary quickness that observation studies is simulation. Manolov and Losada, offer a is required. In addition to indirect observation, we have worked computer application developed for this purpose, adaptable to with questionnaires and surveys. different sampling techniques. Arias-Pujol and Anguera is a study of clinical psychology in And we can also consider as methodological development which the interaction between adolescents in a group therapy the work of Izquierdo and Anguera, centered on the notational has been observed. By means of a polar coordinates analysis it development of movement, and for which a structured system of has been possible to analyze the conversation in the therapeutic rules and symbols is proposed. group, starting from a detailed record obtained by means of a customized observation instrument. Finally, in Cerezo et al. the influence of parental gender AREAS OF APPLICATION (father/mother) is studied in the interaction with children, and also taking into account the gender of the child; we highlight The studies that we publish in this section stand out for the study of interaction from the framework of nonlinear both substantive and procedural aspects within systematic dynamic systems. observation, but we have considered that the emphasis that they c) Educational Psychology represent at the level of application areas was the most important: Systematic observation also has innumerable advantages in a) Sport studies that revolve around school and learning. In the Research This field presents special characteristics that make systematic Topic, five articles were published with very different objectives, observation extremely suitable and attractive as the scientific but with many common elements regarding the procedure. procedure to be followed. On the one hand, Rodríguez-Dorta and Borges set out to At the same time, priority is given to the interest in study the good practices of teachers who attend students with professional football in most sport articles published in this special educational needs. In Escolano-Pérez et al. the systematic Research Topic, although it is important to take into account observation is complemented with the selective methodology specific aspects of each one. While in Zurutuza et al. the to evaluate the executive functions of preschoolers and analyze objective is oriented to an analysis by physiological variables their association with later academic skills, using the general and is intended to study the relationship of external and linear model from the analytical perspective. Suárez et al. focuses internal training load indicators with the objective and subjective on the teaching of reading by primary school teachers, and, fatigue experienced by semi-professional football players, it has a as in Rodríguez-Dorta and Borges and Escolano-Pérez et al., different purpose in other studies. In Diana et al. the interest lies the theory of generalizability is used. The study realized by in knowing how game-location positively affects the secondary García-Fariña et al. uses indirect observation, and focuses on and tertiary level of performance, prioritizing the incidence the detection of patterns in the verbal behavior of physical of playing at home, or in an opponent field, or in a neutral education teachers in the school. The article by Santoyo and field. Casal et al., on the contrary, studied the identification of Mendoza focuses on the study of coercive patterns in the school factors that may allow predicting success in professional football, context, focusing in particular on the description of stability and focusing specifically on ball possession, and using bivariate and change in the behavioral patterns of children identified as victims multivariate statistical analysis. of bullying. The orientation is very different in the works of Castañer In the five articles of this group, an ad hoc observation et al. and Maneiro and Amatria. In both the aim is the in-depth instrument was elaborated, although in the work of Santoyo study of elite football players, from the intensive perspective. and Mendoza it had been presented in a previous study. In The analysis of polar coordinates is used in both, and in that of Rodríguez-Dorta and Borges, in García-Fariña et al., and in Castañer et al., in addition, the detection of T-Patterns, which was Santoyo and Mendoza, the analytical technique of lag sequential also used in the Diana et al. article. analysis was used, and in Suárez et al. the T-pattern detection and Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 2 April 2019 | Volume 10 | Article 864 Anguera et al. Editorial: Systematic Observation analysis was used, as in the articles by Castañer et al., Diana et al., AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS Diana et al., and Pic Aguilar et al. d) Social Psychology All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual Taking the term Social Psychology in a broad sense, we refer to contribution to the work, and approved it for publication. the Research Topic articles of this group, which are very diverse among themselves. FUNDING Diana et al. focus on the study of deception in social interaction; they combine systematic observation with an The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of a Spanish experiment, and the T-Patterns detection is applied, as in the government project (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad) articles by Castañer et al., Diana et al., Pic Aguilar et al., and La actividad física y el deporte como potenciadores del Suárez et al. estilo de vida saludable: Evaluación del comportamiento Cabrera et al. focus on the objective of studying antisocial deportivo desde metodologías no intrusivas [Grant number behavior, which begins in childhood, remains in adolescence, and DEP2015-66069-P, MINECO/FEDER, UE]. In addition, the continues its escalation during adulthood; this paper explores the authors thank the support of the Generalitat de Catalunya social interaction patterns of adolescents, with and without risk of Research Group, GRUP DE RECERCA I INNOVACIÓ committing antisocial behaviors and over 2 years, in a situation of EN DISSENYS (GRID). Tecnología i aplicació multimedia conversational negotiation about conflicting topics. i digital als dissenys observacionals [Grant number 2017 Pérez-Tejera et al. is a study of Environmental Psychology SGR 1405]. that focuses on the study of gender differences in the occupation of public parks; the EXOdES instrument was elaborated, and ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 35,000 co-occurrences of codes were recorded, with the analysis of polar coordinates being used, as in the articles by Castañer We sincerely appreciate the work of the Editors (MA, P. Cipresso, et al., Morillo et al., and Maneiro and Amatria. S. Chacón-Moscoso, H. Finch, J. C. Immekus, GJ, and JL) and e) Motor Game and Gaze Direction the reviewers (M. L. Alcañiz, E. Andrade, MA, E. Arias-Pujol, Two articles make up this last group: A. Arnarsson, C. Arce, M. Bertollo, E. Borokhovski, T.R. Bric, On the one hand Pic Aguilar et al. focus on the study of M.R. Buxarrais, A. Calcagni, M. Casarrubea, F. M. Clemente, motor games, and specifically in triadic ones, in order to know M. M. De Smet, A. Del Pino-Gutiérrez, P. Edouard, E. Filho, the regularities that are detected from the observable behaviors. H. Finch, M. Garaigordóbil, J. Gómez-Benito, R. S. John, GJ, The analysis technique used is the detection of T-Patterns, as in A. Lopes, A. A. J. Marley, G. Mento, O. Miglino, H. Milkman, the article by Castañer et al., Diana et al. and Diana et al. C. R. Muirhead, B. Oliván, A. J. Oliveira, I. Pavlidis, E. Pedroli, And, on the other, Lappi et al. present as objective an expert W. Rauch, E. Riva, G. Riva, C. Santoyo, S. Sastre, L. M. Scott, driver’s gaze behavior in natural driving on a real road, without H. Sigurjonsdottir, D. Sow, J. C. Tójar, and V. Zurloni). Thanks any instruction; and gaze directionality sequences are obtained to their effort and dedication, meticulous and professional, in the directionality of the gaze. they have managed to improve the originals sent, and we are aware of the long time spent in this work, silent, but of great CONCLUSIONS relevance to Frontiers in Psychology, the Research Topic, and the authors themselves. In short, the articles included in the Research Topic make up a And we thank Frontiers in Psychology for having trusted in broad spectrum. our proposal of the Research Topic Systematic Observation: As Editors of this Research Topic, we want to express the Engaging Researchers in the Study of Daily Life as It Is Lived, satisfaction that comes from having the opportunity to offer the as well as the invaluable help given in the management materialization of new studies in the exciting field of systematic and editing process of the manuscripts throughout of observation to the scientific community. this period. The Research Topic proposal has been motivating, exciting and satisfying, as well as the highest level of acceptance of Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could the originals. Regarding the management, the originals of be construed as a potential conflict of interest. the 23 articles that make up this Research Topic were sent from December 2016 to November 2017 and were published Copyright © 2019 Anguera, Blanco-Villaseñor, Jonsson, Losada and Portell. This between April 2017 and November 2018. The time elapsed from is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons submission to publication has ranged between 3 and 21 months Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited (some were delayed due to the difficulty of finding specialist and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted reviewers in the subject), and 100% of the submitted manuscripts academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not were accepted. Now, the average number of views is 3,100. comply with these terms. Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 3 April 2019 | Volume 10 | Article 864