Food Court Observation Paper

1174 Words3 Pages

Topic/Question:
What do people usually do when they are at the George Sherman Union’s food court? Is there a difference in behavior between those who study or eat alone and those who do that with friends?

Description:
My goal is to explore the atmosphere at the GSU food court. I want to learn whether being alone vs. being with someone or a group affect people’s eating or working habits at the GSU. I don’t usually eat my lunch at the GSU, but most of my group meetings for different courses are held at the GSU. To prepare for data collection, I chose a table at a usually busy section of the court. I chose the time to be 3 pm to make sure my observation wasn’t influenced by other factors (like busy lunch time for example.) There were a number …show more content…

As a frequent visitor of the GSU (not the food court necessarily,) I was interested in knowing why the food court was always crowded and whether people’s behavior changes whether they were eating, working, alone or with friends. At first I was really excited to collect the data. The GSU is one of my favorite places on campus and it was interesting to sit there and observe people. The experience itself was okay at first, but then I saw one of my classmates at HS440 sit close by. Although she wasn’t part of the observation, I felt a little bit anxious as I thought that she must have seen me take notes; this made me a little bit self-conscious and more aware of my movement and typing sounds. After a while, I got to feel more comfortable as my classmate left. The observation process at first felt weird as I thought I was intruding on other people. But then again, after a while I got more comfortable which I believe had a positive effect on my notetaking as I began to look around more freely. I came in with the assumption that people who study alone at the GSU would be more distracted with everything around them. However, I did not notice such thing. As I mentioned in my findings, all students/people who were working (whether alone or with other people) displayed the same amount of attention to their

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