Research Project: Three vignettes from Friends, The TV series

Final research project

In the piloting phase, novice/researcher will:

(a) To become familiar with show characters, student will observe several minutes short first introductory video which can be found on You Tube website to observe behaviors of the cast of Friends (Bright et al., 1994-1995) titled Friends: Rachel Runs Out on her Wedding to Barry (Season 1 Clip) | TBS. The brief video can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v14PWuURC7Y

(b) Select two specific friends (no more than two) that could become “research participants.”

(c) To become familiar with set of brief vignettes from videos mashed up (apparently by fans of show) from the second year of TV show Friends (Bright, Kaufman, & Crane, 1995-1996). The show has six characters named Ross, Monika, Chandler, Phoebe, Joey, and Rachel. Randomly select two or three vignettes in which your set of two friends appears and has a meaningful interaction.

(d) Pose one tentative question about friendship behavior between two specific characters who are self-proclaimed friends. In class, instructor gives feedback about the feasibility of question.

(e) Operationalize eight specific friendship behaviors (in other words, defines what to observe and how would one find those behaviors—what to look for).

(f) Read Bordens and Abbott (2021), starting on page 251: Developing behavioral categories; quantifying behavior in observational study; recording single events or behavior sequences.

(g) Prepare coding sheet and code three randomly selected vignettes (short scenes segments) for operationalized behaviors from the following mashuup video from Bright et al. (1995-1996) from the second season of Friends titled Friends Best Moments From Season 2 Mashup TBS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U0iTocrn9w

(h) Quantify the behaviors in a sensible way. This one and other abovementioned steps are considered piloting during which novice/researcher creates a protocol for the study (in other words, establishes order how the study will be conducted).

For operationalization, coding sheet, and quantification, student can become inspired by reading Bordens and Abbott (2021), starting by page 251. Novice/researcher needs to think how to capture quantification of selected operationalized behaviors in a Table(s) that will become part of reporting results of the observational study.

B. Data Collection:

Once you have your sensible/feasible research question, all friendship behaviors operationalized, have observed those in a pilot study, reported the results of pilot study, and worked out, with coding sheet, how to conduct your research and how to quantify behavior (all of which is called “Procedure” in the research), you will be ready to move to data collection phase.

Conducting your research will require randomization; in this case, as a randomization tool will serve the times when your particular self-selected 10 vignettes with two specific friends start in the individual videos (e.g., 3:45, 7:50; 1:45:25 etc.). In case the season two Mashup does not have all vignettes needed for working with two selected participants, here is additional mashup from season 3: Friends Funniest Moments of Season 3 Mashup TBS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgY3c5tI36s

As a reminder of what kind of data you are collecting, it will be observation of frequency of eight different types of friendship behaviors—eight different kinds that you have succinctly operationalized—between two friends only in 10 randomly selected vignettes.. (Again, select only two friends from list of Ross, Monika, Chandler, Phoebe, Joey, and Rachel.) After piloting your initial sample, work further with your coding sheet to collect data for your observational research that represent behaviors embedded in your research questions and/or hypothesis.

You are selecting 10 different brief vignettes from longer mash up of fans’ favorite moments from Bright, Kaufman, and Crane (1995-1996) from Season 2 or season 3 (Bright et al., 1996-1997). First, to select 10 vignettes that you want to work with (feel free to use piloted vignettes and add additional ones to reach total of 10), from the following mash up vignettes, mute the sound and lead the curser above the line of timeline to find the vignettes. Mark the times; you will return to these vignettes later on for data collection.

My suggestion is to stay focused on Season 2 of Friends (Bright et al., 1995-1996) for reasons of not complicating your research. Go over the mash up video to find vignettes in which your two selected characters appear. Mark your way of selecting vignettes; you will need to describe succinctly the method of vignettes selection in your paper.