Observation is an essential aspect of the scientific process. I learnt that observation must be informative. This means that it must be an account of something to serve as a justification of other claims. Besides that, observation must be justified in the sense of being certifiable. These two aspects are required in order for an observation to be informative and useful contributors to knowledge. Observation plays and important role in a scientific process but at the same time, the stated aspects need to be fulfilled in order for the observation to be valid.
Personally, I do not think it is easy for an observation to be accountable at all times due to the fact that not everyone would have observed the scientific process but rather everyone depends on one person’s observation which is something I find hard to fully rely on. Personally doing research and carefully analysing an observation would somehow aid in this issue.
Placing importance in the accountability, reliability and justifiability of an observation would be an aspect I would educate my future students on. I believe that it is vital that they understand the importance accountability, reliability and justifiability of a scientific process rather than just assuming what other people observe and say is true. They need to be aware that observations need to be useful instead of simply being observations without any advantages to it.
Scientific observation
An article on observation