The Hawthorne effect

People change their behavior when they are being observed. We may walk differently in our own backyard than at a crossroad while being observed by the drivers waiting for us.

For both research on gait and for clinical gait measurements, it is important that we capture the ‘real gait’ of our patient. Therefore, we investigate if people change their gait pattern when they are being observed and when they are being measured.e measure the gait pattern of 20 people after stroke. We perform these measurements in three conditions:

When the participant walk alone in an empty hallway.
When the participant walks in a hallway and is being observed by a therapist.
When the participant walks in a hallway, is being observed by a therapist, and is aware that his/her gait pattern is being measured with sensors.

We compare the gait pattern between the 3 conditions. This way we can examine if the participants change their gait pattern due to observation or measurement.