Methods And Issues In Child Development Flashcards
(13 cards)
Method + issues in child development
- recurring issues
- child development methods
- persistent sampling bias
Recurring issues: nature-nurture
Nature: biological endowment, especially genes received from our parents
Nurture: physical and social environment that influence our development
Work together to shape development
More nurture focused:
-Learning theory
-ecological theory
More nature focused:
- cognitive development theory
- evolutionary theory
Reoccurring theories: continuous-discontinuous
Continuous:
- changes with age occur gradually, in small increments
- development occurs skill by skill, task by task
- leaning theorists
- Watson, Bandura
Discontinuous:
- changes with age include occasional, large shifts
- developmental shifts result inn qualitative changes
- stage theorists
- Piaget, Freud
Continuous:
- learning Thoery
Discontinuous:
- cognitive development thoery
- evolutionary theory
Ecological = unspecified
Child development methods: The scientific method
Basic assumption: all beliefs may be wrong
- they are hypothesis that need to be tested
- hypothesis not supported by evidence = rejected
4 steps of scientific methods:
1. Choose question to be answered
2. Formulate hypotheses
3. Develop methods for testing
4. Use data acquired to draw conclusion regarding hypotheses
Child development methods: research designs
- Cross- sectional: study where children of diferent ages are observes at single point in time
- Longitudinal: study where more than 1 observation of same group of children is made at different points in their development
- Microgenetic: method that examines change as it occurs and involves individual children being tested repeatedly, typically over short period f time so that density of observations is high compared with the typical longitudinal study
- Issues :
-time between measures
-cohort effects : group of people who were raised in sae environment or share certain demographic characteristics
- sequential designs: combinations of longitudinal and cross-sectional designs that Elaine’s development of individuals from diferent age cohorts
Child development methods: methods for gathering data (interviews)
Interview types:
structured:
asking identical questions to many kids, quick and straight forward answers
clinical:
begin with prep questions, but follow child’s lead, in-depth info about individual child
Pros:
- yield in-depth data
- yield data quick
- continent
Cons:
- children’s answers may be invalid because children forget or give biased responses
Cearful observe subjects and record how they behave in their unusual environment
Naturalistic observation:
Pros:
- can yield detailed info about kids everyday lives, behaviours
- observations can lead to the production of theories of child development
Cons:
- problems of generalisation
-behaviours may occur only rarely in everyday interactions, making them hard to study
- observed bias and influence
-hard to know which factors are influenced by behaviour
Baby biographies:
- observe babies as they behave in real-life situations
Time sampling:
- individuals behaviour at frequent intervals of time is recorded
Pros: frequency of different behaviours during observation period
Cons: missing of behaviours
Researcher creates setting (in lab) that is likely to bring out behaviour of interest
Observes behaviour and relates it to other factors (eg age, personality)
Pros:
- ensures that all children are observes in same context
-can observe behaviours otherwise rare or difficult to study
Cons:
- structured setting may distort the behaviour
- observer bias and influence
- instruments for the quantitate assent of some psychological attribute or attributes of person
- eg moto development, personality develoment
- sample of children can be compares against appropriate norms
Child development methods: methods for gathering data (clinical method )
- natrual behaviour is observes and then individuals environment in hangers in order to understand better the behaviour of interest
- first used by Jean Piaget
- combination of observation and loosely structured experimentation
Reliability: extent to which measure provides consisten index of characteristic
Validity: whetehr measure really measure what researching think it does
I
Child development methods: correlation and causation (correlation studies)
Looks at relations between variables as they exist naturally in the world
-measures 2 variables
-sees whether the 2 variables are related
Aspects to measure:
- whether relation between the 2 variables is positive or negative
- the strength of the relation
Pros:
Determine whether variables are related
Cons:
Does not address cause and effect
Third-variable problem
Child development methods: correlation and causation (experimental studies)
Systematic way of manipulating key factor or factors that investigator thinks cause a particular behaviour.
If kids exposed to one experience and kids exposed to a different experience subsequently behave different from one another, then those subsequent differences in behaviour must have resulted from differences in experience.
2 experimental designs:
- Random assignment: each child has an equal chance of being assigned to any of the groups
- Experimental control: all kids are treated identically EXCEPT for the one factor that researcher is interested in
PROS:
- allows casual inferences
- allows experimental contro over exact experiences children receive
CONS:
- experimental situations may be artificial, ecological validity is not always given
- cannot be used to study many variables and behaviours of interest eg, age, sex, temperament, wealth —- can only be studied using correlation methods
Child development methods: developmental functions
Typical trends in development:
- Continuous function: increasing ability
- Continuous function: decreasing ability
- Discontinuous function: development takes place in series of stages; each stage appears to be qualitatively divert from the pressing stages
- U-shaped function: inverted and upright
- Comparing developmental functions
