Summary of the second edition of Developmental Psychology. This summary is based entirely on the exam material for the Development Psychology course of the first year of Pedagogical Sciences at the University of Groningen. This summary is extensive and easy to use to complement the literature. It c...
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER 3; RESEARCH METHODS IN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Methods for data collection.
Self reports
A problem with self reports could be that younger children tend to be less
attentive, slower to respond and to have more trouble understanding the
questions the researchers ask. Some results, like feelings, are too hard to
obtain in any other way.
Reports by family members, teachers and peers
These reports are generally based on many observations made over time in
a variety of situations. However, human memory is not completely reliable.
Parents and others may also make a choice to present themselves in a
different light, and answer dishonestly.
Naturalistic observation
There is often no substitute for researchers own direct observation of
people. However, such data are valid only to the extent that the presence of
an observer or other demands of the situation do not distort the
participants’ behaviour and responses. When children or parents are being
watched, they tend to express less negative emotion and to exhibit more
socially desirable behaviour.
- Structured observation = a form of observation in which researchers
structure a situation so that behaviours they wish to study are more
likely to occur.
Interviews
Very widely used. Often, researchers will conduct interviews following a
tightly prescribed set of questions, where an interview format is used to
elicit children’s responses to a questionnaire that they cannot complete
themselves. Piaget used an interview method that involved, rather than
using a pre-set script, further questioning on the child’s answer. He reacted
to the participants’ answers to develop a line of questioning that revealed
immature reasoning.
Participatory research
Participatory research involves the research participants themselves being
actively engaged in the research process, perhaps designing the study,
collecting data on themselves, and sometimes analysing and reporting the
findings. It is well suited to the studies that seek to articulate a
developmental phenomenon in a community or contextualized setting,
,where the perspectives of research participants or a community are central
to the questions being explored. Researchers argue that such approaches
can empower participants and break down some of the imbalance in status,
or more general wariness, between researchers and research participants.
Eliciting behavioural responses in experiments
It often takes more time than there is available to research the mental
processes of young babies through naturalistic observation alone. 5 month-
olds, for instance, show a preference to look at a certain object. These
visual preferences are remarkably consistent between young infants, and so
experimenters can use these preferences to determine whether infants of a
particular age can discriminate between stimuli presented.
Biological and psychophysiological measures
Because our understanding of biological influence on psychological
development is at a relatively early stage, scientists are now asking quite a
range of questions about how our brains and nervous systems develop, and
what this can tell us about psychological development.
Examples of measures of the PNS (peripheral nervous system) include heart
rate, sweating response and muscle activity. The CNS (central nervous
system), which comprises the brain and spinal cord, the main machinery of
psychological functions, is much harder to investigate. However, recent
years have witnessed a revolution in non-invasive methods available for
studying the CNS in infants and young children.
Psychophysiological methods used by developmental psychologists;
Measures of the peripheral nervous system
The PNS directly senses the environment before passing information
to the CNS. Responses in the PNS have been linked with and thus
used to measure emotional cognitive and even behavioural processes.
Changes in heart rate have been used to identify everything from
perceptual discrimination to emotional change in young infants.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) uses strong magnetic
fields to detect the level of oxygenated blood parts of the brain that
are in use, which allows researchers to determine which parts of the
brain are involved in whatever a person is doing while they are being
‘scanned’.
FNIRS (functional near infrared spectroscopy) capitalizes on the fact
that infrared light passes through the skull and is refracted in
different ways by oxygenated and deoxygenated blood. In this way it
is possible to see which parts of the brain are active, and it is a much
more suitable research method for children.
PET (positron emission tomography) involves injecting a radioactive
isotope into the bloodstream, which has the effect of labelling blood in
different ways, enabling researchers to measure brain function
through the chemicals that are pumped to it in order to sustain its
, activity. It is more invasive, but a wider range of chemicals used by
the brain can be traced.
EEG (electroencephalograph) measures electrical activity on the
scalp. It does not provide a very good spatial resolution as the
electrical activity spreads through the scalp. On the other hand, it is a
very good method for measuring rapid changes in neural activity over
time. It is not claustrophobic and the electrode cap is quite comfy.
Marker tags make it possible to track the development of brain
function without taking physiological measurements. Researchers
make use of behavioural tasks that have been linked to the activity of
brain areas in typical adults.
Qualitative research methods
Qualitative methods can focus on specifics of the interactions, language or
discourse children use, or on the complex meanings that research
participants draw from their experiences. Ethnographic research seeks to
get inside a particular group or culture to understand aspects of the
relationships between its members, and the values and beliefs that exist as
a result. Ethnographic and other qualitative research methods can reveal
important perspectives about developmental processes, and are especially
useful when exploring a new issue or complex content.
Selecting a sample
In a research we must ensure the representativeness of a sample. That is,
the individuals we choose to study must possess nearly the same
characteristics evidenced by the larger population in which we are
interested.
Research design in developmental psychology
Correlational method = a research design that permits investigators to
establish relations among variables as well as assess the strength of those
relations.
The critical point to remember is that a correlation does not indicate causal
relations between factors, it simply tells us that two factors are related to
each other and indicates the strength or magnitude of that correlation.
The primary means by which researchers investigate causal connections
among factors is with an experiment. In an experiment, the independent
variable is the factor the researchers deliberately manipulate. The
dependent variable is the factor that researchers expect to change as a
function of change in the independent variable. Ecological validity is the
degree to which a research study accurately represents events or processes
, that occur in the natural world. In a field experiment, investigators
deliberately introduce a change in a person’s normal environment and then
measure the outcome of their manipulation. The observer bias is the
tendency of observers to be influenced in their judgements by their
knowledge of the hypothesis during the research.
A natural experiment (study on events that occur in the real world) differs
from the correlational approach because it the children are already exposed
to a set of conditions in real life.
A case study is a form of research in which investigators study an individual
person or group very intensely. The case study allows investigators to
explore phenomena they do not often encounter, such as unusual talent or a
rare developmental disorder. The Microgenetic Method involves studying
changes in an individual’s behaviour over time on the same or similar set of
tasks.
Studying change over time (table page 54)
The cross-sectional method is a research method in which researchers
compare groups of individuals of different age levels at approximately the
same point in time, to determine how changes associated with age may
unfold over the course of development. However, this method does not
provide a view of individual change over time.
The longitudinal method is a method in which investigators study the
same people repeatedly at various times in the participant’s lives.
Advantages are that it is a powerful method for evaluating the impact of
earlier events on later behaviour. A disadvantage is that it can take years to
collect longitudinal data. In addition, there is a change of losing people. It
also may lose relevance as society changes and be only descriptive of a
particular age cohort.
The sequential method is a research method that combines features of
both the cross-sectional and longitudinal method. An advantage is that this
study allows researchers to examine age-related changes in children.
Second, it allows researchers to examine the impact of the year of
evaluation and testing or practice effects.
Ethics of research with children
Informed consent is agreement, based on a clear and full understanding of
the purposes and the procedures of a research study, to participate in that
study. The core challenge of a developmental researcher is to judge how far
any procedure may affect children differently or in ways in which adults
would not be affected.
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