1: Developmental Designs and Variables Flashcards
People who study child development are typically interested in child welfare. What three things, in the context of research, does this encompass?
Parenting skills, education, clinical treatments.
Give three reasons why theoretical considerations are appealing to developmentalists.
Newborns are simpler organisms (e.g., no pattern visual experience).
Children are nonreflective.
Development is an AREA, not an APPROACH.
The developmental process is called what? What two questions can we answer with it?
Ontogenesis.
Developmental change or stability of psychological traits.
Origins of psychological processes (nature vs. nurture).
Smith’s (1984) categorization study suggested what about 4-year-olds?
Children match on perception of specific colours before they understand general notion or concept of colour.
What is the difference between within-subjects and between-subjects experimental designs?
Within-subjects: same people test all measures.
Between-subjects: different people test different measures.
What are two advantages of between-subjects designs? How can they be teased apart?
No carry-over effects: lingering effects of a previous experimental condition affecting current condition (e.g., practice effect; finding it more difficult to remember which words were in first or second list).
No order effects: differences in participant responses that result from the order (e.g., first, second) in which conditions are presented.
Can be teased apart via counterbalancing.
What are two advantages of within-subjects designs?
Fewer participants needed.
Differences easier to detect.
Developmental designs are experimental designs where _____ is the variable of interest.
Age.
Which experimental designs are the following:
- cross-sectional designs
- longitudinal designs
- time-lag designs
Between-subjects.
Within-subjects.
Between-subjects.
List two advantages and three disadvantages of cross-sectional designs.
Advantages: less time to complete, cheaper; test and measurement problems detected quickly.
Disadvantages: risk of selection bias for selecting participants; risk of differential dropout at different ages; assess only developmental differences (e.g., age group differences in height, vocabulary).
List four advantages and three disadvantages of longitudinal designs.
Advantage: Assess developmental change and its shape (e.g., pattern of individual changes in height, vocabulary); assess developmental stability of abilities/behaviour; assess effects of early intervention on later dev.; assess possible causal directions of two related variables.
Disadvantages: Expensive and time-consuming; risk of selective dropout with age; carry-over and order effects confounded because of age.
What are cross-lagged panel models? What can they suggest?
Examine predictive associations between two variables over time, each controlling for effects at earlier time point.
Suggest causal directionality and change over time.
What are confounds?
Multiple variables vary at the same time as independent variable, difficult to identify which variable(s) cause change in dependent/response variable.
What are the confounds in cross-sectional designs? Provide an example.
Age and cohort (generation) are confounded. Results are specific to the time of testing.
E.g., younger vs. older adults’ memory.
What are the confounds in longitudinal designs? Provide an example.
Age and year confounded, results specific to cohort.
E.g., Stress levels in Sri Lankan children (before vs. after tsunami).
