Designs in Child Development

Question 1

What designs are used to study development?

Answer 1

• Longitudinal
• Cross-sectional
• Sequential
• Microgenetic

Question 2

What is Longitudinal design?

Answer 2

• Follow constancy and change in the domains across individuals over time
• Common patterns and individual differences

Question 3

Strenghts and problems with longitudinal design?

Answer 3

• Permits study of common patterns and individual differences in development
• Relationships between early and later events and behaviours

-Biased Sampling
- Selective attrition
- Practice and cohort desing
- May become outdated due to changes in theories and methods

Question 4

Biased sampling

Answer 4

Failure to enlist participants who represent the population of study as a whole

Question 5

Selective attrition

Answer 5

People may drop out, and those who continue are likely to differe from those who left in important areas

Question 6

Practice effect

Answer 6

Better at taking tests rather than showing change in development

Question 7

Cohort effects

Answer 7

Children developing in the same period are influenced by cultural and historical changes
- One cohort may not apply to other cohorts
Studying before coivd, during coivd and after covid

Question 8

What is cross-sectional studies?

Answer 8

• People of differing ages all studied at the same time
• See age related trends

Question 9

What are the strengths and problems with cross-sectional design?

Answer 9

• Efficient
• Not plagued by selective attriction, practice effects or theories and method changes in the field
• Cant see development over time
• Cohort effects, unique group

Question 10

What is sequential design?

Answer 10

• Longitudinal and cross-sectional comparisons
• Revelas cohort effects
• Permits tracking of age.related changes more effectively
• May have same problems as the other designs, but this design helsp identify difficulties

Question 11

What is microgenetic design?

Answer 11

• Extension/adaption of the longitudinal approach
• Children are presented with novel task, follow their mastery closely over several sessions

Question 12

What are the strenghts and limitations of microgenetic designs?

Answer 12

• Offers insight into how changes occur
• Cognitive development
• Time-consuming
  Alot of data
  Participants, several sessions
• Familiarization with the task may produce misleading findings