General and Quizzes

Question 1

Weaknesses of longitudinal designs

Answer 1

Weaknesses:
- Very cost-intensive

• Practice Effects- If same test is administered at different points in time to thesame individuals it may be difficult to attribute improvements to actual developmental changes or tofamiliarity with the test
• Selective Attrition- Individuals may drop out which can severely bias the sample ofindividuals in the study
• Cohort Effects- Developmental change may be specific to a specific generation of people (cohort); reflect experiences that are specific forpeople born in a certain year.
  - For example – children who experienced the social media boomthrough Facebook in 2004, or the introduction of the iPhone in 2007

Question 2

What is selective attrition

Answer 2

• Selective Attrition
• Individuals may drop out which can severely bias the sample of individuals in the study

Question 3

Describe a Cross-sectional design and its main benefits

Answer 3

• Individuals of different ages are tested at one point in their development.
• This design is most commonly used.
• Data of individuals of different age can be collected faster than with the longitudinal design
  - more convenient data collection.
• Age-related changes can be inferred with caution

Question 4

Describe potential weaknesses of cross sectional design

Answer 4

Weaknesses of a cross-sectional design:
- Cohort Effects
- Continuity of development cannot be tracked.

Question 5

What are the benefits of longitudinal-sequential design

Answer 5

• Hybrid design between a longitudinal and cross-sectional design to overcome some of the weaknesses both have.
• Individuals of different ages are repeatedly tested at different points of their development.
• Continuity of development can be assessed.
• Practice and cohort effects can be assessed:
  - Check if individuals of same age in different years show the same results.

Question 6

Describe potential weaknesses of longitudinal sequential designs

Answer 6

• Weaknesses of a longitudinal-sequential design:
• Cost-intensive
• Selective attrition: still a problem, but diminished if period ofinvestigation is shorter, e.g., 3 years instead of 6.

Question 7

Benefits and weaknesses of correlational design

Question 8

What is Qualitative change

Answer 8

the amount and quantity of change- e.g., increase in number of words an infant can say

Question 9

What is Quantitative Change

Answer 9

the type or quality of change- e.g., the way an infant combines words to build a sentence.

Question 10

Provide an examples of each Age related change

Answer 10

Question 11

Longitudinal designs are best to investigate developmental changes directly in individuals.However, they come with 4 major weaknesses.What are they?

Answer 11

A. Cohort effects
B. Selective attrition
C. Practice effect
D. Cost intensive

Question 12

What is the big advantage of a field experiment compared to a classical experiment?

Answer 12

It measures representative behaviour asit occurs in daily life.

Question 13

What are cohort effects?

Answer 13

Developmental change may be specific to a specific generation of people (cohort); reflect experiences that are specific for people born in a certain year.

Question 14

How do researchers study development?

Name Two Types of General Research Design

Answer 14

• Correlational Studies
• Experimental Studies

Question 15

How do researchers study development?

Name Three Types of Developmental Research Design

Answer 15

• Longitudinal Designs
• Cross-Sectional Designs
• Longitudinal-Sequential Designs

Question 16

General Designs for Research:

Briefly describe aspects of Correlational Studies

Answer 16

Interested in the relationship between variables
Strength and direction of relationship is expressed in the correlation coefficient r
this value varies between -1 and +1
* r = 0: two variables are completely linearly unrelated
* r = 1: two variables are positively related
* r = -1: two variables are negatively/inversely related

**IMPORTANT: A correlation does not allow conclusions in regards tocause and effect as it does not identify a cause **

Question 17

General Designs for Research:

Briefly describe aspects of Experimental Studies

Answer 17

Lab-Based Experiment
* Interested in the causal effect between variables
* Variables are manipulated systematically (independent variables) and target behavior (dependent variable) is measured, in a controlled setting
* IMPORTANT: In an experiment, people are randomly assigned todifferent conditions

Question 18

General Designs for Research:

What type of Study is Field Research and list some Aspects

Answer 18

Experimental Studies

Field Experiment
- Interested in the causal effect between variables and externallyvalid results.
- Experiment takes place in real-world settings to measurerepresentative behavior.
- IMPORTANT: Participants are still randomly assigned to differentexperimental conditions – allowing us to draw causal inferences.

Question 19

General Designs for Research:

What did DeloacheDeLoache et al.’s (2010) show and what type of study was it

Answer 19

Experimental
Field Experiment
- DeLoache et al.’s (2010) vocabulary learning via video fieldexperiment with 1-year old children
- Three conditions:
- (1) Parent and infant watched vocab DVD several times a week
- (2) Parents taught vocab to infants
- (3) Control-

- Results:
- Test 4 weeks later infants in Condition 2 outperformed infants in the other two conditions

Question 20

Developmental Designs:

Provide a brief description of Longitudinal Design

Answer 20

• Same individuals studied repeatedly at different points in theirlives.
• Growth and changes can be directly observed.

- Micro-genetic Study:
- Individuals are tested repeatedly over a shorter period oftime, e.g., days and weeks.
- Suitable to examine developmental changes that occur withina certain time frame

Longitudinal Design