issues and methods Flashcards
what kinds of development can be invesitgated?
stability change critical/sensitive passive child active child normative dev individual dev
define stability and change
stability -
children high or low in certain characteristic remain so at a later age
infers heridtary and importance of early experiences
change-
abilities or behaviours that change over time as experience increases
define critical/sensitive periods
periods where certain experiences must occur for optimum development
discontinous
ie. genie grow up without human contact and therefore not fully capable of learning language
define passive and active child
passive - environment shapes behaviour, mechanistic
active - children are driving force of their own development and actively search to learn and improve skills ie piaget internal structures are driving force for active learning
define normative and individual development
normative - look at average development and trends for similarities
individual - look at differences across development and unique cases
what methods are used to research development
observational experimental londitudinal cross sectional correlational EEG/ERP
describe the types of observations
naturalistic - reflect everyday situations
structured - environment controlled to ellicit specifc behaviour and greater control over extraneous variables
descriptive - gather qualitative data on entire streams of behaviour
systematic - explore specific behaviours over period of time
eval types of observations
naturalistic - low control over extraneous variables, and accuracy reduced by observer influence and bias
structures - may not reflect real life, and accuracy reduced by observer influence and bias
descriptive - difficult to measure
describe ainsworth strange situation (observational)
parent parent and stranger stranger parent alone stranger parent
developed attachment types secure insecure avoidant insecure resistant disorganised
limitations of observations
observer influences - unfamiliar so cause pp to behave unnaturally
observer bias - ovserver looking for specific behaviours and aware of purpose so has personal investment
describe correlational research
look at relationship between characteristics and development
direction and strength expressed via correlation coefficient between 0 and 1 decribes the association between two variables
problem with correlational
doesnt take into account other influential factors
only linear relationship
describe longditudinal studies
study same pp repeatedly at different ages
impact of early experiences on development
identify common patterns and individual differences
problems with longditudinal
bias sampling - attrition of subjects and those who volunteer mean likely to be specific
difficult to repeat and expensive
practice effects of tests
cohort effects - development of a group at a specific period in time
describe the cross sectional study
groups of people at dif ages studied at same point in time
reduce time frame and less expensive
removes practice effects and selective attention