Lecture 1: Goals & Methods

Question 1

STATE THE 4 GOALS OF DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE

Answer 1

1. Describing Development
2. Explaining Development
3. Developmental Cascades
4. Applying Developmental Science

Question 2

What is Goal 1: Describing Development?

Answer 2

A first goal of developmental psychology is to understand developmental changes across childhood, the nature of these changes (e.g., abrupt vs. slow), and variation in skills in children

Question 3

What is Quantitative change?

Answer 3

Gradual changes in the amount, frequency, or degree of behaviours…

Question 4

What is Qualitative change?

Answer 4

A progression through a sequence of distinct changes

Question 5

What is a way in which child development is quantitative?

Answer 5

Changes in children’s vocabulary appear to be quantitative

Question 6

What is a way in which child development is qualitative?

Answer 6

The transition from crawling to walking can be viewed as qualitative

Question 7

List three ways that children differ in their course of development?

Answer 7

– Age of onset
– Rate of change
– The form of skills

Question 8

What is Developmental Onset

Answer 8

Developmental onset refers to the approximate age when specific skills emerge, such as first words, first steps, first signs of puberty, and so forth.

Question 9

What is the rate of change

Answer 9

Rate of change refers to the course of change over time, including how fast children progress in their skills.

Question 10

What is the form of skills

Answer 10

The form of skills refers to what behavior looks like in children with diverging experiences. Striking differences exist for skills that people often assume to be universal, such as counting.

Example:
* Counting: although people assume this skill to be universal, the
Pirahã people appear to lack number concepts

Question 11

What is Developmental Stability?

Answer 11

Whether children who are relatively low or high on a certain characteristic or behavior at a particular point in time are also relatively low or high at other times

Question 12

What is Developmental Plasticity?

Answer 12

The impressive capacity of humans to adapt to changing
environments and experiences

Question 13

What is Goal 2: Explaining Development?

Answer 13

A second goal of developmental psychology is to identify factors that contribute to developmental change in children as a group and to individual differences

Question 14

What is the nature-nurture debate?

Answer 14

Nature versus nurture is a long-standing debate in biology and society about the relative influence on human beings of their genetic inheritance and the environmental conditions of their development

Question 15

What is Nature?

Answer 15

A child’s biological endowment, or the genes inherited
from parents, including biological characteristics shared across humans (arms, legs, eyes, etc.) and unique characteristics of people such as physical appearance (eye colour, height, hair colour, etc.) and personality (extraversion, agreeableness, openness, etc.

Question 16

What is Nurture?

Answer 16

The range of environmental contexts and experiences
that influence development, from birth to death, including family, childcare, school, neighbourhood, and culture.

Question 17

What is Developmental Cascades?

Answer 17

The idea that change of one
kind can have positive or
negative cascading effects,
setting other kinds of changes
in motion, both immediately
and at later ages.

Question 18

What are Cascades within time?

Answer 18

Concurrent influences that occur across different domains
and/or between the developing child and the child’s
environment and experiences.

For example, you may have heard parents say “use your words” as their children scream in frustration. Clearly, children can only use their words if they have the language skills to express what they want.

Question 19

What are Cascades over time?

Answer 19

Changes at one period in development result in changes at a later period in the same or a different domain.

Example: Children who experience low-quality parenting early may
experience academic problems later, as well as limits to future
educational choices

Question 20

Hypothesis-driven research:

Answer 20

Developmental researchers
begin with a question
involving a specific idea
about what they expect to
find

Question 21

What is Discovery-based science?

Answer 21

Science based on discovering and understanding what children do and what development looks like without presuppositions

– Piaget’s constructivist theory of development

– Bowlby’s theory of attachment

Question 22

Sample?

Answer 22

who participates in a study

Question 23

Generalizability?

Answer 23

how do research findings from one sample extend to a population at large

– The larger the sample, the greater the chance that findings are
generalizable

Question 24

What is convenience sampling?

Answer 24

Researchers recruit participants into a study based on how easy it is to get them, such as the students in a researcher’s class or children in the local community, which is referred to as convenience sampling.

**Samples of convenience may bias findings and may differ significantly from the larger population

Question 25

What does WEIRD stand for?

Answer 25

Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic

Question 26

WEIRD populations in developmental psychology, Why is this a problem?

Answer 26

Increasing evidence that numerous findings in development, even ones presumed to be “universal” are, in fact, tied to specific cultural contexts

• Our understanding of human development is limited

Question 27

State types of research methods..

Answer 27

1. Interviews
2. Observations
3. Written Surveys
4. Physiological Assessments

Question 28

Study Designs?

Answer 28

A specific plan for conducting a study that allows the researcher to test a study’s
hypotheses

Question 29

Correlational Studies?

Answer 29

Test associations between two or more variables with no manipulation of variables

Example: Finding a relationship between number of hours
playing violent video games and children’s aggressive
behaviors

Question 30

Confounding variable?

Answer 30

A third variable that may relate to both dependent and independent variables

Question 31

Experiments?

Answer 31

A research method testing a hypothesis about a cause-and-effect relationship between two or more variables

Question 32

Longitudinal study?

Answer 32

Follows the same participants
over time

Question 33

Cross-sectional study?

Answer 33

Tests different groups of
participants at different ages

Question 34

Cohort-sequential study?

Answer 34

Tests different groups of
participants, but then follows
them across time

Question 35

Microgenetic design

Answer 35

Frequent assessments over a small period of time

Question 36

Inter-rater Reliability?

Answer 36

The extent to which different observers reach the same results

Question 37

Test-retest Reliability?

Answer 37

A participant receives the same or similar score when tested at
different times and under similar conditions

Question 38

Face Validity

Answer 38

The purpose of the measure is clear to people who look it over

Question 39

Concurrent Validity

Answer 39

Reflects the degree to which a measure corresponds to another measure that tests the same phenomenon at the same point in time

Question 40

Predictive Validity

Answer 40

Reflects the degree to which a measure predicts a criterion to be measured at a future point in time

Question 41

External Validity

Answer 41

Refers to the extent to which a measure can be applied across different settings or different groups of people