Lecture 1 - Methods Flashcards
What does developmental research seek to do?
- Describe and explain developmental changes
2. Uncover earliest instances of knowledge
Does absence of evidence equal evidence of absence?
Absence of evidence does NOT equal evidence of absence.
E.g. if can’t find competence in 4yr old does not mean competence does not exist just study may not be sensitive enough to identify competence
Issues of conducting developmental research
Capturing developmental change Type design Confounding variables Age appropriate tasks Testing proverbial infants Beware biases Counterbalancing Ethics Social bias
Issues of capturing developmental change and type of design?
Capturing - need to select appropriate age range
Type design - cross sectional or longitudinal
Issues of confounding variables
Extraneous - influences development itself e.g. testing language development
Testing bilingual child not representative of monolingual
Issues of age appropriate tasks
Make sure instructions age appropriate
If comparing 2 groups of different ages, need task be appropriate both age groups
Be a difference in knowledge? Or older children better able cope with demands of task?
Issues of testing preverbal infants and ethics
Preverbal infants - subjective interpretation
Social bias - eagerly try please adults
Ethics - cannot give informed consent, less likely to say they do not want to continue, safe-guarding issues
Competence vs Performance
Competence - conceptual understanding required solve problem
Performance - other cognitive skills required access and express understanding e.g. ability remember key info, focus attention, comprehend question, inhibit bias
Designing a study
Select appropriate:
1. Age range cover development
- Design for data collection e.g. cross-sectional or longitudinal
- Method data collection e.g. observation, interview, experimentation
- Variables to measure
What is a cross-sectional design
Single time point to compare behaviour between different age groups on same task
Advantages of cross-sectional design
Time and cost efficient
Fast and easy method revealing similarities and differences between older and younger children
(mostly practical advantages)
Limitations of cross-sectional designs
Inter individual differences = intraindividual age-related changes
- differences we see between 4yrs and 6yrs generalising development from age 4 to age 6. Do not know this is a valid assumption
Only provide snapshots. Do not tell us about processes development or change
Don’t know how changes emerge
What is a Longitudinal design
Examines and compares abilities/behaviours of particular group children over several time points. Varying time scales across studies.
Test them 1 time point then at a later point test them again on same task
Experimental manipulation of naturally occurring behaviours
Uses of longitudinal designs
Observe change over time within individuals
Examine stability behaviour
Reveal proportion children with particular developmental trajectory
Reveal how early abilities, behaviours or environmental influences related to subsequent abilities/behaviours
Determine temporal primacy of constructs (cause and effect)
Establish which early abilities best predictors later abilities
What are the disadvantages of longitudinal designs
Resource intensive
Subject attrition
Practice effects
Repeated testing may change course of development - not true reflection of normal development
Longer publish paper
Have children dropping out throughout experiment - especially an issue if drop outs represent specific sub-group
What is a Micro Genetic Design
Capturing change as it happens - process what is important
Very intense over short period time
In-depth depiction process of change
Study children on verge important developmental change and intensively study change as occurs
Do different methods, different theories of development?
Depends on lens which study development
Harris 2008: any account of developmental change is constrained by methodology adopted to uncover that change
Cross-sectional averages across age gaps lead appearance of stages (micro-genetic)
What are the two different levels of knowledge
Explicit
Implicit
What is explicit knowledge
Knowledge easily accessible
Measure via elicited response
E.g. verbal answer to a question
What is implicit knowledge
Knowledge child is unaware of
Measure via spontaneous response
E.g. gesture produced alongside speech; eye-gaze response
Who research gesture-speech mismatch
Church and Goldin-Meadow 1986
Allibali and Goldin-Meadow 1993
What does research into gesture-speech mismatch tell us
Gestures can demonstrate partial knowledge not shown in speech
Gesture-speech mismatch: info conveyed in gesture may not appear anywhere in speech
Inconsistency is index of transitional knowledge
Initially provide incorrect gesture and speech then consistent together
Mismatches more ready to learn
Who investigated ToM in implicit vs explicit responses
Clements and Partner 1994
Outline Clements and Partners 1994 study on implicit and explicit responses to ToM
3 year olds greater understanding of ToM via non-verbal implicit response (anticipatory looking) compared explicit (verbal response question)
Develop implicit unconscious understanding of FB at earlier age than develop explicit or conscious understanding
Measuring infant knowledge when verbal responses are not an option
Rely on their looking behaviour Preferential looking Habituation/Dishabituation Violation of Expectancy Pupillometry
Eye Tracking - Preferential Looking
Coding where infant looking
Mother wears visor
Works with positive results but not with negative
Look longer at A than B must discriminate A from B. Find A more interesting
Look equally A and B: fail discriminate or find them equally interesting/boring
Outline Habituation/Dishabituation
Show infant item repeatedly until they get bored (habitual). Show new stimuli (Dishabituation) response if infant identifies it as novel
Outline Violation of Expectancy
Look for longer at something novel or unexpected
Set up event in study: 2 outcomes - 1 consistent, 1 inconsistent
Longer looking times at inconsistent.
Hold pre-belief of what should happen if this is violates/inconsistent they look for longer = implicit
Problems and Controversies of studying infants non-verbal responses
Novelty preferences vs familiarity preference
Negative results always hard to interpret
Levels interpretation: perception vs cognition
Looking: active information processing or blank stare
Fussiness and drop out rate: when do you exclude?
What is counterbalancing
Balance out potential effects of confound variables on performance across sample in order maximise validity of results
What methods of non-verbal infancy measurement need to be counterbalanced?
Habituation
Choice Phase
Violation of Expectancy Phase
