Lecture 2 - Big Questions & Methods in Child Development Flashcards
(lecture):
What do we study when we study child development?
(lecture) :
- How do nature and nurture together shape development (Nature and nurture)
- How do children shape their own development (The active child)
- In what ways is development continuous, and in what ways is it discontinuous? (Continuity/discontinuity)
- How does change occur? (Mechanisms of change)
- How does the sociocultural context influence development? (The sociocultural context)
- How do children become so different from one another? (Individual differences)
- How can research promote children’s well-being (Research and children’s welfare)
(study question):
What are two ethical issues that are relatively unique to developmental research?
(study question):
(reading):
Siegler, R., Saffran, J., DeLoache, J., Gershoff, E. T. & Eisenberg, N. (2017). How Children Develop.
- Chapter 1 (Enduring Themes in Child Development Section & Methods for Studying Child Development sections).
- Chapter 3 (Brain Development section & box 3.3).
(reading):
(lecture summary):
This lecture introduces key concepts in the study of cognitive development, including growth, change, milestones, and trajectories. It begins to answer critical issues to do with Child Development—What are the big questions? Why should we care? What are some common measurement tools?
(lecture summary):
(lecture):
Describe nature and nurture
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Nature: our biological endowment; the genes we receive from our parents
Nurture: the environments, both physical and social, that influence our development
A lot of people say nature vs. nurture, but we have started to recognise that it’s not just one or the other, and its actually a continuum.
(lecture):
Growth vs change throughout development: continuity vs discontinuity
Is growth continuous or discontinuous?
(lecture):
See slide 10
No definitive answer at this stagey, just an argument.
We can believe that development comes in stages, because we’ve been brought up to believe that we have development milestones like crawling and walking and saying their first word. (see slide 11)
These milestones can be seen as continuous or discontinuous depending on how you look at it and argue it.
(lecture):
What are some important issues to consider when studying child development: Appropriate measurement.
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Important issues to consider:
Reliability: the degree to which independent measures of a given behaviour are consistent
- Interrater and test-retest
Validity: the degree to which a test measures what it is intended to measure
- Internal and external
(lecture):
Give 3 examples of developmental research methodologies.
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See slide 20-23
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What are some basic essential characteristics of developmental experimental design?
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Essential characteristics:
- Random assignment of participants to groups
- Experimental control
- Inference about causes and effects allowed
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Describe and define the differences between longitudinal and cross-sectional design.
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Cross-sectional design:
- Children of different ages studied at same time
- Useful for examining differences between different age groups
- Uninformative about stability & change over time in individual
Longitudinal design:
- Same children are studied twice or more over a substantial length of time
- Useful for revealing stability and change over time
- Large investment of time & energy
(lecture):
When studying children or vulnerable adults, what are some important ethics to always keep in mind?
(lecture):
- Do no harm
- Obtain informed consent
- Preserve participant anonymity
- Discuss with parents relevant research information
- Work to counteract unforeseen negative consequences
- Correct inaccurate child impressions
- Explain main finding at developmentally appropriate level
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A reference list is provided at the end of this lecture (slide 32)
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