Methods in Developmental Psychology Flashcards
Lectures 2, 3, and 4
important parts of research methods
- WHO is studied
- HOW data is collected
- The DESIGN of research
- Who does the data apply to
focus group (self/other report)
group interview
- More info, more insight
Not only “did you like it” but also “why did you like it?”
ways of gathering information
- self/other report
- naturalistic observation
- structured observation
- physiological measures
self/other report: types
- surveys and questionnaires
- interviews
- focus groups
- standardized tests
self report
asked to report on your own experiences
- might have parents or teachers report for children if they are unable to report for themselves
interview: (self/other report)
interview them about their foods, what kind of tastes that they like
- More info, more insight
focus group
group interview
- More info, more insight
- Not only “did you like it” but also “why did you like it?”
standardized tests
can be used across a wide population
naturalistic observation
observing behavior of interest in its natural setting
- go into the natural setting
- ex: go into the lunchroom of the school + observe how many of the kids choose the snack
naturalistic observation: drawback
- can include a LOT of information
- How do you record all the facial expression? Everything they eat? Etc.
- not all settings are equivalent; some settings might allow for other behaviors to occur
naturalistic observation: how to fix drawbacks
narrow down and include parameters
- time sampling
- event sampling
time sampling (natural. obsv.)
record all behaviors during pre-determined time periods
- set time period
- Have set time points to check in on behaviors that you’re looking for
event sampling (natural. obsv.)
record behavior every time event of interest occurs, but not other behaviors
- looking for specific behaviors that you’re interested in
- Every event of a pre-chosen behavior
- Ex: every time a kid says “yummy!”
importance of an operational definition (natural. obsv.)
a clear and detailed description of how you intend to measure a variable
- Ex: we understand what helping is, but in this study, we don’t know what we’re specifically defining as it
- With different definitions of helping, we end up with different counts of behavior
structured observation
researcher sets up a situation to evoke the behavior of interest
- the same situation is given to everyone; it’s set up by experimenters
- behavior observed in more controlled setting
- truly going to reflect the behavior as it exists in the real world
structured observation: drawbacks with kids
- you need to understand their physical development
- may feel unnatural
physiological measures
look at relationship between underlying physiological processes & the thing that we’re measuring
- EEG
- MRI
- fMRI
- NIRS
EEG
measures electrical activity of the brain
MRI
measures brain structure using magnetic fields
- info on how the structure of the brain looks
fMRI
measures blood flow in the brain using magnetic fields
- how might the brain respond to being aggressive at different times
NIRS
measures blood flow in the brain via light
- Shines red light into the head and measures changes in blood flow that go along with different stimuli
naturalistic observation: advantages
getting real behavior
○ Less ethical issues
○ Reflects real world behavior
○ Can be affordable
in children:
- Children may not notice, care, or are less influenced by the presence of people watching them
naturalistic observation: disadvantages
○ Observer bias: acting a different way when you know you’re being watched
○ The behavior might not occur; it might take long
○ Hard to control for anything or any variables
○ Hard to observe rare behavior
○ Difficult to control
Little insight into why behavior occurs
structured observation: advantages
○ You can control everything
○ Consistency; equal opportunity to respond to the same thing
- Easier to look for rare behaviors
self report: advantages
- Insight into inner experience + why a behavior occurs
- Easy to administer
physiological measure: advantages:
- Provide insight into physical and behavioral correlation
- Biological influences/underpinnings
- Doesn’t require language/behavior
structured observation: disadvantages
- Artificial environment
- Observer bias & behaving differently when you know you’re being watched
- Ethical challenges
- Little insight into why a behavior occurs/inner experience
in children:
○ Being in a new space may be particularly challenging + lack of cooperation
○ Unwilling to engage in tasks
○ Ethical concerns
self report: disadvantages
○ Being able to adequately express yourself in language
○ Demand characteristics
○ Big limitation into accuracy
○ Bias by interviewer or subject
in children:
○ May be skewed based off of what’s allowed/not allowed
○ Little children can’t do self report; other people doing the report might not be as accurate
§ May need to rely on parent or teacher observations
○ Shy
○ Unable to fill out report
○ Memory difficulties; easily influenced
physiological measures: disadvantages
○ anxiety w/ stimuli of measuring methods
○ are you really measuring what you want to measure
○ Can’t measure a behavior or thoughts
○ Costly
○ Difficulty with interpreting results
in children:
- Can be loud/frightening
correlational designs
examine relationship between variables
- 2 variables are measured; research does not assign/manipulate anything
correlational coefficient
measure association between 2 variables
- Positive: as one variable increases, the other variable tends to systematically increase as well
- Negative: as one variable increases, the other decrease
Strength: 0-1 range
correlation: causation?
NO!
- Not able to tell direction of relationship
- May be a third variable
experimental designs
manipulating a variable to examine a cause-effect relationship
- research manipulates the independent variable; participants randomly assigned diff groups
experimental design: downside
the ethics and the difficulty of being able to assign/manipulate a variable
2 key parts of research
Ways of gathering info: how variables are measured
Structure: how variables are manipulated
designs for studying age/development
- longitudinal design
- cross sectional design
cross sectional design
different groups of participants at different ages measured at the same time
- Test diff groups of participants across different ages
- Measure them all at the same time point in history
- Tend to be fast
- Easier to conduct
- Useful in giving a snapshot of what people at different ages are doing
cross sectional design: challenges
impossible to tell if differences between groups are due to age or different cohorts
- Observing challenges between different groups of different ages, there may be other differences between these different groups in ways other than age
○ ^^^ considered being in different cohorts; they are different generations in different historical time periods
can’t track individual development
- Looking at differences between ages prevents us from tracking individual development
longitudinal design
same group of participants measured repeatedly across time at different ages
- get a sense of individual trajectory
longitudinal design: challenges
- lots of time (for both participants and researchers)
- holding onto participants (major concern is dropout)
- impossible to tell if difference across ages doesn’t have to actually do with age or changes in history (age and time can be confounding)
selective drop-out (long. design)
particular types of participants are more likely to drop out
§ Can have influences on generalizability
§ Ex: in a longitudinal study measuring mothers with depression, the mothers with the worst depression are the most likely to drop out
□ Prevents application of findings to relate to everyone
challenges in researching development: age/development
- understanding what causes change; hard to tell is age is causing an effect or something else
- measurement equivalence; looking at change across development in phenomena (i.e. hitting as aggression in children vs. relational aggression in teens)
challenges in researching development: population
- selection: who do I choose to study (consent w/ kids is hard; accessible samples might not be representative of entire populations)
- ethics: need to be particularly mindful of not causing harm
- cooperation: uncertain if children will cooperate with research
science as a way of knowing: strengths
- scientific community comments on, critiques, builds upon others’ work
- constantly changing & updating –> ideally improving knowledge
- publicly shared knowledge (freely accessible)
replication
the process of repeating a study, to determine which results across time/situation/contexts
- repeating a study to see if the set of results will continue to be found
replication crisis
Only 30% of the most famous psych studies are replicable
- in the 2010s, researchers began to note than many psychology findings failed to replicate
Replication crisis: why it’s a major issue in developmental psychology
- More mindful of ethics
- Rise of IQ
- Developmental psych research often just tends to be messier
○ A lot more noise in the data
science as a way of knowing: limitations
- cannot answer all questions (higher power; good vs. evil)
- assumption that science is the only or best way of knowing (lead people to exclude/disregard other ways of knowing)
- embedded within a particular historical and cultural contexts (biases from cultures, history, time period, perspective, etc.)
- biased of scientsists, can exclude, distort, or other populations (conducting experiments, interpreting results; excluding people, distortion)
“The Myth of Normative Development”
Developmental psychology has often been conducted by/on/in a context of Western, White, comparatively wealthy individuals
- assumed to be the “norm” that other development is compared to –> other cultures are deviations of the norm
number of words heard by children across income group: famous finding
there’s a 30 million word gap between children from high SES families versus low SES families
number of words heard by children across income group: sample
- High SES were white
○ 13 families; 12 were white; 1 was black- Low SES were often black, Latin American families
number of words heard by children across income group: researcher bias
- Their ideas of what counts as a word aligns with the high SES groups
- There are different dialects of language across different groups
○ There are different ideas/contexts in which how you talk to children - The researchers likely shaped their interpretation of a deficit
- There are different dialects of language across different groups
science as a way of knowing: limitations
- cannot answer all questions
- assumption that science is the only or best way of knowing
- embedded within a particular historical and cultural contexts
- biases of scientists can exclude, distort, other
Who else, and what other contexts, tend to be left out of developmental psychology research?
○ Indigenous populations
§ Lots of criticism of how what “good parenting” is derived from white samples and then applied to other cultural groups
○ Learning disabilities, neurodivergence, able bodied individuals
positionally
our positions in society and in relation to our work –> our contexts, our identities, our access
- We carry these positions in society
- We carry these positions in regard to our work
- These impact how we perceive the world and how we conduct our work
- Allows us to think about that and acknowledge where we stand
drawbacks of positionality (statements)
- want science to be unbiased; want separation between researcher and research
- unsure of impact
- feelings of forced disclosure (can feel uncomfortable, particularly from those who come from marginalized identities)
