methods in developmental research Flashcards
what are the 2 things developmental research seeks to do?
1) describe and explain developmental change
2) uncover earliest instances of knowledge
does absence of evidence equal evidence of absence?
no - study may not be sensitive enough to pick up that the evidence does exist
what 2 factors does a response on any cognitive task reflect?
competence and performance
what are the 3 different designs used in developmental research
- cross sectional
- longitudinal
- micro genetic
what are the disadvantages of longitudinal studies
- resource intensive
- subject attrition
- practice effects
- repeated testing may change course of development
why are practice effects a problem for longitudinal studies
subjects may learn from previous exposure or get bored with repeated task
give examples of a research question where a cross sectional design would be appropriate?
- does children’s verbal recall capacity increase with age?
- do girls show a consistent advantage over boys in their vocab size throughout primary school
what are the advantages of cross sectional designs
- time and cost efficient
- provides fast and easy method for revealing similarities and differences between older and younger children
what are the limitations of cross-sectional designs
- interindividual differences (between individuals)
- intraindividual differences (within individuals)
- do not tell us very much about the process of development
- only get a series of snapshots of an ongoing process
- can’t tell us about cognitive factors related to changes
- don’t know how changes emerge
what are cross-sectional designs interested in
group averages
what is a micro genetic design designed to provide
an in depth depiction of the processes of change
describe a micro genetic design
same children studied repeatedly over a short period of time, on verge of important developmental change, on same problem solving task, studied as change is occurring
in Church & Goldie-Meadow (1986); Allibali & Goldin-Meadow (1993) study about gestures, children age 2 fail task in their verbal response but show knowledge via gesture, what is this inconsistency taken as an index of?
transitional knowledge
what techniques are used to measure infants knowledge without requiring verbal/manual responses?
- preferential looking
- inter-modal preferential looking
- habituation/dishabituation
- violation of expectancy
- anticipatory looking
- pupillometry
- preferential looking
what is the aim of preferential looking?
to determine if infants can distinguish between different visual stimuli and if they have an attentional preference for one over the other
