Romanian Orphan studies: effects of institutionalisation evaluation

Question 1

what is are the real-life application of Romanian orphan studies

Answer 1

studying the Romanian orphans has enhanced our understanding of the effects of institutionalization

e. g. such results have led to improvements in the way children are cared for in institutions (Lonyton 2006)
- orphanages

and children homes now avoid having large numbers or caregivers for each child only 1/2 people, play a central role for the child

This person is called the key worked and means that children have the chance to develop normal attachments and help avoid disinhibited attachment

This shows that such research has been immensely valuable in practical terms

Question 2

the Romanian orphanage studies have fewer extraneous variables - why is this an advantage

Answer 2

there were many orphans studies before the Romanian orphans became available to study but often these studies involved children who experienced loss or trauma before they were institutionalised

e.g. they may have experienced neglect, abuse or bereavement
Therefore it was very hard to see the effects of institutionalisation in isolation because the children were dealing with multiple factors which functioned as CNFOUNDING PARTICIPANT VARIABLES

In the case of Romanian orphans, it has been possible to study institutionalisation without these confounding variables which means the findings have increased INTERNAL VALIDITY

Question 3

the Romanian orphanages were not typical - why is this a limitation

Answer 3

a lot of useful data about institutionalisation has come out of Romanian orphan studies

HOWEVER,
it is possible that conditions were so bad that results cannot be applied to understanding the impact of better quality institutional care or any situation where children experience deprivation

e.g. Romanian orphanages had poor standards of care especially when it came to forming any relationships with the children and extremely low - levels of intellectual stimulation

Question 4

ethical issues

Answer 4

one of the methodological issues with Rutter’s ERA project is that children were not RANDOMLY ASSIGNED to conditions

This means that the children who were adopted early may have been the more social ones - a confounding variable

To control such variables major investigation of fostering vs institutional care did RANDOM ALLOCATION

e.g. Bucharest Early intervention project, Romanian orphans were randomly allocated to institutional care or foster care
This is methodologically better because it removes confounding variables of which children are chosen by parents but it raises ETHICAL ISSUES

Question 5

why is randomly allocating orphans to either institutional care or foster care an ethical issue

Answer 5

It is not ethical to allocate participants to experimental conditions which you know are likely to harm

This is not a challenge to the findings of this study but is a criticism of the researcher for treating the humans n this study as if the were “lab rat”