A03

• What are the strengths of Romanian Orphan Studies?

  1. Real-world application - key workers in orphanages
  2. Longitudinal studies
• What are the limitations of Romanian Orphan Studies?

  1. Population validity
  2. Lack internal validity
• Strength = real-word application - key workers in orphanages

  • Romanian orphan studies have enhanced our understanding of the effects of institutionalisation - has been applied to improving the lives of children placed in institutions
  • E.g. orphanages and children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child and instead ensure that a much smaller number of people play a central role for the child - this person is known as a key worker
  • This allows the children the chance to develop normal attachments and helps avoid disinhibited attachment
  • Also considerable effort is made to ensure that looked-after children are not put into institutional care and provide them with foster care or adoption instead
• Strength = longitudinal studies

  • Allows the researcher to follow the same people over a long period of time allowing for changes to be observed in how institutionalisation has impacted the children’s attachment
  • Without such studies we may mistakenly conclude that there are major effects due to early institutional care, whereas some of these studies show that the effects may disappear with suitable high-quality care
• Limitation = population validity

  • This research may lack population validity as the Romanian orphanages were not typical of other orphanages
  • The fact that the conditions in the orphanages of Romania were so bad means that the results found may not be able to compare to other institutionalised children around the world as they may have not been through the same procedures and environments as those of Romania‘s orphanages
  • For example, in the UK institutions have higher standards of care
  • Therefore, we must be careful making generalisations from this research
• Limitation = lack internal validity

  • Many orphan studies lack control over participant variables which could be playing a role
  • Many of the orphans could have experienced neglect, abuse or bereavement before they were institutionalised leading to trauma which could have led to developmental issues rather than being institutionalised -> it is very hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation in isolation because the children were dealing with multiple factors
  • HOWEVER - In these the infants were institutionalised pretty much from birth so possible to study institutionalisation without these confounding variables