Psych 200 - Wk 1 > 6

• Reporting methods


  • Questionnaires
  • Interviews
  • Achievement tests
  • Personality assessments
• Strengths of reporting methods

  • Large group collections
  • Ability to collect many measures
• Limitations of reporting methods

  • Cannot be used with those with reading or language difficulties
  • Difficult to equate questions across age groups and cultural groups
• Naturalistic observation


  Observing behaviour in natural settings
• Strengths of naturalistic observation

  • Reflects behaviour in the real world
  • Helpful for generating research questions and theories
• Limitations of naturalistic observation

  • Hard to determine cause and effect
  • Behaviours of interest might occur rarely
  • Can be biased
• Structured observation


  Creating special conditions to elicit behaviours of interest
• Strengths of structured observation

  • More control
  • Allows for more direct comparisons between children
• Limitations of structured observation


  • Can it be generalised to a natural setting?
• Neural/physiological/biological measures


  • Brain structure and function
  • Physiological responses
  • Biological measures
• Strengths of neural/physiological/biological measures

  • Hard to fake
  • No language or complex behaviour required
• Limitations of neural/physiological/biological measures

  • Difficult to interpret
• Case studies


  In-depth examination of an individual or small number of individuals
• Case studies


  • Can use variety of data collection techniques
  • Rich information about complex or rare aspects of development
  • Often difficult to generalise to other situations
• Correlational studies


  Determining whether two or more variables are related in a systematic way
• Correlation does not imply causation
• Experiments


  A variable is manipulated to see what effect this has on the measured problem
• Experiments


  • IV - manipulated
  • DV - measured
• Cross-sectional designs


  Compare the performance of people of different cohorts at one point
• Cross-sectional designs


  Describes age differences
• Longitudinal designs


  Assess one group of the same individuals repeatedly over time
• Longitudinal designs


  Describes age changes
• Microgenetics


  Design measures the same individuals or group repeatedly in a relatively small timespan
• Sequential design


  Combination of cross-sectional and longitudinal to observe different cohorts on multiple occasions
• Sequential design


  Describes age differences and changes
• Reliability


  If similar results can be observed if the study were repeated
• Replicability


  The same results found from other labs
• File drawer problem


  Researchers may re-run the experiments with minor tweaks to get their desired results
• Validity


  Measuring what you intend to measure
• Internal validity


  Are changes in the DV driven by different levels of the independent or is there outside influences
• External validity


  Do the results generalise to other populations and situations
• Development


  Systematic (orderly and patterned) changes and continuities (remain the same or reflect the past) in an individual that occur
• Broad domains of development

  • Physical (and biological processes)
  • Cognitive (thought and other mental processes)
  • Psychosocial (the self, the social and interpersonal interactions)
• Developing


  Is not a fixed concept
• Conceptualisation of periods of development


  Differs across time and culture
• Adolescence was not acknowledged until the late 19th/ early 20th century
• Interplay of nature and nurture

  Different ways of thinking about development
• Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model


  • Emphasis on biology and the environment interacting to produce development
  • Microsystem: immediate physical and social environment
  • Mesosystem: linkages between microsystems
  • Exosystem: linkages between social system
  • Macrosystem: larger cultural context
  • Chronosystem: changes occur in a timeframe
• 5 big theoretical questions in developmental psychology

  • Nature (genes) and nurture (environment)
  • Activity and passivity
  • Continuity and discontinuity
  • Universality and context specifity
  • Domain specifity and domain generality
• Active


  Actively shaping our environment and contributing to our own development