Overview
This lecture introduces key research methods and designs in developmental psychology, focusing on how scientists study infants and children despite unique challenges, and discusses ethical and practical considerations in conducting such research.
Research Methods in Developmental Psychology
- Developmental psychologists use tailored methods to study infants and children due to their limited capabilities.
- Involuntary (obligatory) responses, like looking time and heart rate, reveal infants' understanding without requiring conscious actions.
- Habituation and dishabituation paradigms assess infants’ recognition of new versus familiar stimuli.
- Voluntary responses involve behaviors carried out by choice, such as recall memory tasks using elicited imitation.
- Psychophysiological measures (e.g., heart rate, hormone levels, EEG/ERPs) help link biological changes to behavior.
- Parent-report questionnaires (e.g., Child Behavior Checklist) provide insight into children’s behaviors when direct assessment is limited.
- Interview techniques and verbal reports are used for older children and adults to understand their thoughts and perceptions.
Research Designs
- Research methods are specific techniques, while research design is the overall plan for collecting and analyzing data.
- Longitudinal designs study the same participants over time to track individual development and change.
- Cross-sectional designs assess different age groups at one time to compare age-related differences.
- Sequential designs combine both longitudinal and cross-sectional features, following multiple age groups over time.
Strengths and Limitations of Designs
- Longitudinal: Strength—tracks development over time; Limitations—costly, risk of attrition, practice, and cohort effects.
- Cross-sectional: Strength—quick and cost-effective; Limitation—cannot track individual development or control for cohort effects.
- Sequential: Strength—can identify cohort effects and track development efficiently; Limitation—can still be time-consuming and complex.
Challenges in Developmental Research
- Ethical concerns: extra protections for children as vulnerable participants; parental consent and, for older children, assent are required.
- Recruitment: finding child participants is more difficult and often requires creative strategies.
- Attrition: higher dropout rates among children due to task demands or loss of interest; studies must minimize burdens and maximize comfort.
Key Terms & Definitions
- Assent — minor’s agreement to participate, usually from age seven upwards.
- Attrition — participants dropping out before study completion.
- Bidirectional relations — variables can both influence and result from each other.
- Cohort effects — differences due to historical time of testing.
- Cross-sectional research — comparing different ages at one point in time.
- Dishabituation — renewed interest in a new stimulus after habituation to another.
- Elicited imitation — method for studying recall memory in young children.
- Event-related potentials (ERPs) — brain activity recorded in response to stimuli.
- Habituation — decreased attention to repeated stimuli.
- Informed consent — permission from adults for participation in research.
- Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) — committees ensuring ethical research.
- Interview techniques — asking participants to report experiences verbally or in writing.
- Involuntary responses — unconscious behaviors used for assessment.
- Longitudinal research — study of the same individuals over time.
- Motor control — ability to use muscles for movement.
- Object permanence — understanding objects exist when out of sight.
- Practice effect — improvement due to repeated testing, not actual development.
- Psychophysiological responses — biological measures associated with behavior.
- Recall memory — recollection of past events.
- Research design — overall plan for data collection/analysis.
- Research methods — techniques for gathering data.
- Sequential research designs — combine longitudinal and cross-sectional methods.
- Solidity principle — belief that two solids cannot occupy the same space.
- Verbal report paradigms — reporting experiences using language.
- Vignette — short story used to elicit participant responses.
- Violation of expectation paradigm — testing infants with scenarios that defy their expectations.
- Voluntary responses — behaviors controlled by the participant.
Action Items / Next Steps
- Review the advantages and disadvantages of each research design.
- Reflect on the challenges in recruiting and retaining participants in developmental research.
- Complete assigned readings and discussion questions on research methods and designs.