Research Methods in

Developmental
Psychology
EMAAN RANGOONWALA
SPRING 2020
Agenda

 Time frames:
 Longitudinal design
 Cross-sectional design
 Sequential design
 Observation
Research Methods in
Developmental Psychology
 There are various methods of research, each with its specific
advantages and disadvantages.
 The one that a scientist chooses depends largely on the aim of
the study and the nature of the phenomenon being
studied.
 Bc developmental psych has to do with CHANGING and a period
of time, we look at TIME FRAMES.
Time span of research 4

Cross- • Can be done in short period of time

sectional •
•
Do not have to wait for participants to age
Provides no information about how individuals change
Provides no information about stability of characteristics
approach
•

Longitudinal
• Provides rich information about stability and changes in development
• Provides insight into importance of early experience for later
development

approach • Expensive, time consuming, resource-heavy

• Participant attrition, dropping out

Sequential • Combination of cross-sectional and longitudinal approach

• Begins with cross-sectional study of individuals of different ages

approach
• Some time later, the same individuals are tested again along with a new
group of subjects for each age level
Cross-sectional studies 5

 Comparing 2 different age groups at the same time.

 A researcher might evaluate a group of young adults and compare the
corresponding data from a group of older adults.
 The benefit of this type of research is that it can be done relatively
quickly; the research data is gathered at the same point in time.
 The disadvantage is that the research aims to make a direct
association between a cause and an effect. This is not always so
easy. In some cases, there may be confounding factors that contribute
to the effect.
 A cross-sectional study can suggest the odds of an effect occurring both
in terms of the absolute risk (the odds of something happening over a
period of time) and the relative risk (the odds of something happening
in one group compared to another).
Longitudinal studies 6

 Longitudinal research involves studying the same group of individuals over an

extended period of time.
 Data is collected at the outset of the study and gathered repeatedly through
the course of study.
 In some cases, longitudinal studies can last for several decades or be open-
ended.
 One such example is the Terman Study of the Gifted, which began in the 1920s
and continues to this day.
 1,521 children who scored 135 or over on his new intelligence test, the Stanford-
Binet.
 The benefit of this longitudinal research is that it allows researchers to look at
changes over time.
Longitudinal studies 7

 An obvious disadvantage: the cost.

 While revealing, longitudinal studies are difficult to apply to a larger
population.
 Another problem is that the participants can often drop out mid-study,
shrinking the sample size and relative conclusions – subject attrition
 Moreover, if certain outside forces change during the course of the study
(including economics, politics, and science), they can influence the outcomes
in a way that significantly skews the results.
 In the Terman study, the correlation between IQ and achievement was
blunted by such confounding forces as the Great Depression and World War II
(which limited educational attainment) and gender politics of the 1940s and
1950s (which limited a woman's professional prospects).
Sequential design 8

 Cross-sequential designs combine aspects of both cross-sectional and

longitudinal designs.
 They are also known as sequential, mixed, and accelerated longitudinal
designs.
 This design is when multiple age groups or cohorts are studied
over time.
 Advantages of Sequential Designs: allows researchers to examine
multiple age groups in a short period of time. Also enables researchers
to test for cohort effects, which is often not possible in a usual
longitudinal design.
 Disadvantages of Sequential Designs
Like longitudinal designs, also face issues of repeated testing and are
susceptible to subject attrition.
Cohort effects 9

 Due to a person’s time of birth or generation, but not to actual

age.
 They can powerfully affect the dependent measures in a study
focused on age.
 Age changes in one cohort can be examined and compared with
age changes in another cohort.
Example of Cohorts

 People who started college the same year

 People who grew up in the same region during a specific time period
 People who were exposed to the same natural disaster

 Cohort effects
 1980- not common for women to be in college (different experiences) vs
2020 – much more common for women
 Growing up in conservative parts of USA around 9/11 vs growing up in that
same part but 20 years after 9/11
 People who experienced an earthquake in their city vs people in the city
who didn’t bc born later
Longitudinal, cross sectional, or
sequential?
 The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) :
The study began in 1968 with a nationally representative sample of
over 18,000 individuals living in 5,000 families in the United States.
Information on these individuals and their descendants has been
collected continuously, including data covering employment,
income, wealth, expenditures, health, marriage, childbearing, child
development, philanthropy, education, and numerous other topics.

A researcher wants to know if vitamin d deficiency is more common

at a particular age between 2-12 years in Karachi.
Longitudinal, cross sectional, or
sequential?
 A study wanted to explore whether females between the ages
15-35 spend differently during sales.

 I want to evaluate children’s mathematical skills. I measure 2

groups - a group of 5-year-olds and a group of 10-year-olds at the
beginning of the research and then subsequently reassess the
same children every 6 months for the next 5 years.
Comparison
Observational studies 14

• individuals are simply observed in a natural setting and their behaviors are carefully
recorded
 Naturalistic
 Controlled
 Participant
• Data/Records in observational studies are TRAINED OBSERVERS’:
• written notes
• audio or video recordings.
• Questionnaires/interviews?

• To focus on their research questions and keep from being overwhelmed by information,
observational researchers must decide which variables to measure among a vast set
of possibilities and how frequently to measure them
Observational studies – example 15

• You want to observe a classroom of 20 preschoolers to test some ideas about how the
traits of shyness, aggression, and leadership develop and how they relate to the
child’s preschool experiences.
• For example, shy children may seek out different environments within the classroom
than extroverted children.
• What observational data would you collect? What variables could you study/measure?
• You could potentially measure thousands of different variables:
• the number of seconds between each conversation for each child,
• the direction and duration of each eye gaze, a vast array of facial expressions or body postures,
• the objects a child holds,
• the size of the group a child is in,
• each child’s proximity to the teacher
Observational studies 16

 Advances in technology
 Tape recorders
 Video recording
 Digital video
 Increasing computational abilities to automatically search video
frames
 Machine learning and artificial intelligence – programming algorithms
 But these technologies are valuable only when researchers use
them carefully and strategically to zero in on critical variables.
 Researchers must decide which recorded behaviors to observe
and how to categorize and quantify them.
Observational studies 17

 Advantages
 In many situations, they allow researchers to assess children’s
behavior under natural, normal circumstances—without the
distortions caused by bringing children into a lab to study their behavior
under carefully controlled conditions.
 Observational studies allow for the possibility of unexpected discoveries
outside the immediate research question.
 Limitations
 They uncover correlational patterns, not causal ones. This limitation is
important to keep in mind because the goal of most scientific research is to
identify causal relationships.
Correlational studies 18

 relationships between the two variables but do not

introduce the variables themselves.
 For example, the researchers may look at whether academic
success in elementary school leads to better-paying jobs in the
future.
 While the researchers can collect and evaluate the data, they do
not manipulate any of the variables in question.
 A correlational study is useful if you are unable to manipulate a
variable because it is either impossible, impractical, or unethical.
 While you might submit, for instance, that living in a noisy
environment makes you less efficient in the workplace, it would
impractical and unreasonable to inject that variable artificially.
Experimentation 19

 Basics? What do you need?

Experimentation 20

 A double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT) is

considered the gold standard of research.
Quasi-experimental design 21

 Many important research questions are not answered easily using

true experimental designs.
 Ethically we cannot always control the assignment of participants
to conditions or cannot manipulate the independent variable.
 Quasi means “almost” or “approximately
 Additional Challenges to Consider in 22
Developmental Designs
 Research designs that are used to help scientists understand change over time can be
difficult to employ. 
1. Determining the Underlying Cause of Change - An important goal of studying change
overtime is to determine factors that play important roles in causing those changes.
However, changes can be due to age, maturation, learning, specific experiences, and
cohort effects. These effects do not always occur independently and can also interact.
2. Finding Equivalent Measures - From a perspective of creating a well-designed
experiment, it would be ideal to use a single assessment to measure a behavior of
individuals of different ages. Yet practically, a particular assessment that works best for
toddlers may not work so well for young teenagers. A solution to this problem would be to
test measures across different ages to find those that provide a reasonable assessment
across all different ages.
3. Determining the Appropriate Sampling Interval - This final issue that confronts
researchers examining change over time challenges researchers to determine how
frequently they should obtain samples over time. The risk of inadequate sampling is that
patterns of change may be mischaracterized or missed altogether. Adolph and Robinson
(2011) advocate for frequent sampling, though the appropriateness of their technique
Ethics when studying Child Development

 Data collection
 Special care with children
 Difficulties with children
 Parental consent and involvement
 Methods
 Interviews
 Naturalistic observations
 Structured observations