Contemporary Study - Li

Question 1

What was the aim of the study?

Answer 1

To investigate the effects on cognitive, language and pre-accademic skills in children who received either high or low quality care at toddler and pre-school level

Question 2

What was the sample used?

Answer 2

• 1364 families
• Ten sample sites - hospitals of childrens births
• North America

Question 3

Describe the procedure to the study

Answer 3

• Used secondary data from NICHD study
• 1 month - children and families assessed using a variety of methods such as observations
• Quality of childcare assessed using the 44 minute ORCE at 6, 15, 24, 36 and 54 months
• End of toddler period, Bayley Mental Development index used to measure IQ level
• End of pre-school period, Woodcock-Johnson cognitive and achievement batteries and Preschool Language Scale used to measure language, problem solving, memory and intelligence

Question 4

What were the results to the study?

Answer 4

• Early high care benefits cognitive development
• Low quality pre-school care loses all benefits of infant care except memory
• High-High produced best outcomes and Low-Low the worst
• Difference of 0.28 in cognitive ability at 24 months
• Difference of 0.2 in memory ability at 54 months

Question 5

Give a conclusion to the study

Answer 5

Early exposure to good quality care that wasn’t maintained didn’t benefit children, but maintained high quality care resulted in great gains for children

Question 6

Give 2 generalisability points for the study

Answer 6

• 1364 families - large sample

- Only in North America - ethnocentric

Question 7

Give 2 reliability points for the study

Answer 7

• Standardised procedure (different assessments)

- High in inter-rater reliability

Question 8

Give an application point for this study

Answer 8

Tells us benefits of high quality daycare

Question 9

Give 4 validity points for the study

Answer 9

• High in internal validity
• Range of different methods used -triangulation
• Secondary data - hard to control extraneous variables
• Only looked at cognitive/academic ability - no mention of social development

Question 10

Give 2 ethics points for the study

Answer 10

• Identities kept confidential

- Protection from harm - not Li’s fault

Question 11

Give a strength and a weakness of secondary data

Answer 11

• High in reliability (repeatdely accessable)

- Harder to eliminate extraneous variables

Question 12

How did this study eliminate extraneous variables?

Answer 12

Looked at ethnicity, gender etc at varying intervals

Question 13

What kind of extraneous variables were not accounted for?

Answer 13

Individual and situational variables

Question 14

What was measured at each stage of the study?

Answer 14

Quality of chilldcare

Question 15

Give 3 benefits of High-High Care

Answer 15

• Better cognitive development
• Improved language ability
• Improved maths skills

Question 16

Give a benefit of High-Low Care

Answer 16

Good memory development

Question 17

What score indicated high quality care?

Answer 17

3.0 or more