Research Methods

Question 1

What are the designs often used in development research?

Answer 1

• Cross-sectional
• Longitudinal
• Cohort- or cross-sequential

Question 2

Cross-sectional

Answer 2

• One assessment, often at different chronological ages
• Can infer age-related differences, not developmental changes

Question 3

What are the weaknesses in cross-sectional designs?

Answer 3

• Age-grade influences or history-graded influences
• Cant rule out cohort effects and cant determine which effects is responsible for the behaviours observed
• No predictions of future, change
• Assumptions that older people resemble the younger people
• Age gets treated as a categorical variable

Question 4

Longitudinal designs

Answer 4

• Can be either short- or long-term
• Multiple assessments for the same individual, at least 3 and varied time between assessment
• Infer growth/change
• Microgenetic; several days in a row or weeks

Question 5

Longitudinal designs - Weakness

Answer 5

• Age and time are confounded, so might not provide reliable estimate of change
• May not be able to generalize to other cohorts, only following one cohort
• Practice effects
• Attrition

Question 6

Cohort or cross-sequential designs

Answer 6

• A mix between cross-sectional and longitudinal designs
• Use of multiple assessments over time with different cohorts
• Cross symbolizes cross-section of cohorts that are followed longitudinally

Question 7

What are some issues with measurements and sampling?

Answer 7

• Test-retest reliability is not valid, hard to capture the change in behavior
• Cohort effects
• Attrition, especially death

Question 8

What are some ethical issues with developmental research?

Answer 8

• Protection of identity
• Information in multiple assessments
• Informed consent, can be tricky with older people