Submitted by roll no3

Ma psychology

Different research methods in studying human

development

Developmental research focus on the changes and

process of human development. Developmentalist
examine age related changes in individual behaviour
patterns of functioning and changes in family
relations, or aspects of behaviour in particular social
cultural context. They may be interested in how
chronic illness affects children of different ages, the
age at which children know what pollution means,
the long term effects of welfare dependence, age
differences in social skills or factors that protect
children, adults and adolescents from the negative
consequences of extreme poverty. Many
developmentalist have adopted a lifespan
perspective to examine major changes in human
development from conception to adulthood. In
developmental research, the major variable is age.
However, it is difficult to determine if the age
related changes occur due to maturation factors or
environmental factors. Developmental research
study the age variable by selecting individuals of
different ages or studying the same individuals at
different points in their lives. In this way researchers
can search for similarities and differences between
people of similar chronological age.
The different research methods in studying human
development are as follows
1. Systematic observation is an in depth
observation of the behaviour of children and
adults which can be made in the following ways
a.Structured observation which is an
observation of behaviour in a laboratory, where
conditions are the same for all participants.
Structured observation permits greater control
over the research situation than does
naturalistic observation for example studying
behaviour such as parent child or friendship
interaction that the investigators rarely have an
opportunity to see in everyday life.
The strength of structured observation is that it
grants each participant an equal opportunity to
display the behaviour of interests. It also
permits the study of behaviour rarely seen in
everyday life. The limitations are it may not deal
observational typical of participant behaviour in
everyday life. It may not yield observation that
are accurate as it may be reduced by observer
influence and observer bias.
Example When aggressive and non aggressive
10 year old boys were observed playing games
with their best friend in a laboratory, the
aggressive boys and their friends more often
violated game rules,cheated and encourage
each other to engaged in dishonest acts. The
researcher concluded that rather than being
warm and support aggressive boys close peer
ties provided the context in which they practice
hostility and other another negative acts.
b.Naturalistic observation which occurs in the
natural settings where the participants normally
conduct their activities. The researchers make in
depth observation of a particular natural setting
using a variety of techniques to collect
information. Natural observation is undertaken
when a researcher wants to describe and
understand how people in a social or cultural
settings live, work and experience the
setting.Corsaro’s study of Peer interaction in
preschool is a good example of a naturalistic
observation study. The children accepted him as
a part of the school setting engaged in normal
play routines in his presence. He compiled
extensive data that identified many important
 aspects of the peer culture. For example
children really played alone preferring the
company of a classmate and those who were
playing together typically resisted entry from
others into the play defending their territory.
However, there are 2 main issues in field
observation which are whether to participate as
a participant or non participant in the social
setting and whether to conceal the research
purpose from other people in the social setting.
2. Ethnography
It is a specific type of field observation and has
been especially popular in anthropology and
sociology. By making extensive field notes, the
researcher tries to capture the cultural unique
values and social processes. It provides a more
complete description rather than a
questionnaire or interview .The ethnographer
goal is to understand the groups culture from
their own cultural worldview.Eg Lancy is an
anthropologist who conducted an ethnographic
study of childhood development in non
technological African society in West Africa. She
describes how children learn without benefits of
formal schooling. Parents influence their
children by example, not direct teaching.
Children are expected to play on the mother
 ground near adults, observe adults and learn
through make belief, play games dance and
storytelling. The limitation is that it may be
biased by researchers values and theoretical
preference. Findings cannot be applied to
individual and settings other than the one
studied.
3. Case study
A case study provides an in depth description
and analysis of an individual. This individual is
usually a person but it may also be a setting
such as a school, neighborhood or business. It is
more often associated with the field of clinical
psychology and is used for child psychologist,
sociologists and criminologists. Case studies use
data obtained from written records, library
research, interviews with persons familiar with
the case, and possibly naturalistic observation.
It provides rich, descriptive insight into the
many factors affecting development.For
example, a case study in language development
was provided by a child who was kept isolated in
her room,tied to a chair and never spoken to
until she was discovered at the age of 14 . She
lacked any language skills and her case provided
linguists and psychologist with opportunity to
attempt to teach her language skills and
discover which skills could be learned.
Apparently, she was able to acquire some
rudimentary language skills, such as forming
childlike sentences ,but she never develop fully
language skills .Another example is such study
has been used to find out the contribution to
the accomplishment of extremely gifted children
who attain adult competence in a field before
age 10.
A good case study research needs to verify
much of the information as possible using
unbiased written records with confirming
interviews from other informants where
possible. However, like field research case
studies are very difficult to do and they present
unique challenges to the researcher in terms of
providing explanations for the events that are
described. Findings cannot be applied to
individuals other than the participant.

4.Cross sectional study

In cross section study children of different ages
are studied at only one point in time. For
example, the researcher can implement critical
skill program in 3 different classroom (example
5th grade 7 grade and 9 grade).After the program
is completed, all children are assessed on the
same dependent measure of decision making
skill. 2 major advantage of the cross sectional
method are timeliness and economy.The cross
sectional method is very time efficient, the
researcher doesn’t have to wait while the
children progress through elementary school
and junior high school. Time efficiency
translates to a financial savings, such research is
generally less costly because the data obtained
in a short time frame. However it also has
certain disadvantages. It only informs about
developmental differences not developmental
change and conclusions are limited to
description of typical age differences between
the groups of children. Inference can only be
made that critical thinking skills improve with
age but the improvement cannot be observed
directly. Developmental change and intra
individual differences can only be detected
when the same individual observe more than
once. Comparison of different individuals are
problematic because the groups or cohorts of
individual may not be equivalent. Cohort is a
group of individuals that share common
characteristic.People born in the same year are
members of the same cohort.Cohort differences
present a larger problem in comparing groups
with wide age differences because of social and
historical change however comparison of
children who differ only by a few years are
unlikely to have problems with cohort effects.

5. Longitudinal study
In longitudinal designs the same group of
people is observed at different points in time as
they grow older. The most famous longitudinal
study is the Terman Life Cycle study in 1921.He
studied school children who had intelligence
scores of at least 135. They were initially
measured on numerous aspects of their
cognitive and social development in 1921 and
1922.Termann and his colleagues continue
studying the children during their childhood and
adults and throughout their adult lives.This
study has provided a rich description of the lives
of highly intelligent individuals and disconfirm
negative stereotype of high intelligence.The
primary advantage of the longitudinal design is
the other researcher can observe actual changes
occurring in the participants. Developmental
change can only be detected when the same
individual are tracked overtime.Such a study is
used to study stability and change in behaviour
by assessing individual development at repeated
times of measurement. The main disadvantage
of the longitudinal method is that it is expensive
and time consuming. The terminal study has
already spanned 7 decades and can be difficult
to obtain funding to support such a long term
project. The sheer amount of time it takes to
perform a longitudinal study presents several
additional disadvantages. First the research
team may lose its funding in the middle of the
project. Second by the time the results are
available the original research question may
seem trivial or no longer appropriate due to
cross generational changes and third the
development of a new measurement technique
can make the early results obsolete or difficult
to compare to later measurements.

6. Self reports
Self reports ask research participants to provide
information on their perception, thoughts,
abilities, feelings, attitudes,beliefs and past
experiences. They range from relatively
unstructured clinical interviews the methods
used by Piaget to study childrens thinking to
highly structured interviews question and tests.
The clinical interview is an interview whereby
researcher use of flexible conversational style to
probe for the participants point of view.
Example, Piaget Question 3 year old child about
his understanding of dreams as ‘Where does the
dream come from’ ‘Does the dream come from
outside’. The clinical interview has 2 major
strengths. First it permits people to display their
thoughts in terms that are as close as possible
to the way they think in everyday life. Second,
the clinical interview can provide a large amount
of information in a fairly brief period. The
limitations is that peoples thoughts feelings and
experiences may not be accurate where by the
participants wanting to please the interviewer
may make up answers that do not represent
their actually thinking. Such interviews also has
been criticized because of its flexibility. When
questions are phrased differently for each
participant variations in response may reflect
the manner of interviewing rather than the real
difference in the way individuals thinking about
the topic.
Another type of self report is structured
interview where by each individual is asked the
same set of questions in the same way.
It permits comparison of participants responses
and efficient data collection and can specify
answers alternative that participants might not
think of in an open ended interview. This
approach eliminates the possibility that an
interviewer might press and prompt some
participants more than the others. The answers
are briefer and researcher can obtain written
responses from an entire group at the same
time. Nevertheless, structured interviews can
still be affected by inaccurate reporting and they
do not yield the same depth of information as a
clinical interview.
7. Neuro biological method which is a method
that measures the relationship between
nervous system processes and behaviour. It
reveals which central nervous system structure
contribute to development and individual
differences in certain competences.It helps
researcher infer the perception, thoughts and
emotions of infants and young children who
cannot report them clearly. For example,heart
rate can be used to infer within infinite staring
blankly at the stimulus (heart rate is stable),
Processing information (heart rate slows during
concentration) or experiencing distress (heart
rate rises). Some of the methods for measuring
brain functioning are the EEG or
Electroencephalogram which are electrodes
embedded in a head cap record electrical
activity in the brain outer layers which is the
cerebral cortex.PET is Positron emission
tomography whereby after injection or
inhalation of a radioactive substance the person
lies on an apparatus with a scanner that emits
fine stream of X rays which detects increased
blood flow and oxygen metabolism in areas of
the brain as the person process particular
stimuli. Biological methods are powerful tools
for uncovering relationship between the brain
and psychological development.
The limitation is that it cannot reveal with
certainty the meaning of brain activity. Many
factors beside those of interest to the
researcher can influence a physiological
response.

Reference
1.Brown W B & Cozby C ap& Kee W D &Worden
E P. 1989. Research methods in human
development.2nd edi. Mayfield Publishing
Company
2.Berk E.L .2012.Child development. 6th
edi.Pearson