PSY 302 Lecture 2: Developmental Research Methods
Document Summary
Formulate a hypothesis (predict the answer, ex; tv can cause aggressive behaviour) Reliability (inter-rater -the amount of agreement in observations of different raters who witness the same behaviour; test-retest-the degree of similarity of a participants performance on two or more occasions) Interviews (structured-fixed set of questions vs clinical which is more open ended) Structured interviews are inexpensive means for collecting in-depth data about individuals. Clinical interviews allow flexibility for following up on unexpected comments. Disadvantages: reports are often biased to reflect favourably on interviewee. Memories of interviewee are often inaccurate and incomplete. Naturalistic (ex: home, school) ( on going behaviour in an environment not controlled by researcher) Advantages: useful for describing behaviour in everyday settings. Disadvantages: difficult to know which aspects of situation are most influential. Structured observations (ex: lab) (presenting identical situation to each participant and recording the participant"s behaviour) Advantages: ensures that all children"s behaviours are observed in same context.
