📗 -> 10/04/25: PSC140Y-VL4


Lecture Slide Link

🎤 Vocab

❗ Unit and Larger Context

Not just questions about what babies/children can but, but also how these abilities/behaviors change over time

Interested in:

  • Change over age?
  • Older children differnces with younger children?
    Answering such questions requires studies

Longitudinal design - testing the same children over time

  • Tracking the same child’s development at 3 vs 6 months.
    Pros:
  • See change over time
  • See continuity and stability of traits and behaviors
    Cons:
  • Time consuming
  • Some people don’t come back (need more participants than you really need)
  • It is possible that participating in the same study multiple times is a confound

Cross-sectional Design - Different children tested at each age

  • One group of infants at 3 months, another at 6
    Pros:
  • Can measure age-related differences
  • More efficient than longitudinal designs
    • Don’t have to wait for participants to age, don’t have to worry about dropout
    • Most experiments are cross-sectional
      Cons:
  • Can’t really know if group differences are developmental differences
    • Can only speak in generalities, nothing about the specific groups we are observing.
    • For example, differences could be due to the cohort effect, or the result of the groups being born into different generations (or cohorts)
  • Can’t study continuity or stability

Most studies are most interested in age related differences, not the cons we mentioned to cross sectional designs, so those are far and away the most popular

Microgenetic Design

  • Special case of longitudinal design
  • Patients seen frequently over a short period of time
    Pros:
  • Can observe in-the-moment developmental changes
  • Important for uncovering how development happens
    Cons:
  • Doesn’t help understanding development over longer time periods

Age Held Constant Design
By comparing infants who are the same age but differ in the ability to sit we can study the affect of sitting on development
Pros:

  • Can examine the effect of factors other than age on development
  • Can’t examine age-related changes or differences

🧪 -> Refresh the Info

Did you generally find the overall content understandable or compelling or relevant or not, and why, or which aspects of the reading were most novel or challenging for you and which aspects were most familiar or straightforward?)

Did a specific aspect of the reading raise questions for you or relate to other ideas and findings you’ve encountered, or are there other related issues you wish had been covered?)

Resources

  • Put useful links here

Connections

  • Link all related words