PRE 305 1st Edition Lecture 3 Outline of Last Lecture I Child Development as a Field of Study A Purpose of studying child development B Domains of Development C Key Issues D Evaluating information about child development Outline of Current Lecture I Research Methods A What is research B The scientific method C Elements of research D Methods of data collection E Types of research designs F Research Ethics Current Lecture What is research Research the process of asking questions and finding answers using the scientific method The scientific method Choose a questions Formulate a hypothesis Develop a method for testing your hypothesis Use data to draw a conclusion about the hypothesis Elements of research Theory an idea that is meant to explain facts or observations Hypothesis an educated guess that is often based on a theory Evidence the data used to test a hypothesis Reliability consistency in measurement Validity are you measuring what you think you are measuring Reliability and validity are important because if you do not have a reliable and valid measure you will not be able to collect accurate data to test your hypothesis These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Sample participants in your study Population who you want to generalize the results to Methods of data collection Interviews can include open ended or close ended questions Surveys Observations can be naturalistic observing a child in their natural environment or structured forcing a specific situation that you want to observe to occur Physiological measures brain rate brain imaging heart rate hormones Types of research designs Experiments contain experimental and control groups random assignment Correlational designs the researcher does not manipulate anything they simply examine the relationship between variables Correlation does not equal causation Change over time 1 Cross sectional studies people of different ages observed at one time 2 Longitudinal studies same person or people studied over time Research ethics Conducting ethical research 1 Protecting from harm 2 Privacy and confidentiality 3 Informed consent 4 Role of Institutional Review Boards IRBs Peer Review Observation and interpretation Generalizability Scope Individuals and groups