Research In Developmental Psychology

This comprehensive guide offers a rich introduction to research methods, experimental design and data analysis techniques in developmental science, emphasizing the importance of an understanding of this area of psychology for any student or researcher interested in examining development across the lifespan. The expert contributors enhance the reader’s knowledge base, understanding of methods, and critical thinking skills in their area of study. They cover development from the prenatal period to adolescence and old age, and explore key topics including the history of developmental research, ethics, animal models, physiological measures, eye-tracking, and computational and robotics models. They accessibly explore research measures and design in topics including gender identity development, the influence of neighborhoods, mother-infant attachment relationships, peer relationships in childhood, prosocial and moral development patterns, developmental psychopathology and social policy, and the examination of memory across the lifespan. Each chapter ends with a summary of innovations in the field over the last ten years, giving students and interested researchers a thorough overview of the field and an idea of what more is to come. Conducting Research in Developmental Psychology is essential reading for upper-level undergraduate or graduate students seeking to understand a new area of developmental science, developmental psychology, and human development. It will also be of interest to junior researchers who would like to enhance their knowledge base in a particular area of developmental science, human development, education, biomedical science, or nursing.

Life-Span Development Psychology: Research and Theory covers the issues and problems associated with a life-span conceptualization of developmental psychology. The book discusses the status,issues, and antecedents of life-span developmental psychology; an approach to theory construction in the psychology of development and aging; and models and theories of development. The text also describes the methodology and research strategy in the study of developmental change; the application of multivariate strategies to problems of measuring and structuring long-term change; and the mechanisms required for the operation of perception and recognition. Learning and retention; language; and intellectual abilities are also considered. Developmental psychologists will find the study invaluable.

Appropriate for use in developmental research methods or analysis of change courses, this is the first methods handbook specifically designed to meet the needs of those studying development. Leading developmental methodologists present cutting-edge analytic tools and describe how and when to use them, in accessible, nontechnical language. They also provide valuable guidance for strengthening developmental research with designs that anticipate potential sources of bias. Throughout the chapters, research examples demonstrate the procedures in action and give readers a better understanding of how to match research questions to developmental methods. The companion website (www.guilford.com/laursen-materials) supplies data and program syntax files for many of the chapter examples.

The Fifth Edition of Scott A. Miller’s classic Developmental Research Methods presents an overview of methods to prepare students to carry out, report on, and evaluate research on human development across the lifespan. The book explores every step in the research process, from the initial concept to the final written product, covering conceptual issues of experimental design, as well as the procedural skills necessary to translate design into research. Incorporating new topics, pedagogy, and references, this edition conveys an appreciation of the issues that must be addressed, the decisions that must be made, and the obstacles that must be overcome at every phase in a research project, capturing both the excitement and the challenge of doing quality research on topics that matter.

What is childhood and why, and how, did psychology come to be the arbiter of 'correct'or 'normal' development? How do actual lived childhoods connect with theories about child development? In this completely revised and updated edition, Deconstructing Developmental Psychology interrogates the assumptions and practices surrounding the psychology of child development, providing a critical evaluation of the role and contribution of developmental psychology within social practice. In the decade since the first edition was published, there have been many major changes. The role accorded childcare experts and the power of the 'psy complex' have, if anything, intensified. This book addresses how shifts in advanced capitalism have produced new understandings of children, and a new (and more punitive) range of institutional responses to children. It engages with the paradoxes of childhood in an era when young adults are increasingly economically dependent on their families, and in a political context of heightened insecurity. The new edition includes an updated review of developments in psychological theory (in attachment, evolutionary psychology, theory of mind, cultural-historical approaches), as well as updating and reflecting upon the changed focus on fathers and fathering. It offers new perspectives on the connections between Piaget and Vygotsky and now connects much more closely with discussions from the sociology of childhood and critical educational research. Coverage has been expanded to include more material on child rights debates, and a new chapter addresses practice dilemmas around child protection, which engages even more with the "raced" and gendered effects of current policies involving children. This engaging and accessible text provides key resources to inform better professional practice in social work, education and health contexts. It offers critical insights into the politics and procedures that have shaped developmental psychological knowledge. It will be essential reading for anyone working with children, or concerned with policies around children and families. It was also be of interest to students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels across a range of professional and practitioner groups, as well as parents and policy makers.

What are the changes we see over the life-span? How can we explain them? And how do we account for individual differences? This volume continues to examine these questions and to report advances in empirical research within life-span development increasing its interdisciplinary nature. The relationships between individual development, social context, and historical change are salient issues discussed in this volume, as are nonnormative and atypical events contributing to life-span change.

This book explores and underlines the thesis that developmental psychology cannot function fruitfully without systematic historical scholarship. Scientific thinking not only depends on empirical-analytical research, but also requires self-reflection and critical thinking about the discipline’s foundations and history. The relevance of history was made especially clear in the writings of William Kessen, who analyzed how both children and child development are shaped "by the larger cultural forces of political maneuverings, practical economics, and implicit ideological commitments." As a corollary, he emphasized that the science of developmental psychology itself is culturally and historically shaped in significant ways. Discussing the implications of these insights in the book’s introduction, Koops and Kessel stress that we need a Historical Developmental Psychology. In the book’s following chapters, historians of childhood – Mintz, Stearns, Lassonde, Sandin, and Vicedo – demonstrate how conceptions of childhood vary across historical time and sociocultural space. These foundational variations are specified by these historians and by developmental psychologists – Harris and Keller – in the research domains of emotions, attachment, and parenting. This collection demonstrates the importance of bridging, both intellectually and institutionally, the gap between the research of historians, and both current and future research of developmental psychologists. This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Developmental Psychology.