Doing Developmental Research

Doing Developmental Research

1. Measurement in Human Development
2. Systematic observation involves watching people and recording what they do in a natural setting, naturalistic observation, or in a setting created by the researcher for structured observation.
3. Sampling behavior with tasks is used when a behavior cannot be observed directly.  A task is created to sample the behavior of interest.
4. Self-reports are people’s answers to questions about the topic of interest.
5. Physiological measures involve measuring people’s physiological responses, such as heart rate, cortisol levels, and brain activity, to focus on a particular aspect of a person’s behavior.
6. Reliability and validity refer to the extent to which a measure provides a consistent index of a characteristic (reliability) and whether it really measures what we think it measures (validity).
7. Representative sampling must reflect the characteristics of the population of interest.