Lesson 1 Assignment #1: Review of Developmental Research
Part of conducting developmental research is reviewing and understanding published research studies. In this research project, you will choose one of the topics that will be covered in this course and find a research article in a journal on the chosen topic. Browse your text for ideas but any topic related to children or adolescents will work. Read the article and write a report about the article. Be sure to include a citation for your article (authors, title, journal, volume, pages and year). I prefer APA format but if you are familiar with a different format that will be ok too. In addition to including the main points of the study, give your personal reactions to the research findings. Again, you will need an actual research article describing a study not a review article. Most research articles are organized in the following sections: introduction, methods, results, discussion. Please complete this assignment with complete sentences in paragraph form. You may provide a brief overview of the article and then address the questions OR you may provide your overview within your answers to the questions below. Be specific in your responses.
Answer the following questions:
1. Can you use the title of the study to identify the independent and dependent variables? Identify the IV and DV. (Many titles are in this format: “The effects of IV on the DV.”)
2. What did you learn from the introduction section? What is the historical background of the research topic? What theoretical explanations are emphasized in this section? What is the hypothesis of the present study?
3. What did you learn from the methods section? Who were the subjects and how many subjects were in the study? What procedures (e.g., apparatus, directions, assessment tools) were used?
4. What did you learn from the results section? What kinds of statistical procedures were used? What did you learn from charts, frequency tables, and bar graphs?
5. What did you learn from the discussion section? How did the authors interpret their results? Did they provide alternative explanations? Did they talk about the limitations of the present research study? What future research studies were suggested?
6. What kinds of ideas did this article make you think about?
Possible journals in Developmental Psychology (you may locate online or through the OU Library) You do not need to pay for a journal article because you can access through OU Library
Child Development
Developmental Psychology
Adolescence
Journal of Educational Psychology
Human Development
Infant Behavior and Development
Journal of Research in Adolescence
Lesson 1 Assignment #3:Art, Development and Developmental Theories
In this assignment you are to select a painting/illustration that shows a child and/or children. Based on your selected artwork, identify and describe the three developmental processes and provide an example of each with reference to the painting. Identify and describe the period of development the individual appears to be in. Next,address the three main developmental issues (discussed in text) with reference to the individual/s in your painting. Use examples where appropriate. Lastly, how could your painting represent two of the developmental theories. That is, how could the representation be viewed from two of the developmental theories outlined in chapter 1(you can select any two)? Be sure to include a copy or weblink for your painting and identify the artist, year, and title of the painting. Provide references, even textbook.
Possible sites to locate paintings:
www.moma.orgwww.ibiblio.org/wm/www.metmuseum.org
