Applied Developmental Psychology

Question: Explain how the data was gathered and how bias was controlled and discuss any ethical considerations that evolved during the study. Answer: Introduction: Developmental psychology deals with the development within human that is seen throughout the lifespan and it is a very diverse field and also vibrant in nature. Many recent researches have shown that there is a wide focus that is applied to the different aspects of developmental psychology. The faculty of the graduates highlights the interests and specialties of the research span in the developmental areas of infancy, childhood, adulthood and the aged population and also their methods and domains such as the emotional and cognitive areas. To reflect the nature of the applied program many selected faculty applied the developmental research and the theory so as to study the vulnerable youth that include children that suffer mental disorders and children who face poverty (Kellett, Mary (2005). The expertise also uses these developmental programs to design and evaluate so as to improve the lives of their families and children. Research Methods in Psychology: There are two main methods of research that is applied in developmental psychology among children; Descriptive Methods- which also includes naturalistic observation, individual case study, interviews, surveys and also correlational studies. The Experimental Method- this is used mainly to determine the causes and effects of the relationships. The naturalistic observation includes observing the kids and their behaviors usually when they are playing or around other kids. Therefore by observing their behaviors researchers can study many particular behavioral problems such as ADHD etc. many of these symptoms are present at an early age and last for at least six months. However the correlation method includes the degree to which one set of data is related to another variable. This research method helps us to predict behavior of the children but do not show the causes of the relationship (James, A. (2001). Purpose and contribution to discipline psychology: There are many behavioral sciences of disciplines that have majorly played an important role and have contributed to the development of organizational behaviors such as psychology, sociology, anthropology and medicine. Many psychologists showed interest in studying and applying psychology amongst children and also showed how it could be used to examine organizational psychology. This involves the fixation of the fixation on the behaviors and motivation of the workers. Thus the motivational theories of this organizational behavior were mainly concerned in helping the companies to increase their work productivity, job commitment and also their achievement. Therefore organizational behavior explains the external and internal influence on the individuals behavior and work performance (Greig, et al (2007). There are five main steps in the process of research: Locating and defining the issues and causes of the problem. Designing and developing the research project. Collecting the data acquired. Interpreting research data. Reporting the findings of the research. Therefore in a case study the researches always study a subject in detail and then the researcher collects the data about the subject where here it is a child through interviews, examination of the documents, psychological testing, direct observation and finally records all the details of the subject. However the bias in this research is the malfunction of the results by the collected data and the common types of bias includes sampling bias, subject bias and the experimenter bias. Conclusion: Therefore the research involving children has many benefits as well as disadvantages that concern children and their behavior. Thus, it is important to encourage more ways to deal with the ethical problems that occur when the study is conducted which purely involves children. Thus many researchers after getting the permission to deal with such ethical issues much before the start of the study the aim is at solving the issues that take place during the research. In this way the subject that is of concern is introduced and all the precautions are taken so as to make sure that any child is not harmed or affected by the research. Also, researchers should inform the children that they would allow any child to withdraw from the research at any stage in their life (Christensen et al (2008). References Christensen, Pia James, Allison (eds.) (2008) Research with Children: Perspectives Practices 2 nd edition, New York: Routled Greig, Anne, Taylor, Jayne Mackay, Tommy (2007) Doing Research with Children, London: Sage Publications James, A. (2001) Ethnography in the Study of Children and Childhood in P. Atkinson, A. Coffey, S. Delamont, J. Lofland and L. Lofland, Editors, Handbook of Ethnography, London: Sage Publications, pp. 246257. Kellett, Mary (2005) How to develop children as researchers: a step-by-step guide to teaching the research process, London: Sage Publications