Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Chapter 1
As I was reading chapter 1 of the text, longitudinal research really caught my interest. Longitudinal research is where the same individuals are followed over time and their development is repeatedly assessed. In the book they show Sarah-Maria from Switzerland. There are pictures of her from six stages of her life, infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, emerging adulthood, and adulthood. In every picture, Sarah-Maria's engaging smile was present. I wonder what I would notice about my facial features if I did that? That's very interesting to me. Her hair color changed, but that can not be predicted. Longitudinal research is a very long and slow process, but once you get a result, it's very reliable. A variation of this method is cross-sequential research, which is when several groups of people of different ages is studied, then followed over the years.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sidney,
ReplyDeleteI found your perspective on longitudinal research to be very interesting. I also was very interested in the longitudinal method of attaining developmental research, and never considered it from such a personal standpoint before. Frankly and personally, I think I’d be embarrassed to see how much my appearance changed over the years, but if it could help science then I believe it would be beneficial. Sarah-Maria’s hair color did surprise me as well; at first I wasn’t sure if it was the same person, but then the same thing happened to me when my hair went from black to red. Can you imagine how much it would benefit scientific research if even half the people in the world became participants in longitudinal study? We would have so much knowledge, it would be incredible.