A Tropical Approach to Life-Span Development
Question
Assignment #5
For Assignment #5, please read the section of Chapter One which covers Research Methods, pages 27 to 38. The following assignment asks you to CONCENTRATE on the material in the section on "Time Span of Research," on pages 32-33. This is a very important aspect of this assignment. Please, be sure to concentrate on the material in this section of the Chapter.
This section describes an important issue in research design which is specific to the field of Lifespan Development. Please, read this material very carefully before working on the following assignment.
This assignment will be due by 11:59p on Thursday, March 31, 2022. It should be approximately 400 words. Please be sure to include a WORD COUNT at the beginning of the assignment.
For this assignment on Research Design in Lifespan Development, you are being presented with two scenarios. Each scenario describes the work of a researcher. Let me say again, please read the material in the book on this topic very carefully. Be sure that you fully understand the research issues before addressing the assignment.
This assignment will be evaluated based on how complete, clear, precise and accurate it is.
Dr. Case and Dr.Almond are both interested in the factors involved in people's becoming obese, or seriously overweight. Dr. Case suspects that obesity is more likely among older people, people over 70. In the year 2016, he uses interviews and questionnaries to collect information about their weights, eating and exercise habits from a group of 75 people. There are 25 people in each group. Group one has people aged 25. Group two has people aged 50. Group three has people aged 75. He then compares the information obtained from these people looking for differences in obesity among the people in the three different age groups. He finds that the people in the oldest group have the most difficulties with obesity.
What research design has Dr. Case used?
Can Dr. Case interpret his results correctly by saying that as people get older, they are more likely to become obese? (Be careful in your answer to explain the term "cohort effect" and explain its relevance to Dr. Case's ability to interpret the results of his study.)
Dr. Almond is also interested in the factors involved in people's becoming obese. Dr. Almond also suspects that the risks of people becoming obese increase as they age. He identifies 75 people and begins to measure their weights and collect information about their eating and exercise habits usng interviews and questionnaires, every 25 years, beginning when they are aged 25 and including when they are ages 50 and 75. Like Dr. Case, he finds that the people have the most difficulty with obesity when they are in the oldest age group.
What kind of research design has Dr. Almond used?
Can Dr. Almond interpret his results correctly by saying that as people get older, they are more likely to become obese? (Be careful in your answer to explain the drawbacks to this type of research design, and explain their relevance to Dr. Almond's study).
ref:
https://pdf.zlibcdn.com/dtoken/7dc0e147b5a65f4c93e80256b5a196e0/A_topical_approach_to_life-span_development_(John__(z-lib.org).pdf
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Solution
A Tropical Approach to Life-Span Development
What research design has Dr. Case used?
According to the case study, Dr. Case and Dr. Almond work toward establishing factors that contribute to people becoming overweight. They suspect a high likelihood of older people, especially those 70 years and above, becoming obese than the young generation. Varied study designs are employed in evaluating different factors. For example, a cross-sectional study design is employed in Dr. Case’s analysis (Santrock, 2018). The study involves collecting information from three distinct groups of people of different ages, and the data is compared among them.
The preferred study design is convenient; as a researcher, one does not have to wait for the participants to acquire the right age to take part in it. Nonetheless, it suffers cohort effect whereby it deals with people born within similar circumstances in history who share relatable experiences. People belonging to varied age groups tend to share varying experiences directly impacting their lifestyles. Disparities identified among the participating age groups often result in a cohort effect, which has significant implications on the study’s dependent variables (Santrock, 2018). For example, people within 20 years, 50 years, and 70 years portray different life characteristics, which makes it challenging to provide a generalized claim that obesity or becoming overweight increases as someone ages.
What kind of research design has Dr. Almond used?
Dr. Almond utilizes the longitudinal method to study a similar set of participants. Participants were chosen from three age groups: those aged 25 years, 50 years, and 75 years, respectively. This method is arguably better than the one employed by Dr. Case in that individuals who took part in it have more or less experienced similar social and cultural environments (Santrock, 2018). This method involves studying the same individuals taking part in the study at several points to determine whether there is any notable transformation in a particular dimension. In addition, the method is beneficial in that it provides a wealth of information regarding vital cases. For instance, information involving stability, developmental change, and the importance of acquiring an early experience for later development can be acquired.
However, even though the method is considered better as far as the reliability of the results is concerned, it is not devoid of drawbacks considering that there is a problem of subject attrition. For instance, cases of loss of participants could be reported throughout the experiment. Additionally, there is a likelihood that participants may, with time, become dissimilar to those who drop out, which could have negative implications for them (Santrock, 2018). Other setbacks are the method time-consuming and can be very expensive. Nonetheless, based on the results, it can be interpreted that there is a high likelihood that obesity or becoming mainly overweight increases with age, considering that the study focuses its examination on individuals who retain similar characteristics over time.
Reference
Santrock, J. W. (2018). A topical approach to life-span development (9th ed.). McGraw-Hill Higher Education
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