PSY 307 Developmental Psychology Research Designs

In developmental psychology, the focus of research is often to examine change over time. Developmental psychologists have some special research designs that allow them to accomplish this. Two such research designs are the cross-sectional design and the longitudinal design. A cross-sectional design measures different groups of people of different ages at the same time. A longitudinal design measures the same group of people at different ages and also, therefore, at different times.

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Use your textbook and the University online library resources to identify and research a topic in adult development (e.g., memory, muscle strength, etc.) that you wish to examine across various age agroups. Develop an outline for either a cross-sectional or longitudinal research design. Write a paper consisting of the following information:

· An introduction to the topic you selected, including a summary of at least one peer-reviewed journal article describing recent research (post 2005) on the topic;

· A description of how you will measure the topic of study (e.g., the dependent variable).

· A description of which type of design will be used and why that would be most appropriate. Also identify what age groups will be studied.

· On the basis of your readings and research, provide a prediction of what you expect to find upon completion of your study.

Apply APA standards to citation of sources. Your paper should be double-spaced with one-inch margins, written in APA style, and free of typographical and grammatical errors. It should include a title page with a running head and a reference page. The body of the paper should be 3-5 pages in length

During early adulthood, people begin make important life decisions in three areas: career, family, and health. Young adults establish patterns of nutrition and physical activity that can have either positive or negative effects on their physical development in later stages of adulthood. They also begin to make decisions about what career path to follow. At some point during early adulthood, individuals also choose either to marry or remain single, and decide whether or not to start a family. Consider the following example:

Jeff is 23 years old. He recently graduated from college with a business degree and took a managerial position with a midsize company. He likes his coworkers, but often finds himself bored with his work. Although he was active in college, recently he has gained about 10 pounds due to his sedentary job and lack of time to exercise. Jeff broke up with his college girlfriend after graduation, and since then he has dated a few different women, but hasn’t had another serious relationship. Jeff wonders what the remainder of his 20’s and his 30’s will bring.

Based on your reading, prepare a PowerPoint presentation that would help individuals like Jeff set goals related to career, health, and family. The presentations should discuss the relationship between lifestyle choices and health risks. In addition, it should address how factors like personality and attachment may influence both career- and family-related goals. Finally, address diversity in the presentation. Explain how your plan could be adapted to fit the needs of different socioeconomic or ethnic groups.

Your PowerPoint presentation should include an introduction, a conclusion, and detailed speaker’s notes. Include your references on one slide.

Develop a 6–8-slide presentation in PowerPoint format with speaker’s notes. Apply APA standards to citation of sources. Use the following file naming convention: LastnameFirstInitial_M2_A2.ppt.

In order for this assignment to be compatible with TurnItIn, you will need to save your PowerPoint presentation as an Adobe PDF file. To do this, open your presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint. Choose “Save As” from the File menu, then choose “Adobe PDF”. Before saving your file, click on the Options button and check the box next to “Convert Speaker Notes.” Now choose to save your file. Your speaker notes will be included in your PDF file that you will submit for this assignment.