Week 3 · Readings & resources

Week 3 — Readings & Resources

Child Development Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 3 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 61–70 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (19–23 min total)

① Why not trust a hunch?

Chapter 3, Section “Ask a question the scientific way” · Session 1, Segment 1, “The scientific method” · Remember: a hunch is a guess until careful observations support it or do not.

Psychological Research: Crash Course Psychology #2 — CrashCourse — a fast tour of why intuition misleads, then case studies, naturalistic observation, surveys and interviews, correlation that is not causation, and an experiment with random assignment to groups and informed consent. Its examples are adults and coffee, not children; as you watch, match each method to one in Chapter 3. (video, 11 min) (captions: creator)
Why Psychology Tells Us What We Already Know — SciShow Psych — explains hindsight bias, the feeling that a finding was obvious once you know it, and a habit for resisting it: imagine the opposite result. Use it while working through the Week-3 module overview to see why a prediction has to be tested before it counts. (video, 6 min) (captions: creator)

② Goes together, or causes?

Chapter 3, Section “Test whether two things go together” · Session 1, Segment 3, “Correlational research” · Remember: two things that go together can share a third cause, so only random assignment can test whether one causes the other.

Correlation and causation — Australian Bureau of Statistics — a short, plain explainer of what a correlation is, why two things can move together because of a shared cause such as the season, and why controlled studies with comparable groups are the strongest way to test a cause. (reading, 4–6 min)
Cross-sectional vs. longitudinal studies — Institute for Work & Health — a one-page column that calls a cross-sectional study a snapshot of different groups at one time and a longitudinal study a series of looks at the same people over years, with the strengths of each. This builds on Week 1's running case: read it with that child's 8 records in mind. (reading, 4–6 min)
Sociology Research Methods: Crash Course Sociology #4 — CrashCourse — defines a variable so two researchers code it the same way, warns that correlation is not causation, walks through a randomized experiment, surveys, and participant observation, and ends on informed consent and review boards. It opens with a survey figure that is the video's own, not a course figure; watch for the two coders who disagree. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)

③ Write what you see, not what you think it means

Chapter 3, Section “Keep description apart from interpretation” · Session 2, Segment 7, “Two columns” · Remember: a description is what any observer beside you would agree on; a feeling word belongs in the interpretation column.

Clearing Your View: Staying in Observation — Administration for Children and Families (ACF) — a federal training video on staying objective: how your mood and your own upbringing tint what you see, and a group of observers who first describe a toddler with interpretations and then rewrite them as behaviors. (video, 7 min) (captions: creator)
Collecting and Using Anecdotal Records — Administration for Children and Families (ACF) — teachers show how they jot quick notes of what a child says or does during play and routines, and the narrator lists what a note needs. Teachers in their own classrooms write a child's name or initials; in this course's observations you never do, and you use role and age instead. (video, 4 min) (captions: creator)
Writing Objective and Accurate Observation Notes — HeadStart.gov — two notes about the same infant's arrival, one full of judgment words and one that describes, plus a list of words to avoid in a record, such as feeling words, labels, and "always" or "never". (reading, 4–6 min)

④ Who is studied, and who protects them?

Chapter 3, Section “Protect the child: consent, assent, and the observation rules” · Session 2, Segment 8, “Consent and assent” · Remember: a parent or guardian gives consent, the child gives assent, and the child can still say no.

Assent — NIH Institutional Review Board Office — how a research ethics board treats assent, a child's own agreement when the child cannot legally consent: fitting the explanation to the child's age and understanding, and when one or both parents must give permission. Stop here before prenatal development; next week takes that up. (reading, 4–6 min)
The Hidden Biases in WEIRD Psychology Research — SciShow Psych — why findings from one narrow group of research participants may not describe everyone, and why studying more kinds of people matters. Its percentages are the video's own, not course figures; listen for the question it asks of every study: who was in the sample? (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

SRCD Updates Ethical Principles and Standards for Developmental Scientists — Society for Research in Child Development — the society's announcement that its governing council approved updated ethical principles and standards for research with children in 2021, with a link to the full code; read the announcement for what changed and why, and open the full code only if you want the society's complete wording. (reading, 2–3 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com