A developmental psychologist noticed age-related differences in sharing behaviors mentioned in parental interviews. They designed an observational study to investigate differences in cooperative and sharing behaviors between 3-year-old and 5-year-old children.
The psychologist carried out the study using children from two regional playgroups. Playgroup Alpha had 40 children in each age group. Playgroup Beta had 20 children in each age group. All parents provided written informed consent. Using stratified sampling across the playgroups, the psychologist selected eight 3-year-olds and eight 5-year-olds to take part.
Each child was observed for 20 minutes in a dedicated play space where they were presented with three sharing opportunities: a shared coloring set, a collaborative puzzle, and a single toy train set. The psychologist counted the number of times each child initiated a sharing or cooperative behavior.
Explain how a pilot study could be carried out to help this psychologist improve their planned investigation.
Practise AQA A Level Psychology Scientific processes with exam-style questions for A Level Psychology. 689 questions, matched to the AQA A Level Psychology (7182) specification and written in Paper 1, Paper 2 and Paper 3 style. Every question includes a full worked solution and mark scheme, so you can see where marks are awarded rather than just whether you got the answer right.
