In this assignment, you will summarize and critique one of six research
articles published in the journal Child Development (choices listed below). I
will provide you the authors and title, and you will have to find the article
using PsycInfo/Google Scholar resources we will go over in class. In a brief
(~2-3 page) paper, you will first describe the research question, methods,
and findings presented in the article. Then, you will consider the implications
of the research findings, as well as any methodological or theoretical issues
you see evident in the research.
List of research articles to choose from:
• Beier & Spelke (2012). Infants’ developing understanding of social gaze.
• Brownell, Zerwas, & Ramani (2007). So big: The development of body selfawareness
in toddlers.
• Kartner, Keller, & Yovsi (2010). Mother-infant interaction during the first 3
months: The emergence of cultural-specific contingency patterns.
• Mohring & Frick (2013). Touching up mental rotation: Effects of manual
experience on 6-month-old infants’ mental object rotation.
• Roseberry, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff (2014). Skype me!: Socially contingent
interactions help toddlers learn language.
• Vouloumanos, Hauser, Werker, & Martin (2010). The tuning of human
neonates’ preference for speech.
Please choose one of the six topic which you prefer.
Describe the research question, methods, findings
¤ What were the authors looking at?
¤ What were their hypotheses?
¤ How did they conduct the study?
¤ What did the data show?
¨ Consider implications
¤ What might the data mean for child development, parenting,
education, language learning, etc.?
¨ Consider methodological/theoretical issues
¤ Are there other explanations for the results than what the authors
claim?
¤ Is the study generalizable beyond the population tested?
