Читать книгу Introduction to Abnormal Child and Adolescent Psychology - Robert Weis - Страница 125

Surveys are often used to describe large groups of children. Whereas case studies focus on the idiographic assessment of an individual child, surveys focus on nomothetic assessment—that is, information about how groups of children typically think, feel, or act. For example, psychologists might conduct surveys to determine the percentage of school-age children with ADHD, the age at which children first develop symptoms, or parents’ attitudes toward medication to treat the disorder.

The results of a survey depend on how participants are selected. Researchers cannot survey everyone in the entire population. Instead, researchers must select a sample of participants for their study. Ideally, researchers will use random selection, that is, they will select participants so that each person in a given population has an equal chance of being included in the study. If participants are randomly selected, then the information they provide should reflect the characteristics of the general population (Hsu, 2017).

For example, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control wanted to determine the prevalence of ADHD among children in the United States. They randomly selected a large sample of children using records from the federal census. Then, they asked the parents of each randomly selected child to report if their child had ever been diagnosed with ADHD. The researchers found that 9.1% of children had been diagnosed with ADHD, reflecting about 6.1 million children across the country. Because the researchers randomly selected participants for the survey, they can be reasonably confident that the data they gathered reflect the prevalence of ADHD in the general population (Danielson et al., 2018).

Most surveys are quantitative, that is, they collect numerical data or ratings provided by children, parents, or other informants. For example, a researcher might ask a parent if her child has ever been diagnosed with ADHD or ask a teacher to report the severity of his student’s attention problems on a scale ranging from 1 (low) to 7 (high). Surveys can also be qualitative, that is, they may ask respondents to provide verbal descriptions of children’s behavior. For example, survey questions might ask a parent to list three strengths about her child or ask a teacher to describe the child’s typical behavior during class.