Читать книгу Infants and Children in Context - Tara L. Kuther - Страница 44

Over the past century, developmental scientists have learned much about how children progress from infancy through adolescence and into adulthood. Developmental scientists organize their observations to construct theories that explain how development unfolds. A theory is a way of organizing a set of observations or facts into a comprehensive explanation of how something works. Theories are important tools for compiling and interpreting the growing body of research in child development as well as determining gaps in our knowledge and making predictions about what is not yet known.

Effective theories pose specific explanations, or hypotheses, for a given phenomenon that can be tested by research. Scientists conduct research to find flaws in the hypothesis—not to “prove” that it is “correct.” A good theory is one that is falsifiable, or capable of generating hypotheses that can be tested and, potentially, refuted. As scientists conduct research and learn more about a topic, they modify their theories. Updated theories often give rise to new questions and new research studies, whose findings may further modify theories. The great body of research findings about child development has been organized into several theories to account for the developmental changes that occur in infancy, childhood, and adolescence.