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Internal Validity Threats in Studies of Adult Cognitive Development

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Cognitive Development in Adulthood

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Cognitive Development ((2116))

Abstract

If development is viewed as a process that implicitly requires time to elapse to observe quantitative change or qualitative transformations, it then follows that age-comparative studies or other experimental manipulations can at best simulate development. It is obviously impossible to assign experimental subjects at random to different ages or different measurement occasions. The formal investigation of developmental processes, therefore, typically involves quasi-experiments in which carefully selected population samples are followed over time to observe whether or not hypothesized transformations can indeed be observed.

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Authors
  1. K. Warner Schaie
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Memorial University, St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, A1B 3X9

    Mark L. Howe

  2. Program in Educational Psychology, University of Arizona, Tuscon, AZ, 85721, USA

    Charles J. Brainerd

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© 1988 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.

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Schaie, K.W. (1988). Internal Validity Threats in Studies of Adult Cognitive Development. In: Howe, M.L., Brainerd, C.J. (eds) Cognitive Development in Adulthood. Springer Series in Cognitive Development. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3852-2_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3852-2_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-8377-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-3852-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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