Observation of Pre-school Children in a Strange Situation - Lab Report Example

Lab Report Observation of Pre-school Children in "a Strange Situation" Psychology Even though the process of parenting is a determinant of the child’s status of attachment, it is very essential in securing the safety and trust of children in the strange situation. Generally, the secure exploration and attachments are linked to sensitive and responsible parenthood, guardianship and any form of custodianship (Sroufe et al, 2005). Insecure attachments usually cause poor behaviors and negative reactions because strangers may not have the required level of sensitivity to the needs of the child. It is not strange to notice the withdrawal of children in the presence of strangers and the way they open up when in the company of care givers (Svanberg, 2009). Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Method and Study Design 3. Research Questions 4. Inter rate Reliability Figures 5. Findings 6. Discussion 7. Limitations of the Study 8. How to Overcome the Limitations 9. Real Life Implication of the Findings 10. Conclusion 1. Introduction This study investigates the behavior of students in relation to the strange situation. It a plies a practical qualitative study on the response of children to strangers in comparison to their care givers. The "Strange Situation" is studied in this context based on the views of the psychologist Mary Ainsworth, in her devised procedure of Strange Situation for the testing of the quality of attachment of the infant to the mother and a stranger (Hans, Berstein & Sims, 2000). The method applied in this study uses the observation in real life and in accordance to the theory of secure attachment of the child to the caregiver, driven by confidence in his or her support. Through the attachment the child has a secure base which enables him or her to explore the world (Fraley & Spieker, 2003). The laboratory work focuses on the attachment-exploration balance as one of the methods of interest to the interaction between the preschool child in need of attachment as well as their dire need for the exploration of the environment. The second focus of the laboratory work is the secure-base phenomenon and the use of the attachment person (the care giver) to form the secure base, paving way for the exploration. 2. Method and Study Design 2.1. Study Methodology This research uses two fundamental research methods in the evaluation of the behavior of children in the strange situation. One of the methods used is quantitative research methods. This involves the conversion of immeasurable behavioral qualities into measurable quantities for the purpose of statistical analysis. The second method it allies is the descriptive method in which it describes the relationship between the presence of and the absence of a stranger to the children response. It also describes the effects of the attachment to the parent in the behavior of the children. 2.2. Statistical Techniques Applied The designs of analysis pave way for three fundamental techniques, descriptive statically summary and the linear correlation analysis, using the readily available dataset. The third method applied is the linear Regression analysis, to measure the association between the variables. 3. Research Questions There are three essential questions in this study as listed below: Are there proofs that pre-school infants view their care givers as the secure base from which they can explore the strange environment The observed indicator of more exploration can test this while in the hands of the care giver and or less or none at all in the absence of the care giver. The second fundamental question is whether the presence of the stranger indeed affects the level of attachment and exploration. This can be answered by observing whether the infants explore less or move closer to or focus more on the care givers in the presence of the stranger. The third question is how the preschool children respond to the situation of reunion. This can be monitored through the smiling and social acts or whether the frequency of the responses is different across the various situations. 4. Hypothesis The statistical tests in this study are carried out on the basis of the study questions stated in the previous section. 4.1. Hypothesis 1 The first Hypothesis is that there is a positive correlation between the presence of a caregiver and the level of exploration of the child’s environment. This can be verified by the correlation analysis or linear regression analysis. 4.2. Hypothesis 2 From the second study question, the presence of a stranger indeed affects the level of exploration and attachment. This can be verified by comparing the amount of exploration in the presence of and in the absence of the stranger. 4.3. Hypothesis 3 In line with the third study question, the third hypothesis is that there is a positive relationship between the reunion and the positive behaviors such as smiling and the constructive social acts. 5. Inter Rate Reliability Figures The inter rate reliability is calculated using the equation below: R = A / (A + D) Where A implies that both the observers found that the behavior occurred D implies that only one of the observers recorded that the behavior occurred If the two observers find that the behavior did occur, then the observation is ignored. 6. Findings 6.1. Correlation Analysis The results of correlation analysis are listed below. Table 1: Correlation Analysis Correlations E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 E2 Pearson Correlation 1 .632* .707* .766** .897** .882** Sig. (1-tailed) .025 .011 .005 .000 .000 N 10 10 10 10 10 10 E3 Pearson Correlation .632* 1 .635* .276 .722** .370 Sig. (1-tailed) .025 .024 .220 .009 .146 N 10 10 10 10 10 10 E4 Pearson Correlation .707* .635* 1 .847** .800** .637* Sig. (1-tailed) .011 .024 .001 .003 .024 N 10 10 10 10 10 10 E5 Pearson Correlation .766** .276 .847** 1 .731** .788** Sig. (1-tailed) .005 .220 .001 .008 .003 N 10 10 10 10 10 10 E6 Pearson Correlation .897** .722** .800** .731** 1 .752** Sig. (1-tailed) .000 .009 .003 .008 .006 N 10 10 10 10 10 10 E7 Pearson Correlation .882** .370 .637* .788** .752** 1 Sig. (1-tailed) .000 .146 .024 .003 .006 N 10 10 10 10 10 10 *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (1-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (1-tailed). The results of correlation analysis show positive correlation between E2 and E4 with a coefficient of +0.707. This shows that indeed, the presence of a care giver positively impacts on the level of exploration of the child. 6.2. Regression Analysis The results for Regression analysis are presented in the table below: Table 2: Regression Analysis ANOVAb Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression 21.188 5 4.238 4.932 .074a Residual 3.437 4 .859 Total 24.625 9 a. Predictors: (Constant), E7, E6, E5, E3, E4 b. Dependent Variable: E2 Coefficientsa Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig. B Std. Error Beta 1 (Constant) 3.249 1.886 1.722 .160 E3 -.619 .235 -.756 -2.636 .058 E4 .905 .283 1.110 3.198 .033 E5 .465 .160 .854 2.910 .044 E6 .009 .118 .018 .077 .943 E7 .488 .227 .730 2.152 .098 a. Dependent Variable: E2 The results of Regression analysis show negative coefficient of association between E2 and E3 with a coefficient of -0.619. This shows that indeed, the presence of a stranger negatively affects the level of exploration and attachment of the child. Table 3: Correlation Analysis 2 Correlations E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 Spearmans rho E2 Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .692* .244 -.117 -.470 .063 Sig. (1-tailed) . .013 .249 .373 .085 .432 N 10 10 10 10 10 10 E3 Correlation Coefficient .692* 1.000 .575* -.118 -.293 .577* Sig. (1-tailed) .013 . .041 .373 .206 .040 N 10 10 10 10 10 10 E4 Correlation Coefficient .244 .575* 1.000 -.221 .175 .478 Sig. (1-tailed) .249 .041 . .270 .315 .081 N 10 10 10 10 10 10 E5 Correlation Coefficient -.117 -.118 -.221 1.000 .019 -.340 Sig. (1-tailed) .373 .373 .270 . .479 .168 N 10 10 10 10 10 10 E6 Correlation Coefficient -.470 -.293 .175 .019 1.000 .256 Sig. (1-tailed) .085 .206 .315 .479 . .238 N 10 10 10 10 10 10 E7 Correlation Coefficient .063 .577* .478 -.340 .256 1.000 Sig. (1-tailed) .432 .040 .081 .168 .238 . N 10 10 10 10 10 10 *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (1-tailed). The results of Correlation analysis show negative coefficient of correlation between E2 and E7 with a coefficient of +0.063. This shows that indeed, the reunion positively impacts on the level of positive behaviors such as smiling and social actions of the child. 6.3. Descriptive Statistics Table 4: Descriptive Statistics Descriptive Statistics N Range Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation Variance Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Std. Error Statistic Statistic E2 10 8.00 .00 8.00 2.7500 .83417 2.63787 6.958 E3 10 8.50 .00 8.50 3.6500 .79600 2.51716 6.336 E4 10 6.50 1.50 8.00 5.1500 .73805 2.33393 5.447 E5 10 3.50 .00 3.50 .3500 .35000 1.10680 1.225 E6 10 10.00 2.00 12.00 7.2500 1.05738 3.34373 11.181 E7 10 11.00 1.00 12.00 4.2500 1.20012 3.79510 14.403 Valid N (listwise) 10 The results of descriptive statistical analysis show a maximum variance of 14.4, which is a highly significant variance showing that all the independent tests and actions had significant positive and negative effects on the social actions and smiling, the level of attachment and exploration. 7. Discussion From the results obtained in the statistical tests, the hypothesis 1, 2 and 3 were proved to be true. The presence of a stranger produced negative results an interfered with the attachment of the child to the care taker (Colin, 2006). At the same time, the attachment to the care giver was very important as it enabled the child to do more exploration and have free interaction. However, the study had a number of limitations and weaknesses as shown below: 7.1. Limitations of the Study One of the limitations of this study is the use of narrow sample size for all the data sets. The number of records for every data set is 10, which may not produce a reliable conclusion. It is possible that increasing the records can produce very different outcome. Secondly, the limitation of this research is the use of a single statistical software package (SPSS), which limits the exploration. It is also possible that other statistical packages such as E - View and STATA can generate different results and alter the findings. 7.2. How to Overcome the Limitations 7.2.1. Increase the Sample Size In the light of the limitations of the study identified, the number of records bought to increase by conducting the test among many pre - school learners. The sample size ought to be made larger, to at least 50 learners to be able to generate a reliable list of findings. 7.2.2. Use of Multiple Tools and Techniques For this research to be conducted more efficiently in the future there is need to use multiple tools and methods of statistical analysis. It is important to avoid depending on a single software package, to mitigate the risk of using wrong functions and models in the generation of the results. In case one package produces wrong calculations, the alternative methods and tools act as control to the limits of errors. 8. Real Life Implication of the Findings 8.1. Early Childhood Development and Education There are many applications of this research in the real life, in the area of early childhood Development and preschool education. This study reveals that the interaction and growth of the children depends on trust (Behrens et al, 2007). The study reveals that children trust their care givers more than the strangers, and measures the extent to which the strange situation destroys the process of interaction, exploration and the existing attachment. Exploration and attachment are enhanced by the presence of care givers, to demonstrate the importance of custodianship on the growth of preschool children 8.2. Personality and Character This research develops the personality and the behavioral traits of the children in the pre-school levels, through the provocation of personal attitude. The presence of strangers is equally important in the personality development because in reality, children will not exist without strange situations. 9. Conclusion This research was successful in the exploration of the role of care givers and strangers in the interactions and learning process. The three hypotheses were confirmed to be true and answered all the three research questions. In essence, the child has to learn how to socialize and how to overcome the challenges of being in strange situations. The recommendation of this study is that children ought to be in the care of people known to them rather than strangers. References Behrens, K.Y., Hesse, E. & Main, M. (2007). "Mothers attachment status as determined by the Adult Attachment Interview predicts their 6-year-olds reunion responses: A study conducted in Japan". Developmental Psychology 43 (6): 1553–67. Colin, M. P. (2006). Love and Loss. Routledge, London and New York. p. 13. Fraley, R. C. & Spieker, S. J. (2003). "Are infant attachment patterns continuously or categorically distributed? A taxometric analysis of strange situation behavior". Developmental Psychology 39 (3): 387–404. Hans, S.L., Berstein, V.J. & Sims, B.E. (2000) ‘Change and Continuity in Ambivalent Attachment Relationships from Infancy through Adolescence’ in The Organization of Attachment Relationships, ed. Patricia M. Crittenden & Angelika H. Claussen, Cambridge: CUP, pp.279. Sroufe, A., Egeland, B., Carlson, E. & Collins, W.A. (2005) The Development of the person: the Minnesota study of risk and adaptation from birth to adulthood, NY: Guilford Press, p.245. Svanberg, P. O. (2009). Promoting a secure attachment through early assessment and interventions. In J. Barlow & P.O. Svanberg (Eds.) Keeping the Baby in Mind, (pp. 100-114), London: Routledge. Read More