Applied Research in Child and Adolescent Development

A Practical Guide

Valerie Maholmes, Carmela Gina Lomonaco

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781136988783
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Developed for an NIH training institute, this volume is organized around the most frequently asked questions by researchers starting their careers in applied research in child and adolescent development. With contributions from the leading scholars in the field, actual research experiences highlight the challenges one faces in conducting such research. The techniques and theoretical frameworks most suitable for guiding the applied research process are reviewed along with related ethical and cultural considerations. Each chapter features the authors' introduction to their own careers in applied research. Also included are practical tips, case studies, and sidebars featuring frequently asked questions.

This practical resource provides tips on how to:

• Modify the most frequently used methodological techniques while maintaining the integrity of the data
• Manage the unpredictable nature of real world research
• Frame community relevant research questions in an academically acceptable way
• Secure funding to conduct applied research
• Disseminate the research results so as to have the greatest impact on policy and practice.

The book opens with the most frequently asked questions, tips on getting started in an applied research career, and an overview of and theoretical framework for generating applied developmental research ideas. Section 2 focuses on research designs including the most frequently used methodological and measurement techniques and tips on how to modify them to applied settings. Ethical challenges and cultural issues in working with special populations are also addressed. Section 3 focuses on conducting applied research in school, community, and clinical settings with an emphasis on the challenges encountered when conducting actual research as opposed to the more controlled settings taught in a classroom. Guidelines for protecting the populations involved in the study and strategies for recruiting and retaining participants are also addressed. The book concludes with strategies for disseminating research findings so as to have the greatest impact on policy and practice, for publishing research, and for securing funding.

Intended as a practical guide, this book is ideal for those just starting their careers in applied research, for students preparing their dissertations, and for the faculty who prepare these students. The book's accessible approach also appeals to researchers in the behavioral, social, and health sciences, education, and those in government and industry.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Valerie Maholmes, PhD
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Carmela G. Lomonaco, PhD
Inspire USA Foundation

Many of the public health and social challenges confronting our society have their basis in child and adolescent development. Having an understanding of the developmental underpinnings of such issues as obesity, bullying, academic achievement, violence, and the like could lead toward designing of programs, practices, and policies to ameliorate the affects of these problems.

More and more, universities are establishing departments of applied developmental science or are creating opportunities for students to have cross-disciplinary training to frame the research questions and design applied studies. While these opportunities are becoming more available, many young scholars interested in pursuing careers in applied research have lingering questions about the processes by which such studies are actually carried out.

In an attempt to address these questions, program scientists in the Child Development and Behavior, and Demographics and Behavioral Science Branches at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) along with program scientists in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research collaborated to develop the Summer Institute on Applied Research in Child and Adolescent Development. We chose this title to call attention to the importance of studying development—the factors and contexts that promote optimal development and those that might place a child onto a less optimal course of development. We also wanted the title to reflect the fact that interest in and the study of development does not only reside in the traditional departments of human development or psychology, but that researchers in other disciplines also have interest in many of the same issues, but ask these questions from different points of reference. It is this convergence of perspectives and coalescing of ideas around child and adolescent development issues that we wanted to foster in order to accelerate the pace of developing preventive interventions and to increase the number of researchers in the pipeline who are well trained to conduct applied research.

The idea for this book grew out of our experiences during the first Summer Institute on Applied Research in Child and Adolescent Development. We invited prospective participants to ask questions they would like the Institute to address and to indicate the aspects of conducting applied research with which they needed the most help. The responses led us to tailor the Institute to the specific questions raised and the particular interests and concerns of the participants. The majority of the authors contributing to this book participated in the Institute and the topics addressed at the Institute correspond to the chapters in this book.

An important goal of the Institute was to call attention to the theoretical and conceptual frameworks that support applied research. We deemed it important to help early career investigators become acquainted with developmental and systems theories that guide applied methodological approaches. Rich Lerner’s, and Bob McCall and Christina Groark’s presentations underscored this goal. Their chapters (Chapters 3 and 6, respectively) in this volume continue this theme and outline essential skills needed to propose and carry out studies leading to the development of interventions and the implementation of programs and practices that may improve the lives of children. Each of the authors discusses the need to build bridges between research and practice and provide guidance as to the most effective strategies to make these connections. They discuss the challenges they have encountered conducting applied research and the lessons they have learned throughout their respective careers.

Another important goal of the Institute was to provide an opportunity for investigators making their first foray into applied research to have a forum where they could ask the critical questions that would help them to negotiate and advance along their respective career paths. The Institute used a series of interactive presentations, plenary sessions, and small-group interaction to support the acquisition of advanced skills needed to plan and conduct applied research with children and adolescents. Accordingly this book is written in nontechnical, practical terms so that early career researchers can access information most relevant to their research goals and career stage.

A unique feature of the book is that it uses actual questions from early career investigators as an organizing framework. The authors attempt to provide answers to specific and pragmatic questions rarely addressed in research methods texts. The book starts with a chapter by Blachman and Esposito (Chapter 2), both early career investigators, who put forward some of the most frequently asked questions by their peers. Both fellows at the NIH at the time of this writing, Blachman and Esposito draw upon the breadth of their exposure to cutting-edge research and demystify the mechanisms by which new investigators can move toward this standard. Cole (Chapter 4) elaborates on the circuitous paths careers may take to find answers to compelling challenges affecting children and adolescents.

Applied research is often complicated by challenges to ideal designs outlined in traditional texts or utilized in controlled settings. We sought to help Institute participants gain knowledge of real-life challenges encountered in the conduct of applied research and how these challenges may be managed while maintaining the integrity of the science. McCall and Groark (Chapter 6) give a provocative analysis of various methodologies used to address these challenges and discuss their utility for answering particular applied questions. In keeping with this theme, authors in this volume enumerate the attitudes, skills, and knowledge needed to employ these methods in schools, underresourced communities, clinics, and with special populations.

Support for applied research often comes from a variety of sources. Federal funding is one of the avenues through which early career investigators can get their work supported. There are alternative sources available to support applied research focusing on children and families. The Institute brought together federal officials from a variety of agencies as well as representatives from foundations and organizations that have a mutual interest in advancing important research agendas that address their respective priorities and mission. Also discussed were outlets for disseminating and publishing funded research. These topics are addressed in this volume as well. chapter 11 written by Berch lays out strategies for seeking funding to conduct and extend the research, while McCabe and Browning (chapter 12) highlight techniques for disseminating research-based knowledge on infant, child, and adolescent development. These methods include strategies for communicating research findings so that policy, practice, and education decisions will benefit from state-of-the-art scientific information. Liben (chapter 13) focuses on strategies for publishing research findings in relevant journals for child and adolescent development.

In summary, this book is not intended to be a substitute for research design and methods texts, but rather serve as a practical companion to these texts.

We hope that this volume will provide critical insights to help guide your career. As we continue to learn from our training institutes and conferences, we will continue to provide commentary and guidance on the theories, effective strategies, methods, and approaches to improve the lives of children and adolescents.

Section I
Getting Started with Applied Research on Child and Adolescent Development

Chapter 2
Getting Started

Answering Your Frequently Asked Questions About Applied Research on Child and Adolescent Development

Dara R. Blachman, PhD*
National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Layla Esposito, PhD
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Introduction

Let us begin this chapter by introducing ourselves. Dara Blachman is currently employed at the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the time of this writing, Blachman was a Society for Research in Child Development Executive Branch Fellow at the Office for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) in the Office of the Director at the National Institutes of Health for 2 years. During her time at OBSSR, she was involved in a range of crosscutting initiatives, including in the areas of dissemination andimplementation science, adherence, and health disparities. She also participated in the planning of the first Summer Institute on Applied Research in Child and Adolescent Development (which OBSSR cosponsored). Blachman’s research interests center on understanding the interactive role of peer, family, and community/cultural influences on children’s socio-emotional adjustment and mental health, with an emphasis on the promotion of healthy development among minority children living in poverty. Reflective of her desire to conduct research that attempts to bridge the gap between science, policy, and practice, Blachman has been involved in several community-based, collaborative efforts in the areas of school-based mental health services, family based HIV prevention programs, and foster parent retention. Blachman received her PhD in clinical/community psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She completed her predoctoral internship at the Institute for Juvenile Research (IJR) at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Family Institute and School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University.

While writing this chapter, Layla Esposito was in her second year of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Policy Fellowship at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). In this role, she focused on numerous issues related to child development and behavior and the interface of science and social policy. She is currently the coordinator for the Obesity Research Strategic Core and is involved with NICHD’s second Summer Institute on Applied Research in Child and Adolescent Development. Prior to the fellowship, Esposito was involved in research evaluating middle school programs developed for violence prevention and drug and sex education; and her clinical work focused on children with emotional and behavioral disorders. Other research interests have included peer victimization, gender differences in aggression, violence prevention, psychosocial adjustment, and mental health in children. Esposito received her master’s degree in child clinical psychology and her PhD in social psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University.

In authoring this chapter, we hope to bring our unique perspective to many of your questions. We are both early career professionals ourselves, yet have also had the opportunity to work in government with issues of applied child and adolescent development for 2 years each. Additionally, we both come from psychology backgrounds. We have done our best to include examples from other fields and provide resources from nonpsychology disciplines when possible. Yet, we clearly could not cover all possible resources and examples. We encourage you to use the resources as a starting point and a guide and to ultimately seek out other sources of information that may be more relevant to your field or area of interest.

We hope that our perspective will be useful to you as you begin your career in applied child and adolescent development research. We recognize that ours are only some among many possible answers, and we certainly do not claim to have the years of experience and fully developed expertise of the more senior authors featured in this volume. Yet, as early career researchers we believe that we are closer to the experiences and questions that you bring. In addition, we have struggled with many of them ourselves and have had the fortune to be able to blend our academic expertise with policy relevant experiences through our fellowship. We offer our insights as guidance and thoughts to ponder, in the hopes that it may be useful to you. In answering these questions we will often reflect on our own experiences, struggles, and wrestling with many of the same issues presented herein. We only hope that your journey can perhaps be informed by ours. We have by no means completed ours. We have only just begun and believe that the process of writing this chapter has assisted in our own professional growth and development.

This chapter is organized in sections that correspond to the sections in this book. The questions were chosen from those submitted by participants in the first Summer Institute in Applied Child and Adolescent Development sponsored by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Participants submitted questions prior to the Summer Institute, and these questions were utilized as discussion guides during the course of the week. We have chosen questions that we thought best covered the broad range of relevant topics and those that we believed we were best able to address from our individual vantage points and experiences.

Getting Started in Applied Developmental Research

In an environment that has typically operated from a medical model, and that is familiar with physical health outcomes, research that focuses on psychological constructs is often perceived as “less scientific.” How would you suggest bridging the “cultural divide” between the medical (pediatric) perspective and the psychological/developmental perspective of research?

This question is one that is on the minds of many behavioral and social scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and across the country. Unfortunately, many in the biomedical community still harbor perceptions of behavioral and social science (BSSR) that are in may ways outdated, that is, the science is somehow “soft” or that it is simply common sense that does not need to be studied. This is understandable given that the primary mode of training and research in the biomedical community is that of the individual, with a linear, deterministic way of explaining phenomenon as well as a focus on specific diseases. In contrast, the behavioral and social sciences involve multiple, interacting levels that cannot be controlled and often focus on overall growth, development, and well-being as opposed to specific disease states.

Yet, the reality is that BSSR is key to solving the nations top public health problems. Nearly half of all deaths in the United States can be attributed to preventable behaviors (e.g., smoking, poor diet, physical inactivity; NIH, 2008). Huge contributions have been made by BSSR over the last few decades, including the dramatic decrease in tobacco use, the reduction in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and the slowing of the HIV/ AIDS epidemic (Mabry, Olster, Morgan, & Abrams, 2008; NIH, 2008). Although perceptions are not changed overnight, we think there is evidence that the tide may be turning. The value of BSSR seems to be rising in public awareness and is obtaining increasing support in major NIH initiatives such as the National Children’s Study; the Science of Behavior Change; and Genes, Behavior, and the Social Environment.

In addition, there are increasing calls for interdisciplinary work, given the recognition that to truly solve the complex issues facing our nation such as health disparities and obesity, then we need the input of multiple p...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Section I Getting Started with Applied Research on Child and Adolescent Development
• Section II Challenges and Issues Conducting Applied Research on Child and Adolescent Development
• Section III Conducting Research in Applied Settings
• Section IV How to Make the Most of Your Applied Research