‘Evaluate the usefulness of Bigelow and La Gaipa’s work for understanding children’s friendship.’
In the 70s,
relationship
Suggestion
related
research
in the field of psychology focused mainly on the study of emotional bonds between people. Researchers reduced the role of children's friendship
to the question of what makes them feel attracted to each other? Understanding the phenomenon of friendship
in the context of psychology was very limited. In 1975, Brian Bigelow and John La Gaipa
researched changes in the way children perceive and define friendship depending
on their age and stage of development. Accept comma addition
friendship, depending
This
essay
will evaluate the usefulness of their findings and its further
influence on the process of shaping the understanding of children's friendships.
Initially
, Bigelow and La Gaipa
's intention was to explore the differences in children's expectations towards their best friends at different stages of development. Researchers were particularly interested in exploring changes in the perception of friendships that occur as the children grow up. Equally, their innovative research
has opened a new chapter in understanding child friendship
- an issue that has been completely unnoticed by psychology up to this
point.
To explore how children understand friendship
, Bigelow and La Gaipa
asked them to write an essay
, describing the relationship with the same sex best friend. Their task was to indicate the differences between expectations towards best friend and other colleagues. However
, researchers did not consider friendship
between children of different sexes, which could have an impact on the results of their research
.
To conduct research
, Bigelow and La Gaipa
collected 480 essays written by children of different sexes at the age between 6 to 14 years. They came from lower-middle-class and upper-working-class families. Eight different schools based in Windsor, Ontario, Canada joined the study. 30 boys and 30 girls were appointed from each of them to take part. A large sample group was undoubtedly an asset. However
, the method of selecting participants for the studies could result in a sampling error. The research
has also
devalued the influence of culture in understanding children's friendship
.
Before Bigelow and La Gaipa
began the studies, they created a list of different characteristics that children could want to include when describing their best friend. Researchers divided the list into 21 categories and then
used content analysis in each essay
. Furthermore
, they were able to quickly analyse samples of 480 essays by subordinating characteristics to already defined categories and applying frequency count. An additional advantage of the method used was the possibility of comparing differences in understanding friendships
between children of different ages or opposite sex. The applied generalization significantly contributed to the development of understanding of Accept comma addition
understanding, friendships
friendship
between children.
However
, its limitation was strictly subordinating
the characteristics of Suggestion
strictly subordinated
friendship
to predetermined coding. Such
a solution excluded the inclusion of friendship
traits indicated by the children in the essay
if their reasoning did not fit into categories created by the researchers. In view of the above, I suspect that the method could have contributed to affecting research
findings by confirmatory bias. Furthermore
, the transformation of qualitative into quantitative data likely caused the loss in the understanding of individual and personal dimensions on the studied children.Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Writing9 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Fully explain your ideas
To get an excellent score in the IELTS Task 2 writing section, one of the easiest and most effective tips is structuring your writing in the most solid format. A great argument essay structure may be divided to four paragraphs, in which comprises of four sentences (excluding the conclusion paragraph, which comprises of three sentences).
For we to consider an essay structure a great one, it should be looking like this:
- Paragraph 1 - Introduction
- Sentence 1 - Background statement
- Sentence 2 - Detailed background statement
- Sentence 3 - Thesis
- Sentence 4 - Outline sentence
- Paragraph 2 - First supporting paragraph
- Sentence 1 - Topic sentence
- Sentence 2 - Example
- Sentence 3 - Discussion
- Sentence 4 - Conclusion
- Paragraph 3 - Second supporting paragraph
- Sentence 1 - Topic sentence
- Sentence 2 - Example
- Sentence 3 - Discussion
- Sentence 4 - Conclusion
- Paragraph 4 - Conclusion
- Sentence 1 - Summary
- Sentence 2 - Restatement of thesis
- Sentence 3 - Prediction or recommendation
Our recommended essay structure above comprises of fifteen (15) sentences, which will make your essay approximately 250 to 275 words.
