Evaluate the usefulness of Bigelow and La Gaipa’s (1975) work for understanding children’s friendship.

Bigelow and La Gaipa’s

study

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into the understanding of friendships was the pioneering

study

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into childhood

friendship

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, as at the time very little research had been done at the time. Their experiment was designed to help understand the influxes that

friendship

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could have on the impact during their development. The

method

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that they used to perform their

study

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was to ask the participant to write an

essay

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on what they expected from their best

friend

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. The participant where a

sample

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of 480 children aged from six and fourteen chosen from 8 different

school

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schools

with a mix of thirty boys and thirty girls.

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sample

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size ranges from upper-working-class and lower-middle-class.

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included a large

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size to offer a wider range of results.

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method

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of

study

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allowed them to collect written form of data which could

then

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be analysed and coded. Allowing them to compare them to the characteristics of a best

friend

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that they had made for

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study

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. Body – 600 It should be noted that

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research was taken place during a time where very little importance was taken on the understanding of children

friendship

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.

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experiment was designed in a way that allowed to track the development of

friendship

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as children grew older.

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was done by using a wide age group. Here we can take a look at how useful the result of these tests are and why they have some limitations. Due to the

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essay

an appraisal of the state of affairs

assay

method

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they used during

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research it allowed for some clear limitations for the younger group when it came to write about their best

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.

For example

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, the vocabulary of a six year old will limit the way they express how they feel about their best

friend

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as opposed to a fourteen year old with a

wider

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wide

vocabulary. Whilst

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does show some of the limitations of

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method

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of

experiment it

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experiment, it

also

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shows how

friendship

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develops and understanding of

friendship

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as children age. Another limitation found in

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study

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was the coding

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chosen by Bigelow and La Gaipa. As the

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where qualitative data they converted

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data into quantitative using a pre-written

list of before the

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list before the

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took place. By converting the

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, it lost what could be

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considered

important information as if the personal dimension did not fit into expectations

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result was

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simply

lost and was not considered.

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is often a

draw back

the quality of being a hindrance

drawback

when it comes to converting qualitative to quantitative data as you are often looking for key words and qualities listed and might miss out on the small details of

friendship

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that a child might class as important. With the limitations being

said there

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said, there

are many benefits

to

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of

the

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chosen for

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study

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. Bigelow and La Gaipa wanted to include a large

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size for their

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and to make

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realistic they had