National Longitudinal Surveys

Make Contact
Your first task this week is to make contact with a parent or caregiver to ask permission to observe/interview their child for your final project due Wednesday of week 4.  For this project the child should be between the ages of 3 to 10. An informed consent is required for this assignment.

Annotated Bibliography
In preparation for your final project it will be important that you locate a number of scholarly sources on child development prior to conducting your observation/interview as the knowledge gained from these articles in addition to your text will help you develop the questions and activities that you will use during the observation/interview. You should try to focus these articles on the age range for the child you are going to observe/interview.

Your second task for this week is to create an annotated bibliography where you will locate and summarize 8 scholarly sources related to child development that will help you to prepare for your observation/interview.

What is an annotated bibliography?

It is an organized list of sources (referenced in APA format and alphabetical order), such as books, journals, newspapers, magazines, reputable web pages, etc., each of which is followed by a summary or description of each source.

Annotations may consist of all or part of the following list of items, depending on the purpose of the bibliography:

• Describe the content (focus) of the source
• Describe the usefulness of the source
• Evaluate the reliability of the source
• Discuss any conclusions the author(s) may have made
• Note key points from article relevant to your final project
• Describe your reaction to the source

What does an annotated bibliography look like?

The following in an example source from an annotated bibliography:

Waite, L. J., Goldschneider, F. K., & Witsberger, C. (1986). Nonfamily living and the erosion of traditional family orientations among young adults. American Sociological Review, 51 (4), 541-554.

The authors, researchers at the Rand Corporation and Brown University, use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women and Young Men to test their hypothesis that nonfamily living by young adults alters their attitudes, values, plans, and expectations, moving them away from their belief in traditional sex roles. They find their hypothesis strongly supported in young females, while the effects were fewer in studies of young males. Increasing the time away from parents before marrying increased individualism, self-sufficiency, and changes in attitudes about families. In contrast, an earlier study by Williams cited below shows no significant gender differences in sex role attitudes as a result of nonfamily living.