Research Design for Developmental Psychology

Research Design for Developmental Psychology

By Ashley Gatta

UberEats wants to know which age group is most likely to spend the most money on their app. This will help them target their advertisements to that group so they can make more money.​

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​You have been hired as a researcher by UberEats

Multiple Choice

A cross-sectional design is a snapshot of different age groups at the same point in time.

• True

• False

Open Ended

State what type of research design best suits this study. Describe how this research design could be applied to UberEats.

Open Ended

You have been given a sample of 40 UberEats customers. They are equally split into 4 age groups (10-20, 20-30, 30-40 and 40-50).

You have been given permission to survey these customers. What questions would you ask in the survey to find out how much they spend on UberEats each week?

Multiple Select

Is this sample representative of Uber Eats customers?

• Yes- it covers a broad age range.

• No - it does not include people aged 55+

• No - the sample size is too small (only 40 people).

• Yes - the sample is large enough.

Draw

In your research, you find that on average: people aged 15-25 spend $30, people aged 25-35 spend $60 and people aged 35-45 spend $25 per week on UberEats. Draw a rough graph displaying this information.

Open Ended

You give your boss at UberEats your research. They do not know a lot about research so they ask you to explain the advantages and disadvantges of cross-sectional research. What do you say?

Multiple Choice

UberEats decides to do a big update to the app. Your boss now wants you to conduct a longitudinal study over 3 months to investigate if attitudes towards the new app improves over time. Each month you ask the customers how much they enjoy using the app on a scale from 0 (worst) - 10 (best). The averages are Month 1 = 7, Month 2 = 8 and Month 3 = 9.

What pattern does the data show?

• Customer attitudes towards the app are staying the same.

• Customers attitudes towards the app are steadily improving.

• Customer attitudes towards the app is getting worse each month.

• There is no pattern.

Multiple Select

What is a disadvantage of using a longitudinal design?

• It is time consuming.

• It is less accurate than a cross-sectional study.

• It can be expensive.

• Participants may drop-out over time.