Themes and Methods in Developmental Psychology Practice Test

Cross-sectional design: compares different age groups at one time to infer age-related differences without following individuals across years.

Longitudinal design: repeatedly measures the same individuals over multiple time points to track within-person developmental change.

Nature-only approach: assumes vocabulary growth is determined primarily by genetics, so repeated testing is unnecessary for developmental conclusions.

Sequential design: combines cross-sectional and longitudinal methods by following multiple age cohorts over time to reduce cohort effects.