This monograph is an edited collection of chapters within the domain of
developmental methodology that collectively share the following goals.
First, this monograph provides updated and comprehensive, yet also
accessible and brief, summaries of our current understanding of key
methodologies used in developmental science. Second, this monograph
describes how our current understanding can be further leveraged to
advance understanding of human development. Third, this monograph
identifies shortcomings in our understanding of developmental
methodology in order to provide a roadmap for future methodological
advances. Fourth, this monograph aims to organize developmental
methodology as a subdiscipline within developmental science. The
chapters of this monograph were selected to identify major themes of
developmental methodology, broadly defined to encompass issues of
design, analysis, and research progression. Besides covering a wide
range of topics, chapters were selected that (a) represent active areas
of research or debate, (b) are important in advancing the quality of
developmental science, and (c) seem likely to remain active and
important areas of developmental methodology in the foreseeable future.
Early chapters focus on design issues, including the merits of different
sampling strategies and the use of large-scale data sets in
developmental science. In the middle chapters, attention shifts to
issues in longitudinal design and analysis. These chapters include an
overview of longitudinal analyses in developmental science,
considerations in measurement within longitudinal studies, and
person-specific longitudinal approaches. Later chapters consider broader
issues of replication and research accumulation, as well as the history
and future of developmental methodology.
