Essay Instructions: Life Span Case Study Project
Overview
Your project involves interviewing (and maybe spending some time) with a person from three of the following groups:
• Early childhood (ages 4-6)
• Middle and late childhood (ages 7-12)
• Adolescence (ages 13-19)
• Early adulthood (ages 20-39)
• Middle adulthood (ages 40-64)
• Late adulthood (ages 65 and over)
The project will consist of two different parts:
Part One-identify topic and identification of three generations (w/ appropriate questions)
Part Two—approximately 15-20 page paper (double-spaced, 1 ½ inch margins, 12 font size, indent new paragraphs, use headings to guide the reader, and references)
Goals
You should keep the following pints in mind when you interview your subjects:
• What level or stage of development are they experiencing? (biological, cognitive, socio-emotional; be specific and provide examples that illustrate this)
• Compare how the different ages are similar/different.
• What is this person’s view of the past? Future?
• How is this person being affected by:
o Age-normative process?
o Historical processes?
o Non-normative processes?
You may have some other more specific goals, too (for example, from what perspective?). Maybe you can view this as an opportunity to learn something more about somebody, for example, you may use this as a chance to get to know your grandmother better.
Paper Guidelines
Paper must be in APA format. Please become familiar with formatting guidelines at http://www.apastyle.org/previoustips.html
Introduction
Tell me who you interviewed (no real names). Provide information regarding their age, how you found them, how much time you spent with them, how and where you interviewed them (e.g., telephone, tape-recorded, in person, over coffee, for lunch, etc…)Tell me what your goals were in conducting this project. What did you think you would find out?
Interview #1: summarize your interview with the first person (you may want this to be the youngest person). It may be helpful to organize the summary by topic or question. You do not have to me everything the person said but put specific quotes in the body of your summary to back up a point you make. For example, if you interviewed a young child about what he or she wants to be when he/she grows up, you might summarize this and back it up with a quote such as:
Billy (pseudonym) said, “I think being a fireman is fun because you get to put out
fires and ride in fast trucks with the sirens on.”
Interview #2: see #1
Interview #3: see #1
Discussion
Here is where you compare the three interviews. How were these three people different? The same? What things may have affected why they were different or the same? Did any of the theorists in your textbook (e.g., Freud, Piaget, Maslow, etc…)help you to understand these three groups? Did you find anything that disagrees with what these theorists say? Note: points will be deducted from any paper that does not apply a comparison of the theorists/theories from the textbook. You do not hat to mention all of the theorists/theories, just those that pertain to your age groups or goals. For example, if your goal is to study dating patterns across three generations you will want to include references to Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love, Erikson’s and Marcia’s work on identity, and so on.
Additionally, you should reflect on how attempted to insure honesty in your interviews and what difficulties you encountered in doing this project.
Conclusion
In a few sentences, tell me what you have learned. Were there any surprises? How did what you learned help you to understand (a) children, (b) friends, (c) grandparents, and/or (d) your future?
References
List in APA style any references used for this project.
Appendix
At the end of the paper, append the questions you asked your subjects and/or any other material that is useful in understanding the conclusions drawn from this study.
