12.1.11

Evaluation of Baillargeon

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Evaluation of Baillargeon’s Work

Baillargeon’s work had several strengths and weaknesses. Her work continued the work of Piaget, though was not without its controversies.

Strengths

Strengths

  • Baillargeon’s work was done in a laboratory setting; therefore she was able to control extraneous variables.
    • This increases the validity and reliability of results.
  • Baillargeon provided evidence from her studies to support her theory.
  • Compare this to Vygotsky, who conducted few studies and had little scientific research to back his theories.
Weaknesses - subjectivity

Weaknesses - subjectivity

  • Infants cannot communicate, therefore we cannot know for certain whether looking at an impossible event for longer is actually a sign of object permanence.
  • The researchers have to infer their behaviour, which could be subjective.
Weaknesses - subjectivity cont.

Weaknesses - subjectivity cont.

  • It could have been that the infants were simply looking longer at a stimulus in which they were not habituated.
  • Perhaps they were not looking at impossible events for longer, just simply non-habituated stimuli.
Replicability issues

Replicability issues

  • Several researchers, including Rivera et al (1999), were unable to reproduce her results when they did repeats of her study.
  • In other words, they did not find any significant difference between the time infants looked at impossible events to when they looked at possible events.
Criticism

Criticism

  • Based on the failure to repeat her results and the above criticisms, psychologists have suggested that Baillargeon made conclusions beyond what the data showed.
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