4 | The Psychological Scientist
Theme: Psychological science relies on empirical evidence and adapts as new data develop.
Research story: A Problem with Play
Part of being a good researcher is being able to acknowledge the areas where your research area needs strengthening. Sometimes that means taking a critical lens to your field and your own past work. One such example happened in 2013, related to researchers who study children’s pretend play. In a published paper, developmental psychologist Angeline Lillard called out previous research on the way it was conducted and the results were interpreted. She makes suggestions about methods and statistical analysis to improve the rigor in child development research in general, and on pretend play specifically. She also calls for researchers to replicate (repeat) prior studies so that more definitive conclusions might be drawn.
It is important to note that the researchers mentioned in Lillard’s paper did not do anything wrong or unethical. Science is an ever evolving practice. Oftentimes, methods and statistics that were acceptable and regular practice even just five years ago can become outdated or replaced by better, more rigorous, or more valid practices. Psychological scientists and practitioners should always be looking to improve and not get stuck in certain practices just because they have always been done that way. Sometimes it takes being called out by another researcher like Lillard and her colleagues to reevaluate our methods and to improve our field.
One critique in this paper questions some conclusions that were made about how pretend play is related to social skills. The research design in these studies was correlational. With this type of design, the strongest claim that can be made is an association claim. For example, we can say that children who engaged in more pretend play had more developed social skills than children who didn’t play this way as often. However, we cannot say that pretend play caused an improvement in social skills. Some of the research reports made statements implying causal relationships – and this is what Lillard and her colleagues were concerned about. Correlation does not equal causation – a more rigorous research design is required to support causal claims. Additionally, there are several variables that can influence the development of complex functions such as social skills, and some were not considered. Lillard’s paper reminds readers to be critical consumers of information.
Another critique that Lillard and her colleagues pointed out in their 2013 paper was about how the researchers worked with children and approached different questions in their studies. For example, one critique was that researchers weren’t always masked. Masking means that the researchers do not know which children are in which condition. When the researchers were masked, the significant findings went away or were not as strong as before. This suggests that strengthening scientific rigor i