Usefulness Of Bigelow And La Gaipas 1975 Work In Understanding Childrens Friendship

By the early 1970s, studies into the relationship in the sector of psychology were based on the research of emotional bonds between individuals (McGurk, 2017). Scalars reduced the role of young people in the context of what makes them feel attracted to each other. By 1975, John La Gaipa and Brian Bigelow studied the changes in the way young people perceive and as well-defined friendship based on their age and development stages (Bigelow & La Gaipa, 1975). In the study, Bigelow and La Gaipa (1975) requested children who were aged between six and fourteen years to write essays that were based on the expectations of their best friend as well as how it varied from the other’s expectations (Bigelow & La Gaipa, 1975). The outcome was compared to a list of pre-determined expectations which had been earlier prepared by the scholars. However, it is notable that their methodology had many faults due to the fact that, writing essays was only appropriate to older children who could express emotion compared to younger children, though, it forms the basis for understanding children's friendship. This paper estimates the usefulness of the scholars' work in understanding children's friendship.

To start with, the study was aimed at specifically exploring children's friendship perception changes which result as the children undergo development. In this case, the scholars' intention was to estimate the variation in the expectations of children towards their best friends at various development stages (Bigelow & La Gaipa, 1975). The outcome indicated that the expectation of friends become more complex as children grow older. This innovative study created insight and as well opened a new chapter in understanding the friendship of children. Before then and even now, this issue has never been thoroughly explored and it is a mystery to psychology which indicates that their study was very useful in evaluating children's friendship.

Additionally, another study’s objective was to evaluate the way children understand friendship. To explore this objective, Bigelow and La Gaipa requested children to describe the relationship with the similar sex best friend (Bigelow & La Gaipa, 1975). The expectation of the researchers was for children to suggest the differences between expectations towards their colleagues and best friend. In the experiment, to understand the difference in the understanding of friendship at various developmental stages as well as how children interpreted changes in friendship as they got older, the scholars choose thirty boys and thirst girls who were aged between six and fourteen years from eight different schools (Bigelow & La Gaipa, 1975). The children were requested to write an essay concerning the best friend of a similar sex. This explains how this study can be very useful in explaining the relationship, though, other scholars have criticized the study since the scholars failed to consider friendship between children of varying sexes (McGurk, 2017). This could have impacted the results; hence the study's outcome is questionable regardless of its usefulness in understanding children's friendship.

Moreover, to conduct the study the researchers collected 480 essays which were written by children of different sexes who were aged between 6 to 14 years as mentioned earlier (Bigelow & La Gaipa, 1975). As per the results, the first phase the children emphasized the significance of geographical closeness and shared activities while in the second phase loyalty, sharing as well as the commitment were emphasized. Lastly, the children emphasized the increasingly desired similar values, attitudes as well as interests. The sampling method allowed the researcher to select children from lower to upper social class families. The sampling method and the study’s population was effective and could generate relative enough data for the study. This indicated the significance and relevance of the study in understanding children's relationship meaning the study by Bigelow and La Gaipa (1975) is very useful in evaluating children's relationship. However, the participant selection method for the study participants could have resulted in sampling error (Hill et al., 2016). The research also failed to consider the impact of culture in understanding children's friendship. Therefore, it can be concluded that, the study though effective, it is limited in understanding children's friendship.

As suggested earlier, before conducting the study, Bigelow and La Gaipa developed a list of various characteristics that children could include while describing their best friend. The list was divided into 21 categories and was later utilized to analyse the content in every children’s essay. Besides, the scholars quickly analysed the 480 essay samples by subordinating characteristics to already defined grouping and applying frequency count (Bigelow & La Gaipa, 1975). This method utilized in the study was also advantageous in that, it created the possibility of comparing various grounds of understanding friendships between children of varying sex and ages. It is also important that this method of study could have been biased since children especially the older one could have failed to express their true emotions and opinions. This makes me question the methodology and suggests that the researchers could have mixed their essay “writing methodology” with the observation of interactions though from a distance and anonymously and as well interviews with both the children and their parents/guardians to collect the most reliable data (Hill et al., 2016). Observation and interview could have tried to overcome some of the challenges associated with the essay “writing methods”. However, regardless of the weakness of the procedure, the applied methodology greatly contributed to the development of the understanding of friendship in children. Therefore, considering the impact of the study, its usefulness in understanding children’s friendship is very great.

To conclude, John La Gaipa and Brian Bigelow 1975's study changed the way young people perceive and as well defines friendship based on their age and development stages. The outcome of the study indicated that children's expectations from friends become more complex as children grow older. This innovative study created insight and as well opened a new chapter in understanding the friendship of children. Also, the methods used in data collection were valid indicating the validity of the data collected. However, it is limited in that, its subordinated friendship characteristics to predetermined coding by preparing a prior list. This limited the freeness of the children since some of their thoughts and reasoning could be beyond the categories created by the scholars. Moreover, the methodology utilized could have resulted in errors such as sampling error, especially during sample section. It is though notable that the scholar's innovative study is a mastermind in understanding children's friendship and has opened a new chapter in understanding relationships in children therefore very useful.

References

• Bigelow, B.J. and La Gaipa, J.J., 1975. Children's written descriptions of friendship: A multidimensional analysis. Developmental Psychology, 11(6), p.857.
• Hill, V.C., Croydon, A., Greathead, S., Kenny, L., Yates, R. and Pellicano, E., 2016. Research methods for children with multiple needs: Developing techniques to facilitate all children and young people to have ‘a voice'. Educational and Child Psychology, 33(3), pp.26-43.
• McGurk, H., 2017. Issues in childhood social development. Routledge.