Identification of Topic

Step 2: Identify your topic of interest!

1. Identify a topic related to development that you find interesting. This can be related to the population you want to work with, something that has been impactful in your life, a topic that you are interested in learning more about, etc.

Your topic needs to include:

• A specific developmental period (prenatal, infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, older adulthood), but can span more than one (i.e. your topic might span adolescence and young adulthood)
• A specific developmental domain (biological/physical, cognitive, socioemotional/cultural/personality

Here are some examples!

• The impact of racial discrimination on ethnic identity development in adolescence (the domain here would be socioemotional because of identity)
• Technology use in the elementary classroom (middle childhood) and students’ learning outcomes (cognitive)
• The impact of art therapy to treat cptsd (socioemotional) in adults
• The impact of malnourishment in pregnancy on brain development in infants (physical) (would technically span prenatal and infancy)
• The impact of childhood adoption on adoptee’s romantic attachment style (socioemotional) in young adulthood
• Cultural differences in cognitive developmental milestones in childhood (technically cognitive domain with a sprinkle of socioemotional)
• Physical decline in older adulthood and the impact on social isolation (physical and socioemotional)
• Mental health and well-being (socioemotional) of LGB+ identifying adolescents

Helpful hint! Outlining your topic of interest as an association between a predictor and an outcome will make your literature review much easier!

It will help you to be as specific as possible in this portion so that I can provide guidance. One thing that previous students have struggled with was having topics that were much too broad (i.e. social emotional learning or racial discrimination in adolescence). There are tons and tons of associated topics that those students would have had to slog through if they kept that topic. Narrowing it down to something like “how racial discrimination in adolescence impacts self-esteem” would have allowed them to narrow their search considerably.

2. Your write up! In paragraph form, please include:

• What the issue/topic is
• It may be beneficial to include a definition at this point in time. For example, one of my students last semester was interested in perinatal mood disorders. This was not a topic I was super familiar with so it was really helpful to have a definition.
• Who is impacted by this topic/ Who is your population of interest
• This goes beyond just the developmental period. As you are thinking about your topic, consider if any one group might be more impacted (race, gender, career choice, nationality, SES, etc).
• For example, if you are interested in racial discrimination, your population of interest is likely racial minorities or maybe more specifically Black individuals
• Another example: I might be particularly interested in how social media use impacts body image and self esteem in adolescent girls.
• Why is this important to discuss or evaluate
• Why should the reader care about this topic?
• How many people are impacted by this topic?
• Is there a certain societal issue that we could address by studying this topic (i.e. poor test scores in Alabama high schools)
• An example of how I might talk about this: I study interracial relationships so I might talk about rising interracial marriage rates or the change in immigration patterns or how interracial marriage might be an illustration of decreasing discrimination.

This should be at least a paragraph and indicate that you have given thought and consideration to your topic. It is beneficial to do a brief search in google scholar or the library database to see how many articles are available on your topic so you aren’t changing topics later on due to lack of information. Don’t forget to include the citations of the sources you used to answer the questions.