Adult Interview
PSY 236
This project contains two components. These components will be combined to create one
document:
1. Interview with individual over age of 65
2. Application of theory
Interview with Individual
1. Select a person aged 65 or older.
2. Interview this person for at least an hour regarding major events in his/her life,
problems, concerns and achievements.
3. You must ask the individual a minimum of 10 questions that will help you to identify the
developmental stages.
4. Identify family structure, socio-economic status, education, and cultural factors that
have impacted his or her development.
5. Your paper should include the questions you asked and the individuals answers.
Application of Theory
1. Identify the family structure, socio-economic status and cultural factors that help to
explain the persons development. Use your interview to support your discussion.
2. Identify and explain a biosocial issue (drug abuse, health concerns, etc.).
3. Identify and explain moral development and cognitive issues.
4. Identify and describe the developmental stage of the individual. Use 2 different
developmental theorists to compare and contrast the issues in the stage. Describe each
theorist and relate the components of their theories to the person you interviewed.
Again, use your interview to support your discussion.
5. Supplement your report with at least 3 outside academic sources relating to the theorist
and/or development stage.
6. You may use your textbook for one of these sources. The other two sources must come
from a peer reviewed journal. It is highly recommended that you access this article
from EBSCO Host.
7. You may include pictures, work samples, awards etc. to help illustrate how the
individual functions in his/her developmental stage.
Guidelines
1. The paper must be written in APA format.
2. It must be a minimum of 6 pages of writing, with 2 academic references. These 6 pages
do not include the title page or the reference page.
3. You must have a title page in 6th edition APA format.
4. You must have a reference page in 6th edition APA format.
5. Do not use personal pronouns (i.e., I, we, our).
6. Do not provide the real name of the individual.
7. Use Times Roman 12 point font (as suggested by 6th edition APA format).
8. Please do not submit a paper created in Vista. Save in an XP format.
9. If you do not have Word, please save your file as a text file.
Hints for Writing Your Paper
1. Make sure you cite everything. None of this should be your opinion. Ideas have to be
cited as well as statistics and/or direct quotes.
2. Keep your biases out of the paper. I should not be able to detect an emotional reaction
that you may have toward the child.
3. Use quotations sparingly. A rule of thumb is no more than one on a page.
4. You should not have two quotations in a paragraph.
5. How you say something is almost as important as what you say.
6. It is critical for your writing to flow well and have no grammatical errors.
7. You will lose a point for each grammatical error (i.e., using affect and effect incorrectly,
using impersonal you, etc.).
8. This is a formal paper. Do not write as if you are speaking. Avoid using terms such as
Daddy and kids. Use father and children instead.
9. Make sure that you reference who you are citing within the text of the paper. I should
not see paragraphs that are discussing the theories that are not cited.
10. This is a formal literature review. You have to include research on any topic you select.
11. Do not use impersonal you or first person pronouns.
12. Paraphrase the work of others and give them credit. In other words, do not plagiarize.
13. If you do not cite what you have paraphrased, this is considered plagiarism.
14. If you plagiarize, you will automatically fail this assignment.
In order to be successful in this paper, be sure to follow all the directions in this
document. It is important to do a detailed interview that leads to information
about an individuals development, have proper writing flow, use proper
grammar, meet the minimum page guidelines, and follow all APA guidelines.
