1. Development

2. Learning

3. Motivation

4. Emotions

5. Assessment

6. Socioeconomic and Cultural Influences

7. Learning & Teaching

Dependent: What you measure/what you are interested in

Independent: What you manipulate in an experiment

Peer Review

Replication and extension of findings; identification of errors

1. Systematic Observation

2. Testing of Hypothesis

3. Reliance on Data

4. Public Sharing of Results

Self-Reports

Direct Observation

Interviews

Case Study

Surveys

Correlational Method

Experiments

Self-Report; Parent

What are the drawbacks?

-Inaccurate, unreliable, distorted (exaggerated)

-Social desirability (wow my kid is so advanced)

-Dependent on verbal ability (to accurately express the results)

Self-Report; Children

What are the drawbacks?

-Questions hard to make understandable

-Presence of parents could be an influence

-Dependent on verbal ability

Direct Observation

What is it?

What's the difference between field and lab D.O.?

What it is: researchers try to blend in over time using unobtrusive techniques.

Field: Natural, spontaneous behvior, but lacks control

Lab: Participants may behave differently, but you have more control

Interviews

 What is Unstructured v. Structured?

What are the drawbacks?

Unstructured: Investigator may probe or explore certain responses

Structured: Same questions asked in the same manner, does not yield depth of understanding as informal interview

Drawbacks:

Susceptible to inaccurate and distorted information

Requires verbal ability

Interviewer and interviewee may react to each other (appearance/behavior)

Case Study

What is it?

Pros and Cons

What is it: Intensive description/analysis of one individual

Pro: Good for generating many important theories

Con: Influenced by researcher's bias and interpretation

Surveys

What is it?

Pros and Cons

What is it: Questionnaires

Pros:

Lots of people in a short time

Anonymity could yield greater amount of data and more honest repsonses

Cons:

Biased sample-volunteers

Hard to develop a good survey

-Determine relationship/degree of association between two variables

-Predict one variable using another

-Does not imply cause and effect (b/c of intervening variable)

-Yields Casual Relationship

-Researcher manipulates one variable (independent) to see its affects on another variable (dependent_

-Experiment Group vs. Control Group

-Random Assignment and Random Sampling

-Difficult to generalize results

Psychodynamic theory

-Early years of development are crucial in a persons' characteristics later in life

-Child is pressured by sexual and aggressive impulses and demand immediate gratification, but society puts pressure by parenting and rules

Psychosexual stages:

Life is an unfolding of sexual instinct

-Parent (esp. mom) interactions ar important to later behavior

One of Freud's closest followers

Criticized Freud for focus on sexuality

Felt that development continues beyond pubery

Erikson's Psychosocial stages

Broadly Described

-Crisis at each stage results in a positive or negative outcome

-SHould be a balance between poles of contunuum, leaning towards positice

-Each stage lays foundation for the next stage

-Can go back and re-experience a stage to resolve in a mroe positive way

-Stressed cultural differences and historical trends

Erikson's Psychosocial Stages

Specific

1. Trust vs. Mistrust (Infancy) - develop trust > Can I trust the world?

2. Autonomy vs. Doubt (toddlerhood) - Can I control my own behavior?

3. Initiative vs. Guilt (early childhood) Can I learn to initiate tasks and execute plans?

4. Industry vs. Inferiority (middle childhood) Can I master the skills necessary to survive and adapt?

5. Identity vs. Role confusion (puberty & adolescence) Who am I? What are my beliefs and attitudes? What's my style?

6. Intimacy vs. Isolation (young adulthood) can I give myself fully to another? How much can I open up?

7. Generality vs. Stagnation (Adulthood) What can I do for the community and society? What can I contribute to succeeding generations like my children?

8. Ego-integrity vs. Despair (Old Age) Aooriaching end of life > coping with friends who are dying > coping with one's own death> Am I content and satisfied with my own life?

-Behavior that is rewarded is likely to be repeated and those that are punished are not

-Thinking is secondary and a person's behavioral repertoire is based on gaining rewards and avoiding punishment

-Has roots in classical behaviorism

-Can be active or passive observation/limitation

-"Modeling" is very important!

-Person's mind, body, physical, and social worlds from an integrated system that's constantly in motion, changing and developing

-If one part changes, there is a rippling effect so the entire system changes

-Popular today

Quantitative-Increase or decrease in a particular value (height, weight, # of teeth, # of vocab words at certain age)

Qualitative- Change i process or function; more difficult to evaluate (Sharing, understanding others intentions)

Themes in Development 

Continuity vs. Discontinuity

Continuity:

-Development is smooth/gradual

-Behaviorism

Discontinuity:

-Development is a series of discrete steps/stages

-Freudian psychoanalytic

-Nowadays, it's more believed that there is a sensitive period where effects of experience of not necessarily irreversible

-Some thins-mostly biological- are not reversible

Just because you don't learn to swim as a kid, doesn't mean you can't learn later on.

Nature:

-Biology/maturation

-Rousseau- "child unfolds like a flower"

-Problems with children are due to corruption in society

Nurture:

-Learning (behaviorism)

-Locke: "tabula rasa"

-Experience molds us

Birth: fetal posture

2.5 mos: chest up

3 mos: roll over

3.5 mos: sit w/ support

5.5 mos: sit alone

6 mos: stand holding furniture

9 mos: walk while led

11.5 mos: stand alone

12 mos: walk alone

The qualities and characteristics that a person applies to herself

-Includes attitudes and beliefes

-Who am I?

Self is understood in terms of categories; very rigid and stands alone

-What are you? I'm black; I'm Asian

What does that mean? Relatives from long time ago came from Africa or Southeast Asia

Self is understood in terms of how it compares to others

-What are you like? >I'm taller than all of my classmates and friends

-What does that mean? Well, I can play basketball better than all the kids and I'm better at other sports than kids but I'm not so good in music and do okay in math

-Social comparisons are main influence to the understanding of the self> physical appearance, abilities, behavior

-Identity formation at the heart of adolescent personality development

-Erikson- adolescence a time for construction the childhood identity and reconstructing to an adult identity

Although less self-centred than children, adolescents have increased self-consciousness

May stem from reactions of peers and parents about physical changes

Coined by David Elkind

Preoccupied with how others evaluate and view their appearance or behavior

-reflects inability to distinguish between their own thoughts from that of others.

Feeling that their thoughts and emotions are unique

-Accompanied with dramatic story or fantasy about their lives and a belief that they have a special destiny (soap opera-like life)

-Leads to feelings of invulnerability and invincibility.risks with sex, drugs, other behaviours

-Egocentrism countered by development of empathy

The ability to imagine what other people are thinking and feeling; related to:

Empathy

Social Skills

Self-Concept

Self-Esteem

Person Perception

Intentionality

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development

Describe how the theory as developed/what are the three broad stages?

3 broad stages, subdivides into 6 stages

Pre-Conventional, Conventional, Post-Conventional

Used Clinical interview to study moral development

Posed a moral dilemma and used responses to assess level of moral development

-Moral Development is related to Cognitive development

-The sequence of levels/stages is fixed and each level/stage sets the foundation fo the next

-Not everyone can reach the highest level; most only reach level 2

Pre-Conventional Morality

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development

-Responses are in concrete terms and focus on the consequences of the actions as rewards and punishments

"If I break the rules, I will be punished and this means that I was bad.

"I scratch your back, you scratch mine."

Conventional Morality

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development

Moral behavior is based on becoming good members of society and satisfying all other members; obedience of rules promotes social harmony

"The good boy & good girl approach"

"It is the duty of all members of society to uphold the rules in order to maintain social order; there can be no exceptions to the rules."

Post-Conventional Morality

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development

Rules can be evaluated and are not definite; morality can be looked at in abstract terms and considered above the level of society

"Rules exists because it is for the good of everyone."

"Each person has the right to live and it is the duty of each person to prevent people from dying."

Criticized Kohlberg because his studies were based mainly on males

-She Suggests that boys' and girls' conception of morality are different: boys focus on justice and girls base morality on self-sacrifice for others and compassion.

-Girls initially begin with selfishness and concern for the self>sacrifice of self for the needs and desires of others>

moral balance is found and morality is based on both the self and others, which is the most sophisticated level of moral reasoning

-A prodigy, published 1st research paper @ 11

-Originally received PhD in bio studying mollusks

-Made many discoveries

-Honorary doctorate @ Harvard's tercentenary in his 30s

-Favored small samples (like his 3 children)

-Experiments were informal

-Saw learning as a function of development

-Studied what children know as an avenue to how they think

-Emphasis on person-environment interaction

• -Person's knowledge derives from its actions on the environment
  
  • no logical step-by-step like behaviorism
  • each person is in its own environment so each has a different version of the world
  • world created by person = constructivism
• Culture/experiences influence development but emphasis is still the perspective of the individual
• Spontaneous, intellectual curiosity is important especially in very young children

Organization of adaptive overt action

-a "knowing how"

-for an infant- grasping scheme, sucking scheme

-can become automatic-walking, like in autopilot

From childhood and up

-An organization of a thinking action

-rules for thinking

-Created by child, based on influence of genetics, predisposition, experience

Existing knowledge is adapted to a characteristic of an external object or the creation of new schemes; knowledge does not change but applied

*Assimilation & Accommodation are complementary and simultaneous, not sequential

4 stages

stages are not concrete but serve only as guidelines (reflect patterns)

Sensorimotor

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

Infancy-2 years

• Knowing based on senses and motor activity
• Major accomplishments:
  • Object Permanence- permanence begins~9 mos
    • Peek a boo
    • Parents exist even when they leave the room
    • hiding objects
    • Piagets studied this by covering toy as child reached for it, appeared as if toy was gone
  • Goal-directed Activities - more reflexive activities to deliberate

Evaluated by timing of object permanence, deferred imitation, categorization, problem-solving by analogy (all occur sooner than Piaget thought)

Pre-Operational Stage

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

2-7 years

• Definition: transition from acting on the world physically to understand it and thinking about it instead.increased activity of mental representations
• Major Accomplishments:
  • Internalization of Action- less dependence on physical action and more on mental ones
  • Semiotic Function - object permanence & ability to use symbols. 4 symbol systems:
    • defered imitation
    • symbolic play (batman chase scene)
    • language
    • mental representation/graphic art
  • logical thinking thru of operations in a linear way Ex: 2+3=5, 3+2=?
• Characterized by:
  1. Failure in conservation (physical aspect of the object is maintained even though their appearance is altered)
     • because of:
       • the absence of reversibility (reverse direction of steps/think of beginning)
       • failure to decenter (focusing on more than one aspect)
  2. Egocentric thought- inability to assume another perspective other than their own; think others see, think, feel the way they do.
  3. Inability to Perform Transformation- see the beginning and end w/out seeing what occurred between (large glass vs. small glass w/out thinking of pouring action.
  4. Animalistic thinking- inanimate objects think and feel just like they do because of egocentrism (gives favorite doll to comfort you or get upset when it falls down)
  5. Transductive Reasoning- A causes B, B causes A
     • Each morning, parents go to work
     • Each time parents leave, they are going to work (not store, church, etc).

Concrete Operations Stage

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

7-11 years

• Reasoning is more organized and logical but tied to concrete objects & situations instead of intangible concepts like love, beauty, art, patriotism>metaphors, figures of speech, hypotheticals
• Characterized by:
  1. Conservation
  2. Reversibility
  3. Compensation- a change in one dimension can be balanced by a change in another
  4. Hierarchical Classification- arrange things into classes and subclasses
     • Ex. marbles can be classified by size, color, material, worth>material can be subclassified by previous success
     • COllecting things
  5. Seriation- quantitative arrangement of things
     • Ex. smallest to largest, thinnest to widest, shortest to tallest.
• Operations only on the concrete world/reality

11 years and up

• Emergence of abstract thinking and cross-referencing using several dimensions; ability to mentally test hypotheses and come up with a solution to a problem without having to physically act
• Characterized by:
  1. Abstract thinking
  2. Deductive & inductive reasoning
  3. Scientific thinking
  4. Attend to social issues and identify (such as movements)
  5. Use/understand metaphors, irony, sarcasm, and symbolic thinking
• Adolescent Egocentrism- recognizing others perspectives but inability to accept others' point of view or blieve

Piaget and Education

(what would Piaget stress to Educators? 3 things)

1. Discovery Learning
   • discovery through spontaneous interaction with the environment instead of lectures
   • Provide activities and resources (puzzles, art supplies, instruments, pretend toys and props)
2. Sensitivity to Children's Current Level of Development
   • Do not try to rush development
   • Allow new experiences that challenge their current schemes
   • Be sure that they are ready and interested
3. Accept Individual differences
   • Same sequence but different rates of progression
   • Individual/small group-based interactions and assessments not too dependent on others' performance

Early 1900s

Died 1934 @ age 37

A sociocultural perspective. importance of the social and cultural environment on development and learning

A. Private Speech

B. Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

C. Guided Participation

Private Speech

Vygotsky's important concepts

• Viewed as healthy and conducive to cognitive development
• Used as self-guidance for novel and challenging tasks then becomes internalized
• Research: Children who use more private speech perform better, are more attentive, and are more involved in challenging activities than those who use less
• Research: Children with learning disabilities use private speech more as if they are compensating

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Vygotsky's important concepts

• Explains cognitive dev. through social interaction
• The range of tasks that a child cannot yet manage alone but can accomplish with the help of more skilled people
• Ex. Ask questions, prompt solutions, suggest alternatives

Guided Participation

Vygotsky's important concepts

-Through scaffolding- varying support during a child's teaching to match the level of the child's development

Ex. breaking the material down to smaller more manageable units.

• Make-believe play is a major means by which children grow cognitively and learn about important activities in their culture
• Toddlers need encouragement to participate in iriginite make-believe play
• Parents and siblings play an important role in modeling make-believe play

Vygotsky and Education

(What would Vygotsky want to tell educators?)

• Assisted Discovery Learning
  • Match instruction to a child's ZPD
  • Peer collaboration: Reciprocal teaching
• Provide opportunities for social activities
  • encourage make-believe play. It's rich in private speech, peer collaboration, and concepts of rules.

• Capacity
  • Memory Span
  • Processing Speed
• Strategy Use

Detecting a stimulus such as a sound, object, or airborne molecule

We interpret sensory information via perception

-give sensory meaning

-Initially, infants' attention is captured by physical characteristics of stimuli

-bright light

-loud noise

-sudden movement

Later, existing knowledge becomes important>baggage

• Sustained
  • Increases sharply between 2 and 3.5 years
    • frontal lobe growth
    • adult scaffolding
• Selective (6-7)

What is Selective Attention?

Controlling what to attend to and what to filter out

• -We develop automaticity in many areas so we can attend to other areas
• Young children sacrifice the capacity of short-term memory because they must attend to many things
  • ex. baby learning to walk (if you make any sudden noise or movement they lose concentration and fall)
• Selective attention increases with age and distractibility decreases

Much better than children, but abilities vary and context matters

• Cell phone use
• Hands-free cell phone use in the car is just as bad
• better to talk to passengers
• Task switching vs. multitasking

• Information from sensory register moves to STM
  • -what you're currently working on
• Capacity - 5-9 separate items; magic #7 (Miller) activity
• Duration- 20-30 seconds unless it is kept active

1. Rehearse
   • used by kids 5-6 years old; learn by brute force not the best way, except in overlearning>rehearsing beyond the point of mastery
     • Pre-adolescents become better at rehearsal and learn more effective strategies
2. Chunking
   • grouping bits into larger, more organized, units
     • ex. phone numbers, social security, License?
3. Elaboration-give info meaning; form association; acronyms; naught, funny, crazy ones work
   • ex 9 letters

G,T,D,A,O,C,B,R,A

DOG BAT CAR

Same # of letters but chunked & elaborated

holds well-learned information

• Capacity- seems unlimited
• Duration- varies depending on if info is worked on
• Content-visual or verbal
  • schemes-schema for a table or class - how you conceptualize an idea or object
  • Scripts-typical order of events
    • ex. classroom, birthday party
  • Procedural - "how to" ride a bike, calculate standard deviation
• The way you lean affects how it is stored and how easily you'll recall it
• Elaboration, organization and context play a crucial role

-Previously learned material interferes with new learning

-walking today to where you parked your car yesterday

-Newly learne material interferes with old learning

You start learning Spanish and now don't remember French

When a memory is lost in the system versus lost from the system

Ex. Tip of the Tongue: when a person is temporarily unable to remember some shred of info (like a name) that they know they know.

• Noticing that a stimulus is identical or similar to one previously experienced
• Easier than recall

Generating a mental representation of an absent stimulus

More difficult than recognition

Mult choice v. open ended

• Primacy
  • A long-term memory effect
  • First items in a list get the best and most rehearsal
• Recency
  • A short-term memory effect
  • Last items still in working memory at time of recall

Why kids don't remember anything until they're older 

Happens in the first 2 years of life

Brain development

Language and social interactions

Representations of one-time events that are long-lasting because they are imbues with personal meaning

(the weird things you remember from that time you were 8)

• Our memories are flawed; we fail to remember details
• We are good at storing the gist
• the gist preserves the essentials
• Positive: it frees cognitive resources
• negative: we tend to recall features that were not there

• Children are highly suggestible
• Children fail to identify the source of knowledge (minutes after acquiring it)
• Have hard time ignoring irrelevant info
• Children tend to agree with adults (natural desire to please)

• Knowledge about what you know and limitations of your own memory and how to improve it
• develops over time
• Young kids (Kindergarten) overestimate what they can do
  • not aware of the limitations
  • says they understand when they don't
• SUccessful students know when they understand and use appropriate strategies
• Older students (adolescents) also become better at self-regulating their learning and memory using strategies to focus attention and techniques such as comprehension monitoring

1. Rehearsal
2. Piece Learning
3. Distributed vs. Mass Practice
4. Pneumonics
5. Rhymes
6. Visuals

THE KEY IS TO MAKE IT MEANINGFUL

Formal techniques for organizing material to increase the likelihood of remembering that material

• Peg Word (associate with other words)
• Method of Loci (using places and events to associate things)
• Acronyms
• Organization
• Chain pneumonics- link into a sequence (ex. speak with the mailman about my dog)

1. Consider the limitations and capacity of children's memory and metacognition skills
2. Promote awareness of the learning process through feedback
   • point out the relationship between strategies and the outcome of learning
3. Become aware of the characteristics of attention and its role in learning
4. Control for distractions esp. during new and difficult tasks
5. Model alternatives to rehearsal
   • earlier grades- chunking and elaboration
   • middle and high schoolers- point out that learning is better done through understanding merely than repetition and memorization
6. Help promote self-regulation and comprehension monitoring through scaffolding
7. Consider different domains or content areas in development
8. Talk to kids about specific events and experiences; helps build autobiographical memory
9. When working with children with learning disabilities, more consideration must be placed on attention and avoiding distractions, scaffolding during activities, maintaining routines, and teaching impulse control and socioemotional skills