Development Psych

• Mindset


  A set of beliefs we have about our ability to succeed in education and other areas of our life
• Growth mindset


  Believing that practice and effort can improve abilities
• Fixed mindset


  Believing that your abilities are fixed and unchangeable
• Dweck's mindset theory


  • Children should be praised for effort rather than ability
  • Teachers also have fixed or growth mindsets – a teacher with a fixed mindset will focus on a child's ability whereas a teacher with a growth mindset sees a child can improve with sticking at things (perseverance)
• Willingham's learning theory


  • To learn and develop skills you must have previous knowledge. Knowledge frees up space in our working memory. This allows us to practice skills such as problem solving
  • Practicing allows knowledge and skills to move from STM to LTM. Enough practice allows you to do things automatically. This leaves space in your working memory to learn new things
• Cognitive, Physical and social development

  • Cognitive development: Use problems that are not too far out of student's reach. Remember that children's abilities change every day
  • Physical Development: Focus on what movements would be necessary for a task. Practice the muscle movements in front of children
  • Social Development: Encourage self-regulation (do not be influenced by others). Demonstrate appropriate behaviour for children to model
• Morals


  Refer to what is right and wrong in human behaviour. Something that is moral is what most people agree is right and good
• Morality


  Refers to 'proper' behaviour. People should behave according to principles of what is right and wrong
• Moral development


  Children's growing understanding about right and wrong
• Piaget's theory of moral development

  • From 5-10 years old rules are about punishment and right and wrong. = heteronomous. Other people provide rules which govern our behaviour
  • From 10 years onwards its about bad actions could have good consequences = autonomous. Individuals are responsible for their own behaviour and decide what is right or wrong
• Kohlberg's theory of moral development

  • Level 1: pre-conventional morality(aged up to about 9 years old.) Stage 1 focuses is on the child obeying in order to avoid punishment. Stage 2 is about self-interest, what enifit can be gained from moral actions
  • Level 2: conventional mortality(most young people and adults) Stage 3 id about being seen as 'good' and conforming to social rules. Stage 4 is about maintaining social order by obeying authority, which id duty
  • Level 3: post-conventional morality( only about 10% reach this level.) Stage 5 is about laws being social contracts which individuals enter into, so there can be differences in morality between individuals according to which laws they have agreed to.(democracy) Stage 6 is the understanding that moral reasoning is abstract and there are universal ethical principles that 'must' be followed
• Piaget and Inhelder (1956) Three mountains task
• Piaget and Inhelder (1956) Three mountains task

  • Pre-operational stage (4-6.5 years): Chooses pictures and shows picture for what they can see
  • Concrete operational stage (7-9 years): Start to understand that others see the model differently. Children 9-10 years old understand the doll has a different view
  • Children up to 7 were egocentric
  • Older children were non egocentric
  • The 'three mountains' task supports Piaget's stages of development
• Gunderson et al (2013) Parent praise to 1-3 year olds predicts their motivation
• Gunderson et al (2013) Parent praise to 1-3 year olds predicts their motivation


  • Person praise (praising the individual) can lead to a child developing an entity motivational framework. Entity motivational framework: Behaviour and ability is fixed and based on a child's nature
  • Process praise (praising the child's behaviour) can lead to a child developing an incremental motivational framework. Incremental motivational framework: Behaviour and ability can be changed with effort
  • Overall parents gave more process praise than person praise. Process praise was given more to boys than girls
  • Clear relationship between parents use of process praise and a child's later use of incremental motivational framework (ability being changeable)
  • Did not find that parental use of person praise led to an entity motivational framework (ability to fixed)