Psychology-Development

• Prenatal-(embryo-birth)

  childhood-(birth to age of 12)

  Adolescence-(13-19)

  Adulthood-(20-till death)
• During pregnancy, by the third week the foetus has a forebrain, mid brain and hindbrain. During mid-pregnancy the brain connects to all parts of the body and rapid brain and head growth and happens in the eighth month
• During childhood frontal lobes undergo development and grey matter is at its peak in the brain.
• During adolescence the main change is that grey matter is pruned away and prefrontal cortex is still developing so adolescents may rely on their limbic system to make decisions. Maturation of limbic system
• During adult hood the brains volume decreases and ventricles expand overtime and biggest changes happen in the frontal lobes and temporal lobes
• frontal lobes: controls behaviour and learning
• prefrontal cortex: controls decision making and planning
• limbic system: controls basic drives and emotion
• Temporal lobes: concerns vision hearing and speech comprehension.
• IQ tests-Intelligence quotient

  test of intelligence they were first developed for army recruits. Name of IQ tests used today is stanford intelligence scales test.
• Schemas- ideas about the world schemas take on board new information and link (assimilate) or accommodate it with what's already known
• Accommodation happens when children comes across new information that doesn't fit with exist schemas so a new schema need's to be created
• Piaget theory of cognitive development:

  1. sensorimotor(birth-2 years)
  2. preoperational(2-7years)
  3. concrete operational(7-11)
  4. formal operational(11+)
• Sensorimotor stage- babies learn about the world through their sense. object permanence is a skill that needs to be developed before moving to the next stage. Object permanence - the infant knows the object or person still exists though not seen
• preoperational stage-children believe innate objects have feeling(animism).Egocentrism is when children will sometimes have a lack of empathy because they believe that everyone sees the world as they do.
• concrete operational-children are able to take into account more than one aspect of a situation (decentering). conservation is when children understand that changing form of an object doesn't change its volume. Reversibility children can also reverse their thinking.
• formal operational-

  formal logic and hypothetical thinking.
• Piaget's theory of cognitive development is invariant(doesn't change) and universal (same for all children).
• Criticisms of piaget's theory of cognitive development

  -Reductionist as something as complex as cognitive development is reduced to 4 simple stages

  -The stages are too rigid and don't allow for individual differences

  -Not all adults reach formal operational stage
• Piaget's study on conservation of number

  • Aim-To demonstrate that children in the concrete operational stage are more likely to be able to conserve than children in the pre-operational stage
  • Sample-Small group of swiss school children including piaget's own children
  • IV-Age of children used
  • DV-Whether they could conserve number or not
  • Experiment type-Independent measures design and natural experiment
  • Hypothesis-Children in concrete operational stage will be able to conserve whereas in pre-operational they will not
• Piaget's study on conservation of number

  How the study was carried out:

  Each child was tested individually. They were shown identical parallel rows of counters and asked if there were the same number of counters in each row. One of the counters was then spread out in front of the child the child was then asked the same question again.
• Findings/conclusion of piaget's study into conservation of number:

  1. Children in the preoperational stage tended to say the spread out row had more counters when asked question second time .
  2. Children aged 5-6 years tended to recognize that the number of counters had stayed the same but could not justify the logic.
  3. Children in the concrete operational stage where able to conserve and recognize it was still the same amount and give the logic behind it
• Criticisms of Piaget's study into conservation of number:

  -Same question was asked twice which may have confused the younger children into thinking that their first answer was wrong .

  -Culturally biased only swiss children were used. results could have differed depending on environmental background

  -The sample of children was small so its difficult to generalize
• Learning theories of development/Dweck's ideas on fixed and growth mindset :

  -Fixed mindset is when people believe their intelligence is innate and cannot be changed

  -Growth mindset is when people believe they can develop their intelligence overtime
• People with fixed mindsets believe in...

  -Their own intelligence is fixed

  -Tend to avoid challenging tasks to avoid failure

  -Being wrong and getting feedback on how to improve is seen as negative
• People with growth mindsets believe in...

  -Intelligence being something that can be developed overtime

  -Will take on challenges and new tasks see failure as a learning experience

  -Believe its okay to get things wrong and that feedback is positive and useful
• Dweck also believed in praise for effort .
• Criticisms on Dweck's learning theory:

  -Praising children for effort conveys the idea to children that they don't know what they are doing.

  -Theory assumes that children have control over their achievement but some brains are just wired differently

  -Places failure on student and ignores the role of nature in intelligence
• Willingham's ideas:

  He believed that learning styles were a myth and that the most effective method depends on what they are trying to learn and mixture of styles is often best. Confirmation bias- we tend to take more notice of information that supports our view points, so teachers need to ensure that he method of teaching bests fits the content rather than then individual for learning styles Students should understand the meaning of what they are being taught as then information will be learned more deeply and retained to memory.
• Criticisms of Willingham's ideas:

  1. Somethings are better of being drilled in like times tables.
  2. Ignores the role of nature some children may need to be taught in a specific way to help their learning regardless of content
• Blackwell et al(2007)

  • Aim-To investigate whether theories of intelligence correlate with academic achievement in math's and to test the impact of academic intervention
  • Sample-373 students from the 7th grade from public secondary school in new York
  • Hypothesis-The greater the belief that intelligence can grow with effort the greater the improvement in math's score will be
  • Longitudinal correlation study which took place over 5 years
  • IV-Different mindsets
  • DV-Math's tests scores
• Blackwell et al(2007)-procedure:

  STUDY1

  -Students math score collected when in 6th, 7th and 8th grade

  -Students given a motivational questionnaire at the beginning of 7th grade

  FINDING'S:

  -No correlation between mindset and math's grade in 7th grade
• Blackwell et al(2007)-procedure:

  STUDY2:(Correlation study with an experimental section)

  -99 participants from a different school in new york in 7th grade

  -Participants given a motivational questionnaire to complete at the beginning of 7th grade

  -They were assigned to either intervention group or control group

  -Workshop for 8 weeks to improve study skills and students were randomly assigned

  -IV whether in intervention group or control group

  -DV levels of motivation and achievement on math's test
• Blackwell et al(2007)Findings-

  STUDY2

  Participants in intervention group showed more positive mindsets than control group. Increased motivation better result in math's.
• Blackwell et al(2007) Conclusion:

  Positive effect on motivation and effort for students with growth mindset.
• Criticism for Blackwell et al(2007):

  1. Sample culturally biased as all student's were from new York which is not representative of children in different states.
  2. There is an age bias so findings cannot be applied to all age groups
  3. Researchers only measured achievement in math's so results cannot be generalized to other subjects.
• Application: How Piaget's theories have changed the role of education

  Readiness: Children are not ready to learn certain things till they have reached a certain stage

  Key stages: Piaget's stages used to organise education of children

  Active learning: Children should actively engage with their environment to learn from it

  Symbolic play: Children need to play "make believe " to aid development
• Application: How learning theories have changed the role of education

  Growth mindsets- teachers are to encourage students to try hard and to praise them for effort not intelligence

  Meaning- teachers focus on supporting students to think about the meaning of information