I.

Chapter 1: Studying Child and Adolescent Development

A. Why Study Child and Adolescent Development?
1. Teachers Understanding of Development a) Teachers beliefs about children and how they develop have important implications for how they teach and interact with students b) Teachers are most effective when they attempt to understand their students as individuals Schools as a Context for Development a) Schools are one of the most influential contexts for children s development in our society Current Status of Children and Adolescents a) Population and ethnic diversity are rising

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b) Children with Special Learning Needs: Still have right to free education more diverse population of students c) Childhood poverty peaked in 1993

d) Majority of poor children are non-Hispanic whites, but higher percentages of total ethnic populations of African American and Latino children are poor e) Changes in Family Structure: rise of single-parent households

f) Implications for Schools: Various backgrounds diverse school population with various needs that need to be provided with equal educational opportunities

B.

Perspectives on Children s Development

1. Definitions and Issues a) Development: changes in the child that occur over time

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b) Theory: a set of general statements used to explain facts Biological Theories a) Invariant, predictable stages of growth and development

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b) Arnold Gesell: established age norms for growth and behavior at the Yale Child Development Clinic. Also introduced the concept of readiness Psychoanalytic Theories a) b) c) Focus on developmental changes in the self and personality Sigmund Freud Erik Erikson

d) Saw development as a discontinuous process that follows a series of discrete stages e) Critical Period for personality development Behavioral Theories a) See developmental changes as influenced by the environment, and principles of learning are major mechanisms for development b) John Watson (Classical Conditioning): Conditioned a young boy named Albert to be afraid of a white rat by making a loud noise when the rat appeared. Fear of loud noise (unconditioned), Fear of rat (conditioned) c) B.F. Skinner (Instrumental or Operant Conditioning): Theorized that parents influence speech development by reacting more positively to sounds that resemble words they can recognize than to sounds without meaning d) e) New behaviors acquired through observation and imitation View development as a gradual, continuous process with no critical period

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f) Inputs provided by the environment no universal patterns of development Cognitive Theories a) Development takes place through the interaction of innate and environmental theories b) Cognitive Developmental Theory
(1) Jean Piaget: proposed that children pass through an invariant sequence of stages, each characterized by qualitatively different ways of organizing information and learning about the world. (2) Development represents qualitative changes in children s cognitive process and structures. (3) Universal pattern to children s cognitive development; Children play an active role in their own development

c)

Information Processing Theory

(1) Use the computer as a model for human thinking

(2) Cognitive advances in thinking result from gradual improvements in children s attention, memory, and strategies for acquiring and using information

d)

Social Learning Theories

(1) Help explain how children learn social behaviors; early theories emphasize observation and imitation

(2) Albert Bandura (Social-Cognitive Theory) specified that a number of cognitive factors that influence the process of social learning (a) Reciprocal determinism: children s mental representations of a situation or event influence the way they act and feel, which determines how others perceive and respond to them. (3) Interactional Perspective

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Contextual Theories a) Focuses on the influence of the social and cultural context on children s development b) Social-Cultural Theory
(1) Lev Vygotsky: knowledge is not individually constructed, but co-constructed between people SCAFFOLDING (a) Elementary functions (perception, memory, attention, language) are transformed into higher mental functions through interactions with others

c)

Ecological Theories
(1) Urie Brofenbrenner: a child s world is organized as a set of nested structures, like a set of Russian dolls

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Importance of Multiple Theories a) They provide a better explanation of children s behavior than any single theory alone can

C.

Studying Children s Development

1. Research Designs a) b) Research Design: the plan or structure of an investigation Hypothesis: a statement derived from theory that has not yet been validated

c) Independent Variable: the behavior or characteristic believed to influence a particular outcome or result d) Dependent Variable: the outcome or result influenced by the independent variable e) Case Studies: an in-depth investigation of one person or a small group of individuals
(1) Don t tell cause-and-effect

(2) Tell us a lot about one particular child, but not necessarily about children in general

f) Correlational Studies: tell us what factors influence or are associated in a positive or negative way
(1) Don t tell cause-and-effect, but can establish relations or associations among different measures

g)

Longitudinal, Cross-Sectional, & Cross-Sequential Studies

(1) Longitudinal Study: the development of one group of children is tracked over several years (2) Cross-Sectional Study: researchers select children of different ages and measure the factor under study (useful for establishing age norms) (3) Cross-Sequential Study: children of different ages are selected and then followed for 2-3 years

h) Experimental Studies: participants are randomly selected and randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group i) Action Research
(1) (2) (3) (4) Selecting an area of focus and inquiry Collecting data and information Analyzing and interpreting the data Developing and implementing a plan for action

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Data Collection Methods a) b) Observations Self-Reports

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c) Performance Assessments Judging the Quality of a Study a) Generalizability: how well the findings apply to another sample or to the general population b) Reliability: the consistency or precision of a measurement when repeated under similar circumstances c) Validity: whether or not the measure provides an accurate measure of the phenomenon being studied d) Replication: testing a hypothesis with multiple samples and with different but parallel methods. If the results replicate, they are more trustworthy Research Ethics

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a) The ethical standards that researchers must follow when conducting research on human subjects b) Parents must provide informed consent for their child to participate; children can still refuse to participate or withdraw c) Participants and parents have a right to information about the results of the study