85011 Education Foundations 1: Development and Learning

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85011 Education Foundations 1Development and
Learning

• Unit Specification
• Staff
• Objectives
• Assessment
• Teaching Method
• Web site

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Chapter 1 History, Theory, and Research
Strategies

• Development Through the Lifespan 2nd edition
  Berk

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DEVELOPMENT AS A FIELD OF STUDY

• Devoted to understanding constancy and change
  throughout the lifespan
• Human development research is of both scientific
  and applied (practical) importance.
• It is also interdisciplinary it grows through
  the efforts of people from many fields.

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Human Development and Other Disciplines
Psychology
Sociology
Anthropology
Biology
Medicine
Public Health

• Education

Social Services
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BASIC ISSUES

• Theory
• An orderly, integrated set of statements that
  describes, explains, and predicts behavior
• Theories provide organizing frameworks for
  observations. They
• guide and give meaning to observations.
• help us understand development.
• tell us what to do in our practical efforts.

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Is Development...

• Continuous?
• Infants and children respond to the world the
  same as adults, but more simply.
• Development is gradual change.

• Discontinuous?
• Infants and children have unique ways of
  thinking, feeling, and behaving.
• Development is in stages.

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Is There One Course of Development or Many?

• Children and adults live in distinct contexts
  that is, unique combinations of biological and
  environmental circumstances.
• Contemporary theorists regard the contexts that
  shape development as complex.

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Nature or Nurture?

• Nature
• Genetic factors/heredity
• Stability
• Individuals who are high or low in a
  characteristic will remain so at later ages.

• Nurture
• Environmental factors
• Plasticity
• Change is possible and likely if new experiences
  support it.

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THE LIFESPAN PERSPECTIVE A BALANCED POINT OF
VIEW

• Both continuous and discontinuous change
  characterize development and alternate with each
  other.
• Due to the expansion of research from a focus on
  the first two decades to include adult life

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Four Ways to View Development

• Lifelong
• At all periods in the life course, significant
  changes take place.

Physical Development
Cognitive Development
Emotional and Social Development
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Views of Development

• Multidimensional and Multidirectional
• Multidimensional
• Affected by a complex blend of biological,
  personal, and social forces
• Multidirectional
• Always a joint expression of growth and decline
  over time and within the same domain
• Highly Plastic
• Open to change at all ages. Development can take
  many forms and varies across individuals.

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Table 1.1 Major Periods of Human Development
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Views of Development

• Embedded in Multiple Contexts Change is diverse
  because development is subject to
• Age-graded influences
• Events strongly related to age and predictable in
  when they occur and how long they last
• History-graded influences
• Forces unique to a particular era, such as
  epidemics, wars, or economic depression
• Nonnormative influences
• Irregular, unpredictable events that happen to
  just a few people

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HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS

• Modern theories of human development are the
  result of centuries of change in Western cultural
  values, philosophy, and scientific progress.
• Many early ideas continue as important forces in
  current theory and research.

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Philosophies of Childhood

• Preformationism
• Medieval view that once infancy was complete,
  children were considered miniature adults

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Philosophies of Childhood (cont.)

• John Locke
• Viewed the child as a tabula rasa, meaning
  "blank slate." Children, passive and mechanistic,
  could be shaped by experience.
• Development as continuous
• Forerunner of behaviorism

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Children as noble savages, naturally endowed with
  sense of right and wrong and an innate plan for
  growth
• Development as discontinuous, stage process
• Concepts of stage and maturation, a genetically
  determined, naturally unfolding growth

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Philosophies of Adulthood and Aging

• Tetens
• Addressed nature of individual differences, the
  degree of behavioral change in adults, and the
  impact of historical eras on development
• Carus
• Moved beyond Rousseau identifying four periods
  that span the life course childhood, youth,
  adulthood, and senescence

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Scientific Beginnings

• Darwin
• Forerunner of scientific child study
• Two related principles
• Natural selection and survival of the fittest
• Similarities in prenatal growth of many species
• Early attempts by other scientists to document
  parallels between individual development and
  human evolution led to the science of studying
  children.

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Scientific Beginnings (cont.)

• Normative Period
• G. Stanley Hall and Arnold Gesell regarded
  development as automatic and genetically
  determined.
• Launched the normative approach to child study
• Objective age-related averages are computed to
  represent typical development.
• Mental Testing Movement
• Alfred Binet developed an intelligence test to
  identify retarded children in Paris.
• Sparked interest in differences in individual
  development

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MID-TWENTIETH-CENTURY THEORIES

• Psychoanalytic Perspective
• Children move through stages, confronting
  conflicts between biological drives and social
  expectations. The resolution determines
  psychological adjustment.
• Freud's Theory
• Personality development is determined by how
  parents manage their child's early sexual and
  aggressive drives.

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Freuds Theory (cont.)

• Three Parts of the Personality
• Id
• Present at birth represents biological needs and
  requires immediate gratification
• Ego
• By early infancy the conscious, rational part of
  personality the mediator between id and superego
• Superego
• Values of society and one's conscience
• Relations between the three parts determine
  personality.

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Psychosexual Development

• Five stages in which sexual impulses shift focus
  from the oral to the anal to the genital regions
  of the body.
• To advance to next stage, child needs to receive
  the correct amount of gratification.
• Freud emphasized family relationships and early
  experiences as crucial to later development.
• Criticized for overemphasis on sexuality and for
  being culturally specific to 19th-century
  Victorian society.

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Erikson's Theory

• Expanded Freud's views and created a psychosocial
  theory that covered the life span
• Recognized that normal development must be
  understood in relation to the cultural context

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EriksonsStages
Table 1.3
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Contributions and Limitations of Psychoanalytic
Theory

• Acceptance of the clinical method
• Synthesizes information from a variety of sources
  into a picture of an individual's functioning.
• Inspired research on such topics as attachment,
  aggression, gender roles, and morality
• Is limited by the difficulty in empirically
  testing psychoanalytic concepts

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Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory

• John Watson
• Began the American study of behaviorism
• Primarily concerned with studying directly
  observable stimuli and responses rather than
  unobservable workings of the mind
• Through classical conditioning, adults could mold
  children's behavior by controlling
  stimulus-response associations.
• B. F. Skinner's operant conditioning theory
• Views environmental reinforcers and punishments
  as determinants of behavior.

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Social Learning Theory

• Albert Bandura emphasized modeling (imitation or
  observational learning) as basis for development.
• Stresses cognition, particularly how we think
  about ourselves and other people

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Contributions and Limitations of Behaviorism and
Social Learning Theory

• Applied behavior analysis combines conditioning
  and modeling to eliminate undesirable behaviors
  and increase socially acceptable responses.
• Overemphasizes environmental factors,
  underestimating people's contributions to their
  own development

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Jean Piaget's Cognitive-Developmental Theory

• Development occurs as children actively
  manipulate and explore the environment.

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Piaget's Stages

• Child's mental structures adapt to the
  understanding of external world and to achieve
  mental balance or equilibrium.
• Sensorimotor stage
• Infants use senses to explore.
• Preoperational stage
• Preschoolers use symbolic thought and play.
• Concrete operational stage
• School-age children use more organized reasoning.
• Formal operational stage
• Adolescents and adults use abstract reasoning.

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Stages of Cognitive Development (cont.)
Formal Operations- deductive, abstract reasoning
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Concrete Operations- conservation, logical
thought 7-11
Preoperational- symbolic play, egocentrism 2-7
Sensorimotor- object permanence 0-2
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Methods of Study

• Observed his own children, presented them with
  problems, and studied their reactions.
• Later conducted clinical interviews in which task
  response was the basis for subsequent questions.

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Contributions and Limitations of Piaget's Theory

• Children are active learners with structured
  minds.
• Stimulated research on children
• Underestimated abilities of some age groups
• Criticism is Piaget concluded no major cognitive
  changes take place after adolescence.

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RECENT THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

• Information Processing
• Computer metaphor to explain thought processes,
  describing stimuli as inputs and responses as
  outputs.
• Uses flowcharts to map problem-solving steps.

Figure 1.4
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Information Processing (Cont.)

• People as active beings who modify their thinking
  in response to the environment
• Strength is its commitment to rigorous methods to
  investigate cognition.
• Limitations includes lack of consideration for
  cognitive abilities such as imagination or
  creativity and real-life learning situations.

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Ethology

• Studies the survival value of behavior and its
  evolutionary history
• Ethologists want to understand physical, social,
  and cultural aspects of the environment.
• Sensitive period
• An optimal time in a child's life for specific
  capabilities to emerge in which the individual is
  especially responsive to environmental
  influences.
• According to John Bowlby
• Attachment development is a long process leading
  infants to form ties to caregivers.

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Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory

• Focuses on how culture is transmitted to next
  generation
• Influential in the study of cognitive development
• Cognitive development is a socially mediated
  process, dependent on the support that adults and
  mature peers provide as children try new tasks.
• May neglect the biological side and children's
  capacity to shape their own development

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Ecological Systems Theory

• Urie Bronfenbrenner
• The person develops within a multilayered system
  of relationships.
• Ecological transitions, or shifts in contexts,
  are important turning points in development.
• The temporal dimension is the chronosystem.

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Four Nested Structures in the Environment

• Microsystem
• Innermost level of the environment and includes
  bi-directional influences in the person's
  immediate environment
• Mesosystem
• Connections among microsystems that foster
  development
• Exosystem
• Contexts not including the developing person that
  affect their microsystem and mesosystem
  experiences
• Macrosystem
• Outermost layer that includes a culture's laws,
  values, and customs

Figure 1.5
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COMPARING AND EVALUATING THEORIES

• Developmental theories can be distinguished by
  their focus on various aspects of development and
  by their differing views of what the development
  process is like.
• All theories have strengths and weaknesses. No
  theory provides a complete account of development.

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STUDYING DEVELOPMENT

• Research
• First, a prediction about behavior (hypothesis)
• Then an overall plan (research design)
• Specific activities (research methods)
• Participants
• Understanding of research strategies is important
  for separating dependable information from
  misleading results.

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The Scientific Method
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The Scientific Method (1) Provide a Rationale.
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The Scientific Method (2) Conduct the Study.
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The Scientific Method (3) Analyze the Data.
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The Scientific Method (4) Communicate the
Research Findings.
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The Scientific Method (5) Replicate the Study.
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The Scientific Method
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Common Research Methods and Designs

• Systematic observation
• Observed in their environment
• Self-Reports
• Clinical/Case Study
• One case in-depth
• Ethnography

• Correlation
• Relationship
• Experiment
• Cause and effect
• Sample
• Developmental
• Longitudinal
• Cross-sectional

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Systematic Observation

• Naturalistic observation
• Observe behavior in the natural environment.
• Advantage Behavior is real and not contrived.
• Disadvantage Presence of an unfamiliar
  individual may cause people to act in unnatural
  ways.
• Structured observation
• Used in laboratory setting when a researcher sets
  up a situation that cues a particular behavior to
  be observed

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Naturalistic Observation

• Observation in natural settings
• No cause-effect relationship

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Self-Reports

• Questions about people's perceptions, thoughts,
  feelings, and past experiences
• Clinical interview
• Unstructured exploration of participants'
  thoughts through conversation
• Structured interview
• Every participant is asked the same questions in
  the same way.

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Clinical, or Case Study, Method

• Goal is to gather complete picture of an
  individual through interviews, observation, and
  test scores
• Yields case narratives rich in descriptive detail
  and insights into the many factors affecting
  development.
• Drawbacks
• Data collected unsystematically and subjectively,
  permitting researcher's theoretical preferences
  to bias their observations and interpretations
• Cannot assume conclusions apply to anyone other
  than the person studied

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Studying Culture

• Ethnography
• Uncovering the cultural meanings of behaviors by
  becoming as familiar as possible with their way
  of life
• Participant observation
• Ethnographers try to minimize their influence on
  the culture being studied by becoming part of it,
  but at times their presence does alter the
  situation.

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GENERAL RESEARCH DESIGNS

• Correlational Design
• Researcher gathers statistical information on
  already existing groups of individuals without
  changing their experiences.
• May show a relationship but not necessarily
  cause-and-effect.
• Correlation coefficient
• A number from 1.00 to -1.00 that indicates how
  two variables are related
• Zero correlation indicates no association.
• A value near 1.00 or -1.00 denotes a strong
  relationship.
• Positive sign () means that as one variable
  increases, the other also increases.
• Negative sign (-) indicates that as one variable
  increases, the other decreases.

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Correlational Research Gay Gene?
Chance that other sibling is homosexual in the
same family

• Random 4
• Identical Twins 50
• Fraternal Twins 22
• Adopted, in the 10same family

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Correlational Research Gay Gene?Chance that
other sibling is homosexual in the same family
50
22
10
4
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Experimental Design

• Hypothesis
• Independent Variable
• Dependent Variable
• Cause and effect
• Control

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Experimental Design

• Permits us to infer cause-and-effect behavioral
  relationships
• An independent variable is manipulated by an
  experimenter to cause changes in the other
  variable being measured
• The dependent variable should be affected by the
  independent variable.

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Structure of an Experiment

• Experimental Group
• pretest
• treatment
• posttest
• Change?

• Control Group
• pretest
• posttest
• Change?

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Field and Natural Experiments

• Modifications of experimental design to gather
  data on behaviors that occur more naturally
  outside the laboratory setting
• Field experiments
• Researchers randomly assign participants to
  different treatments in natural settings.
• Natural experiments
• Investigators research pre-existing treatments.

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Designs for Studying Development

• Longitudinal design
• A group of participants is studied repeatedly at
  different ages.
• Identifies common developmental patterns and
  individual differences
• Permits examination of relationships between
  early and later behaviors

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Problems in Longitudinal Research

• Over time, participants may drop out of the
  research.
• Participants may behave unnaturally from repeated
  exposure to test situation.
• Cultural-historical changes can cause cohort
  effects.
• Influences on one group that may make research
  results inapplicable to other groups

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Cross-Sectional Design

• Different-aged groups are studied at the same
  point in time. Group differences are assumed the
  result of developmental changes.
• Problems in conducting cross-sectional research
• Individual changes in development cannot be
  detected.
• Group differences may be due to cultural or
  historical influences and not age-related.

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Longitudinal-Sequential Design

• Combines the longitudinal and cross-sectional
  methods by studying two or more age groups over
  time.

Figure 1.6
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Longitudinal-Sequential Design (cont.)

• Detects cohort effects by comparing same-age
  results for participants who were born in
  different years
• Possible to do both longitudinal and
  cross-sectional comparisons with this design

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ETHICS IN LIFESPAN RESEARCH

• Ethical guidelines are needed for research with
  people so as not to exploit them.
• Informed consent
• Special interpretation when participants cannot
  fully appreciate the research goals and
  activities (children or cognitively impaired)
• Debriefing
• Full account and justification of activities
  after the research is over, when deception and
  concealment are used