development

Question 1

brain stem:

Answer 1

-connects brain to the spinal cord.
- carries messages via the spinal cord.
- function: controls autonomic functions in the body.
-highly developed at birth.

Question 2

cerebellum:

Answer 2

-matures late.
-near top of spinal cord.
-function: coordinates sensory info and motor activity as well as movement (balance).

Question 3

thalamus:

Answer 3

-deep inside the brain in each hemisphere.
-function: information hub - receives and sends signals around the brain.

Question 4

cortex:

Answer 4

-divided in 2 hemispheres.
-outer covering of brain, very thin and folded.
-function: thinking and processing.
-frontal, visual, auditory, motor areas in each hemisphere.

Question 5

roles of nature and nurture:

Answer 5

nature: inherited.
nurture: environmental influences on development.

Question 6

smoking during pregnancy:

Answer 6

affects the size of the brain and body because nicotine slows down brain growth.

Question 7

infection during pregnancy:

Answer 7

in the womb, german measles can cause brain damage (more specifically hearing loss).

Question 8

voices during pregnancy:

Answer 8

• babies learn to recognise mother’s voices.
• brain is changing before you are born in response to external stimuli.

Question 9

the interaction between nature and nurture:

Answer 9

• both aspects at the same time.
• brain forms due to nature (product of genes) but the environment has a major influence even in the womb.

Question 10

outline Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.

Answer 10

Theory:
-changes in thinking (cognition) over time (as we get older).
-children think differently from adults.

Stages:
-young children aren’t able to think logically about the world (brains aren’t mature enough).
-as the child gets older their brain develops and different kinds of thinking such as being able to think in abstract ways.

Schemas:
-the world is represented in the mind where knowledge is stored.
-as the child develops the construct more and more detailed and complex schemas.
-number of schemas increase as we grow older through assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation:
when we understand a new experience and add that new information to an existing schema.

Accommodation:
receiving new information that changes our understanding so a new schema is formed.

Question 11

strength of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development:

*real world application

Answer 11

P- has real world application.
E- the theory has helped change classroom teaching so it’s now more activity based.
L- demonstrates it’s positive value (usefulness).

Question 12

strength of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development:

*a lot of research

Answer 12

P- enormous amount of research (evidence) to test his ideas.
E- many studies have been conducted to test Piaget’s theory.
L- we can be more certain about what aspects of his theory need refining and which has helped improve our understanding of how children’s thinking develops.

Question 13

conservation:

Answer 13

although appearance changes, quantity stays the same.

Question 14

Piaget and conservation.

Answer 14

• Piaget showed that younger children can’t conserve quantities.
• showed children 2 identical rows of 6 counters each, equally spaced; the children correctly reasoned that each row had the same number.
• however when the counters in one of the rows were pushed together, the young children struggled to converse and usually said there were less counters.
• this is challenged by the naughty teddy study.
• they wondered if Piaget’s results were due to the fact that the children saw the counters being changed and may have thought this meant that there was an actually deliberate change in the number of counters.

Question 15

outline the naughty teddy study.
*McGarrigle and Donaldson

Answer 15

A: aimed to see whether the child’s reaction would be different if there was no deliberate change in the row of counters.
M: 80 children aged 4/6 years old
-introduced to “naughty teddy” who could spoil their game.
-shown 2 rows of equal counters.
-teddy jumps out of box and pushes the counters in one row about, transforming display by making one row look smaller.
-child was then asked if the rows had the same amount of counters.
R: -deliberate change: 41% gave the correct answer (same number in each row).
-accidental change: 68% gave the correct answer.
-older children did better than younger children.
C: -Piaget’s method doesn’t show what children can do (nursery kids conserved quantity).
-older children did better than younger ones which supports Piaget’s idea that the way children think changes as they grow older.

Question 16

weakness of the naughty teddy study:

*sample

Answer 16

P- primary children all came from one school.
E- primary kids may have done better than the nursery kids due to their educational backgrounds, may have coped better due to their better developed language/better educated families.
L- challenges validity of conclusions as other factors can explain the difference.

Question 17

weakness of the naughty teddy study:

*distracted

Answer 17

P- the children’s better performance in the accidental condition may be because they didn’t notice any change had taken place.
E- the children may have been distracted by the teddy and didn’t realise anything had changed so they kept their original answer (that both rows were the same).
L- just means that the children weren’t looking, not conserving.

Question 18

egocentrism:

Answer 18

to see the world only from there own point of view.

Question 19

Piaget’s study on egocentrism:

Answer 19

Three mountains task
-a child is shown a model of 3 mountains with a doll place opposite.
-the child is asked to choose what the doll would “see” from a range of pictures.
-the children describe what they see and not what the doll would see.
-only children over 7 could consistently choose the correct picture.
—->challenged by the Policeman Doll Study —> he suggested that the children may have less difficulty if the task made more social sense.

Question 20

outline Hughe’s policeman study.

Answer 20

A: aimed to create a task that would be more understandable than Piaget’s.
M: 30 kids- 3 1/2 to 5 year olds.
- children were asked to hide a boy doll from two policeman dolls on a model with different sections.
-practice was given beforehand.
R: -90% could hide the boy doll away from 2 policemen.
-with a more complex task (more sections) the 3 year olds had more trouble (60% correct), whereas the 4 year olds had 90% success.
C: -children aged 4 are mostly not egocentric.
-Piaget underestimated younger children’s abilities.
-correct that thinking changes with age.

Question 21

strength of Hughe’s policeman study:

*made more sense

Answer 21

P- task made more sense to the children than Piaget’s version.
E- policeman task was more realistic and a similar to something they’d experience in everyday life, the children also had practice so they fully understood task.
L-more realistic test of their abilities/capabilities.

Question 22

what is a weakness of Hughe’s policeman study:

*unintentional cues

Answer 22

P- researcher may have unintentionally hinted about the correct answer.
E- researcher may have unconsciously given cues (gazing in a certain direction) and influenced the child’s behaviour.
L- results may lack validity.

Question 23

stages of cognitive development.

Sensorimotor Stage (0-2):

Answer 23

-learn to coordinate sensory and motor info.
-object permanence.

Question 24

stages of cognitive development:

Pre-operational Stage (2-7):

Answer 24

-lacks reasoning ability.
-can’t think in a consistently logical way.
-lack of conservation.
-egocentric.

Question 25

stages of cognitive development:

Concrete Operational Stage (7-11):

Answer 25

-most can conserve.
-less egocentric.
-better reasoning abilities.
-struggle to reason about abstract ideas and imagine things they can’t see.
-logical thinking applied to physical objects.
-class inclusion.

Question 26

stages of cognitive development:

Formal Operational Stage (11+):

Answer 26

-capable of formal reasoning.
-children can draw conclusions about abstract concepts and form arguments.

Question 27

what is a weakness of the stages of cognitive development:

*underestimated

Answer 27

P- underestimated what young children are capable of.
E- younger children performed better than Piaget predicted, they were just unable to cope with unusual tasks which confused them.
L- some aspects of children’s thinking develops earlier than Piaget proposed.

Question 28

weakness of the stages of cognitive development:

*overestimated

Answer 28

P- overestimated what children are capable of.
E-suggested that children 11+ are capable of abstract reasoning but most can’t cope with Watson’s card sorting task in abstract form.
L- optimistic about what children can do, but some never even reach this stage.

Question 29

applying Piaget’s theory to education:

Answer 29

Readiness:
-can only teach something to a child if they’re biologically “ready”.
-activities must be at appropriate level for the child to fully understand.
-if the child isn’t mature enough,they’ll only acquire the skills superficially.

Learning by Discovery and the Teacher’s Role:
-children must play an active role in their education.
-the child’s thinking will develop better in a stimulating learning environment.
-a child must discover concepts for themselves and accommodate current schemas.

Individual Learning:
-children go through all the same stages in the same order but at different rates.

Application to Stages:
-sensorimotor: provide a rich stimulating sensory environment so they can learn motor-coordination.
-pre operational: discovery learning rather that written work.
-concrete operational: physical materials to manipulate - (logical sequences of thinking).
-formal operational: scientific experiments to develop logical thinking.

Question 30

strength of applying Piaget’s theory to education:

*influential

Answer 30

P- it was very influential (enormous effect on UK primary education).
E- positive impact on education as more child centered activities were put in place (as opposed to the very teacher centered learning back then).
L- demonstrated the value of Piaget’s theory for education.

Question 31

weakness of applying Piaget’s theory to education:

*traditional methods

Answer 31

P- discovery learning may not always be the best approach.
E- other studies (bernett) found that children taught using the more formal methods did better in some subjects (like maths and English) than children taught using a more child centered active approach.
L- direct instruction is a better teaching method in some subjects.

Question 32

outline Dweck’s mindset theory.

Answer 32

• mindset: set of assumptions we have–> affects success.

Fixed Mindset:
-abilities/talent is fixed in their genes.
-aren’t doing well , give up.
-no amount of effort will change the situation.
-focused on performance goals (doing well = feel good).

Growth Mindset:
-can improve with effort.
-enjoy challenges.
-focused on learning goals (working hard = feel good).

Dealing with failure:
-fixed: failure indicates lack of talent = give up
-growth: opportunity to learn more and put in more effort.

Continuum:
-people are a mixture (not just one or the other)
-depends on the situation

Question 33

strength of Dweck’s mindset theory:

*research evidence

Answer 33

P- research evidence shows that a growth mindset leads to better grades.
E- Dweck found that children taught a growth mindset had better grades and motivation.
L- shows that a growth mindset can be taught and can improve performance.

Question 34

strength of Dweck’s mindset theory:

*real world application

Answer 34

P- has real world application.
E- in business, sport and relationships ect. seeing failure as a lack of effort rather than talent motivates future effort.
L- shows the positive value of the theory.

Question 35

the role of self-praise and self-efficacy:

Answer 35

Positive Effect of Praise:
-reward.
-makes someone feel good so behaviour is repeated and motivation is increased.
-praise must be honest and sincere for efficacy.

Praise Effort rather than Performance:
-praising effort enables control as you can always increase your effort and get motivated from others getting their effort praised.
-praising performance is demotivating as if you see someone get praised for doing a task better than you in can be upsetting.

Self-Efficacy:
-understanding of your own abilities.
-past experience leads you to have expectations about future performance (repeated failure = lowers self efficacy and vice versa).
-can also come from what others say.

The Effect of Self-Efficacy on Motivation:
-influences what you choose to do.
-high sense of self-efficacy=willing to make greater effort and persist longer, resilience and greater task performance.

Question 36

what is a learning style?

Answer 36

refers to a person’s relatively consistent method of processing and remembering information.
- people differ in how they learn.
- matching teaching to learning style will improve learning.

Question 37

verbaliser:

Answer 37

• focus on words.
• gather and process info by hearing and reading.
• remember info by repeating it and focusing on sounds.
• solve problems by talking about it/writing it down.
• prefer text over diagrams.

Question 38

visualisers:

Answer 38

• pictures.
• visual processing.
• spatial relationships (diagrams and mind maps).
• find it more difficult to process words and use memory tricks to help them.

Question 39

kinaesthetic learners:

Answer 39

• hands on.
• learning by active exploration.
• prefer carrying out physical activities.

Question 40

outline Willingham’s learning theory.

Answer 40

Theory:
-critical of learning styles theory as it had no evidence.
-cognitive psychology and neuroscience can be used to improve learning.

Praise:
-important to praise process (effort) rather than ability.
-should be unexpected.
-praise before a task led to less motivation in the future.
-if performance depends on praise it destroys your natural sense of motivation.

Memory and Forgetting:
-key reason for forgetting in not having the right cues.
-rather than trying to memorise, practising retrieval of the information is more effective.

Self-Regulation:
-self control is being able to control your behaviour, emotions, attention ect.
-research has shown that young children who showed a high ability to delay gratification (marshmallow) performed higher on tests of school progress.

Neuroscience:
-learning disorder like dyslexia have been associated with poor function in specific areas of the brain (brain waves in dyslexics are different).
-could benefit progress by receiving help earlier.

Question 41

strength of Willingham’s learning theory:

*evidence

Answer 41

P- has a lot of research evidence to back conclusions.
E- based on scientific basis.
L- great validity.

Question 42

strength of Willingham’s learning theory:

*real world application

Answer 42

P- focuses on applications to learning.
E- positive impact on education as he gives an alternate approach to learning styles.
L- research has real world value.