Intro- competence + performance

Question 1

Why is dev psych important?

Answer 1

• Because children are not just smaller versions of adults (knowledge + abilities are qualitatively different from those of adults)
• Because psychological explanations need to be developmentally plausible: have to make sense given what we know about development
• We need to have evidence to support the best strategies for education + social support

Question 2

Competence vs Performance

Answer 2

Competence: True underlying ability or knowledge
Performance: What we measure e.g. test score
Performance is limiting:
- There are many reasons for failing a task e.g. got the number wrong, failed due to memory, poor hearing, poor attention, poor knowledge
- We never get pure measures of competence because performance is always limited by other factors
- Limiting factors include other aspects of cognition (stuff we’re not trying to measure) but also social + cultural context: cultural values, experiences of social interactions - everything that has an effect on the outcome

Question 3

Piaget + competence

Answer 3

Piaget argued that children lack certain competencies at particular ages such as ‘conservation’ : understanding for e.g. that water poured from a shot glass into a pint glass will be the same amount, despite looking different

Question 4

Piaget + performance

Answer 4

There has been much criticism of Piaget’s methods.
e.g. children might expect something to have changed if an adult does something and then asks them what has changed

Question 5

Vygotsky

Answer 5

Developed sociocultural approach: “an attempt to understand how social + cultural influences affect children’s development”

Question 6

What makes a memory test good?

Answer 6

A good memory test minimises the limitations of other aspects of cognition (language, motor control etc) but also minimises the influence of social + cultural factors