Intro to Child Development Flashcards
(41 cards)
3 ways in which understanding child development benefits society:
- Raising children
- Choosing social policies
- Understanding human nature
Plato and Aristotle shared that belief that…
child rearing was important to the welfare of society
Plato believed that…
Children are born with innate conceptual knowledge.
Self-control and discipline are the most important goals of education.
Aristotle believed that…
All knowledge comes from experience
John Locke believed that…
Children are like a blank slate
Effective parenting and societal boundaries are key
Discipline before freedom
Rosseau believed that…
Children learn best from their own interactions
Children should begin formal education at age 12
Research on child development was driven by these 2 societal forces:
- Social Reform movements
2. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
_________ is the interaction of nature and nurture
epigenetics
How do children shape their own development (the active child)?
Through attention, language use, and play
In what ways is development continuous?
Changes with age occur gradually, in small increments.
Ex; a pine tree growing taller and taller
In what ways is development discontinuous?
Changes with age include occasional large shifts.
Ex; the transition from caterpillar to cocoon to butterfly
The 4 underlying mechanisms that influence how children develop:
- Biological
- Behavioural
- Social
- Cognitive information-processing
Stage theories
Proposes that development involves a series of large, discontinuous age-related phases
Reliability
The degree to which the measurement is consistent
Validity
The degree to which a test measures what it is designed to measure
Interrater reliability
The amount of agreement in the observations of different raters who witness the same behaviour
Test-retest reliability
The degree of similarity of a participant’s performance on two or more occasions
Internal validity
The degree to which effects observed within experiments can be attributed to the factor that the researcher is testing
External validity
The degree to which results can be generalized beyond the particulars of the research
3 types of study designs:
- Correlational
- Experimental
- Quasi-experimental
Correlational study design
- Looks for relationship between two variables
- Direction and strength is measured by correlation coefficient (-1 to +1)
- Used because some variables of interest cannot be studied experimentally
Positive correlation
High values of one variable are associated with high values of another (same for low)
Negative correlation
High values of one variable are associated with low values of another (and vice versa)
Problems with correlation
- Direction of causation problem (cannot tell which variable is the cause or effect)
- Third variance problem
