Lecture 2 Flashcards
What are the 2 lenses that we typically look at developmental change through? Give an example through a coral reef fish and a tadpole.
Continuous vs. discontinuous?
asking about developmental change thinking about what is the nature of change when we see kids and teenagers growing and changing what is that development. One question that comes up al lot is developmental change a continuous or discontinuous change.
this is a coral reef fish. Missing pictures but its a gradual continuous growth. A baby fish looks like a baby fish onwards. It develops gradually, changing in size and complexity but its the same thing.
this is a tadpole which eventually develops into a frog. The development here of tadpoles into frogs looks a little different. It doesn’t just get bigger and more complex, for certain periods of development it starts to look qualitatively different. A frog now has legs and can be on land. This is the idea of a discontinuous development. At different stages and time points we are intersecting with the world in qualitiatively different ways.
What is an example of continuous development?
ex: vocabulary growth. It is just gradually increasing but it isn’t qualitatively different but it is growing in quantity.
what is an example of discontinuous development? What type of theories do we typically see this with?
we see this a lot when looking at stage theories. Proposals that development goes through stages. Ex: moral de elopment. A lot of these theories proposed that the way you think about right and wrong isnt just increasing in quantity. The numbr of things you recognize as right and wrong doesn’t necessarily just change but it suggests that the way babies and adults think about development is a totally different beasdt. Maybe as babies what we think about as good vs bad is based on outcomes. Its only later in development that we change to thinking about right and wrong based on intentions. Did you mean to hurt somebody etc. Its a qualitative shift.
STAGE THEORIES
LOOK AT THE GRAPHS ON SLIDE 6 of continuous vs discontinuous development
What are the mechanisms of change for development?
what causes the change? if babies are thinking of right and wrong based on outcomes and teenagers are thinking about it more in terms of intentions. Why does this change happen? Is it biological (brain changes), genetic? or is it based on experiences? Is it because of what our parents have taught us or our own experiences?
- Biological processes
- Experiences
- Timing of experiences
- Sensitive periods: time in which
change/learning is optimal to occur
aka critical periods. If an experience happens during one of these periods it will change but at another time nothing much might change. Ex: sensitive periods for learning languages. Children initially born in one language background and were adopted into a new language environment. How easy is it for chidre nto learn that new language and does it depend on the age? Before abotu age 7 kids are pretty good at learning a new language. BUT after age 7 it is a lot harder. Exposure to language is an experience driving that process of language acquisition but it needs to happen in a sensitive period.
Look at graph on slide y about mechanisms of change
What is the role of context in Broffenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Model?
are there aspects of development that are universal or are they impacted by our context? Impact of context in terms of family, peers, community etc. SES, culture, time period.
- Family
- Peers
- School
- Community
- Socioeconomic status
- Culture
- Time Period
LOOK AT DIAGRAM ON BROFFENBRENNER’S ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS MODEL
What about research methods matter?
Who is studied
How data is collected
the design of research
What are the 4 ways/approaches we take to gathering data?
- self/other report
- naturalistic observation
- structured observation
- physiological measures
What do we use for self/other report approach to gathering data?
- Surveys & questionnaires
- Interviews
- Focus groups (we get more insight with this)
- Standardized tests
What do we use for naturalistic observation approach to gathering data? Example? What is an advantage of this and why? What are the 2 types of sampling for this?
- Naturalistic Observation:
observing behaviour of
interest in its natural
setting
(could look at kids facial expressions when eating them, could see how many are eaten of each snack, could observe how many of the kids pick out this thing and what their reaction to eating it would be)
(this can also include a lot of information. If you’re there for a whole hour how are you going to record all of these things. Researchers in this case often narrow down the amaount of information. )
- Time-sampling: Record all
behaviours during pre-
determined time periods (every ten minutes I will look up and rate how happy the kids are ) - Event-sampling: Record
behaviour every time
event of interest occurs,
but not other behaviours (every time a kid says yummy I’, gonna record it and I’, not paying attnetion to anything else. )
what is the difference between naturalistic and structured observation? What is a problem with naturalistic observation? Why might we use structured observation?
- Naturalistic Observation:
observing behaviour of
interest in its natural
setting
(problem: not al setting are the same and in different environments there may be more or less opportunities to see helping. Ex: an elementary school may be more likely to lend itself to observing helping than a university and that wouldn;t necessarily be becasue of age but rather environment.)
- Structured Observation:
researcher sets up a
situation to evoke the
behaviour of interest
(this attempts to make things more equivalent )
WATCH THE VIDEO ON SLIDE 15 How does this show the importance of an operational definition?
video investigating spontaneous helping
setting is often unfamiliar, physical capabilities may limit this even if they wanted to
importance of operational definition. We need a clear and detailed description of how we intent to operationalize/measure a variable. with a different definition of helping we may end up with anywhere from 0 to 7 + counts of helping. This is especially important in natrualistic observation
What is an operational definition?
clear and detailed description of
how you intend to measure a variable
Give an example of critical period for language acquisition
aka critical periods. If an experience happens during one of these periods it will change but at another time nothing much might change. Ex: sensitive periods for learning languages. Children initially born in one language background and were adopted into a new language environment. How easy is it for chidre nto learn that new language and does it depend on the age? Before abotu age 7 kids are pretty good at learning a new language. BUT after age 7 it is a lot harder. Exposure to language is an experience driving that process of language acquisition but it needs to happen in a sensitive period
