AQA GCSE Psychology Unit 3 - Development

Parts of the brain

• Cortex - Outercovering of the brain where thinking takes place

• Thalamus - Key hub of information in the brain

• Cerebellum - Coordinates movement with sensory input and has a role in cognition

• Brain Stem - Passes info between brain and body

Nature

• what he have inherited

• innate ideas present from birth

Nurture

Outside influences and experiences

Positive Nurture factors

• speaking to your baby

  • a fetus' developing auditory pathways sense the sounds and vibrations and the mother's voice can soothe a child in stressful situations

• things that happen outside the uterus can affect the baby

Negative nurture factors

• smoking while pregnant

  • research shows that smoking while pregnant can passively harm your baby

• things that happen outside the uterus can affect the baby

Cognitive development

The construction of thought processes includng problem solving and descision making from childhood to adulthood

Piaget’s Theory of cognitive development

• humans progress through four developmental stages: the sensorimotor stage (0-2), preoperational stage (2-7), concrete operational stage (7-11), and formal operational stage(11+)

• before a child enters a new stage they wont be able to do anything above their current stage level

• children learn new informations through schemas using assimilation and accomodation

Features of the developmental stages (1)

• Sensorimotor Stage -

  • focus on physical sensation

  • relating sight with action

  • developing basic coordination

  • Object permanence

• Pre-Operational Stage -

  • can use language

  • not thinking in a logical way

  • lack of conservation + egocentrism

Features of the developmental stages (2)

• Concrete Operational Stage -

  • better reasoning abilities

  • conservation and lack egocentrism

  • logical thinking

  • struggle with abstract ideas

• Formal Operational stage -

  • scientific reasoning

  • appreciate abstract ideas

  • Focus on form rather that content

Schema

a framework of knowledge that is gained through experience about an aspect of the world

Assimilation and accomodation

• Assimilation - new information is added to an existing schema to make it more specific

• Accomodation - a new schema is created to accomodate new information

Egocentrism

a childs tendency to see the world from only their point of view

Hughes Policeman doll study

• 30 children ranging from 3.5 to 5 years old

• Each child was placed at a table on which was an arrangement of four walls set at right angles

• A policeman doll was placed at the end of one wall so it would have a view of two sections of the cross, divided by the wall

• The child was then asked to place the boy doll where the policeman doll could not see it

• if the child made a mistake their error was pointed out and the task was repeated

• Then the child was tested with two policeman dolls

Results and Conclusion of Hughes Policeman doll study

• 90% of children were able to place the doll correctly

• in trials with more sections the three year old’s accuracy dropped to 40%

• Piaget underestimated younger children’s abilities

Evaluation of Hughes Policeman doll study

• + task made more sense to children than Piaget’s

• + Challenges piaget

• - researcher may have unconsciously given the children the answe

McGarrigle & Donaldson’s ‘naughty teddy’ study

• 40 nursery students and 80 primary school students introduced to a naughty teddy who would sometimes escape his box and a row of counters

• the teddy ‘escaped’ his box and messed up one row which made it look smaller.

• before and agfter the children were asked whether one side had more counters

• 41% answered correctly when the researcher messed up the counters

• 68% answered correctly when the teddy did it

• both nursery and primary age children can conserve

Evaluation of McGarrigle & Donaldson’s ‘naughty teddy’ study

• -low populational validity. all the children came from the same school in edinburgh
  

• + good reliability as conservation tasks are easy to replicate

• + good validity as Moore 1986 said that introducing the fun element of the teddy (which the children could relate to) increases the validity of their procedure over the rather abstract nature of Piaget's original

Applications of Piaget’s Theory to education

• a child cannot learn to perform certain activities until their biologically ‘ready‘ (readiness)

• for true understanding to develop a child must discover concepts for themselves

• children go ghrough the stages at different speeds

Evaluation of Applications of Piaget’s Theory to education

• + has a good effect (the Plowden Report, 1967)

• - Bennett (1976) found students taught in a class and given repetition exercises did better than those taught in a child-centric fashion in reading, maths and english

• - contradictory evidence by Bryant and Trabasse (1971) show children can do logical tasks if they practised

Growth mindset

• open to trying, failing, and trying again

• aiming for improvement

• failing isnt the end of the world

Fixed mindset

• not allowing yourself to learn, try, grow, make mistakes

• believes skills are genetic/predetermined

• only feel good about themselves when they are doing well

Dweck’s Mindset Theory of Learning

• People with fixed mindsets believe ability is based on genetics/innate skill

  • if you have to work hard you arent really talented

  • faliure is a sign to stop

• people with growth mindets believe you can always get a ltitle bit better

  • believe in effort and enjoy fscing a challenge

  • focused on learning goals and feel good when working hard

  • faliure is an opportunity to grow

• the growth/fixed mindset scale is a continum and [people can be fixed in one thing but growth in another

Self efficacy

• A person’s belief in their ability to succed

• repeated success increases self efficacy

• higher self efficacy eads to greater task persistence and more resilience

• self efficacy can be affected by others

Praise

• to express approval of someone else for what they have done

• for praise to be effective it must be sincere and deserved

Evaluation of Praise and self efficacy

• - Praise destroys internal motivation

  • when children were offered a reward if they did something they becam less interested in the same task if there was no reward

• + Low self efficacy lowers performance

  • african american students did worse on IQ tests when they had to state their ethnicity beforehand - the stereotypes about their ethnicity reduces their self efficacy

• practical application

  • research shows how to use praise effectivelty

Learning styles

• the way someone prefers to do their learning

• Verbaliser - prefers to deal with information in terms of words

• Visualiser - prefers images rather than words

Willingham’s learning theory

• learning styles dont affect the quality of learning

• everything done in classrooms should have good, reliable evidence that it works

• paying attention helps us remmeber things

• it only matters how information stays in the brain negating the need for learning styles

Evaluation of Willingham’s learning theory

• + evidence based theory - focused on information from sound research

• + Real world application - research has real world value

• - Application of neuroscience - diagnosisng learning disorders on the basis of brain difference isnt possible