Lecture 2 Notes: Cognition and Learning

Educational Psychology Assessment Structure and Functions

Educational psychology assessments aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of a child's psychological perspective to identify strengths, needs, and future targets. These assessments can be requested by schools, parents, local authorities, courts, or tribunals.

• Functions of Assessment:
  • Understanding the child's psychological perspective.
  • Establishing strengths, needs, and future targets.
  • Assessing the need for additional funding.
  • Determining the most appropriate school placement (mainstream, resourced, specialist).

Core Approaches to Investigating Cognition and Learning Difficulties

Assessment Report Structure

The structure of an assessment report typically includes:

• Background Information: Schooling history, family background and history, medical diagnoses, and involvement of other professionals.
• Strengths and Needs: Across all four categories, including assessment data, observations, and perspectives from key adults.
• Summary and Psychological Formulation: Concluding paragraph focusing on barriers to educational progress and recommended areas.
• Recommended Targets, Strategies, Interventions, Success Criteria, and Timescales.

Assessment Methods

• Observation: Structured or unstructured observation of the child in class or at home.
• Perspectives: Input from teachers and parents regarding the child’s presentation, progress, strengths, and needs.
• Child's Perspective: On school experiences, preferences, and challenges.
• Other Professionals' Perspectives: Input from professionals with specialist knowledge.
• Intelligence or IQ Tests: Focus on verbal, non-verbal, and spatial reasoning.
• Phonological Skill Assessment: Important for reading.
• Executive Function Assessment: Evaluating working memory, attentional control, cognitive flexibility, etc.
• Developmental Milestone Checklists.
• Emotional Wellbeing Questionnaires: E.g., Becks Youth Inventory for depression and anxiety.
• Functional Behavioural Assessment: Analyzing the root causes and communicative intent of a child’s behaviour.

Overlap and Interaction

A key aspect of holistic assessment is identifying how different areas of difficulty overlap and interact. For instance:

• Learning > Emotional Wellbeing: Falling behind can damage self-worth.
• Emotional Wellbeing > Learning: Emotional challenges can impact schooling or IQ test performance; rumination can occupy attentional resources, cause hypervigilance, and lead to behavioural difficulties.

Practical Example

A Year 5 male pupil referred due to concerns about attainment levels in English and Maths being below average. The teacher reports attention difficulties, boredom, demotivation, and difficulty mastering key concepts.

Example Assessment Approaches

1. Investigate Internal Factors:
   • Measure intelligence levels or learning skills through psychometric assessment.
   • Independently measure attainment levels.
   • Assess executive functions and their impact on learning.
2. Investigate External Factors:
   • Assess the child’s approach to learning tasks and the impact of teaching/support strategies through dynamic assessment.
   • Assess the impact of the child’s environments on learning (classroom, home, resources).

Intelligence Measurement and IQ Tests

• Wechsler Tests: WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) for ages 5-16 and WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale) for ages 16-75.
• Other Tests: British Ability Scales, Raven’s Matrices, Stanford-Binet, and others.
• Updated standardization of normative scores occurs every few years to reflect changes in population intelligence over time.

Spearman’s Intelligence Model

• Spearman’s research indicated a positive correlation between different intelligence subscales.
• Two-Factor Theory:
  • $g$ refers to general intelligence.
  • $s$ refers to specific abilities.
  • Specific abilities are largely dictated by an underlying general intelligence.
• Most prominent IQ tests follow the Spearman model.

British Ability Scales (3rd edition)

• Examples of Core Scales:
  • Verbal Ability ($G_c$): Word Definitions, Verbal Similarities
  • Non-verbal Reasoning Ability ($G_f$): Matrices, Quantitative Reasoning
  • Spatial Ability ($G_v$): Recall of Designs, Pattern Construction
  • Diagnostic Scales: Recall of Objects, Speed of Information Processing, etc.
  • Achievement Scales: Word Reading, Spelling, Number Skills

Pros and Cons of IQ Tests

Pros

• Provides evidence of how someone compares to the average performance for their age – useful for categorization.
• Can identify gifted individuals.
• Can identify specific strengths/areas of weakness.
• Approaches to the assessment can be noted and assessed.

Cons

• Potential to be misleading – other factors can interfere with performance (attention span, anxiety, etc.).
• Don’t tend to account for broader definitions of intelligence (Gardner).
• Potential to be interpreted as an 'excuse' for a lack of progress.

IQ Test Bell Curve

• Approximately 68% of people fall within 15 points of 100.
• Approximately 95% of people fall within 30 points of 100.
• Less than 2% fall below 70 or above 130.

Environmental Influences on Intelligence

• Prenatal Factors: Smoking and alcohol consumption during pregnancy.
• Nutrition.
• Birth order.
• Parenting: Positive and negative feedback loops.
• Socio-economic status.
• Technological advancement.
• Teaching/learning strategies within school.

Multiple Intelligences (Gardner, 1983)

Gardner proposed nine separate intelligences:

• Linguistic, Logical-mathematical, Spatial
• Musical, Bodily kinaesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal
• Naturalist, Existentialist

This promotes a broader outlook on a child’s development, beyond just English and Maths grades.

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development

Cognitive development results from social interactions and is optimal within the zone of proximal development. Vygotsky emphasized the role of culture and environment in cognitive development.

• Child as scientist (Piaget) versus child as apprentice (Vygotsky).

Implications for Education

• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): Learning occurs through cooperative dialogues between a skilled tutor and a novice pupil.
  • ZPD is the difference between what a learner can accomplish independently and with guidance.
• Importance of active rather than passive learning.
• Assess what the learner knows and structure learning around this through guided learning.

Scaffolding

• Scaffolding is a complex process requiring knowledge and skills.
• The teacher needs to understand each student individually and know when to provide or remove support.
• Requires two mental models: the teacher's own model of the problem and the child’s model.

Scaffolding supports not only knowledge, understanding and learning, but also motivation, attention, and managing frustration.

Six Functions of Scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976)

• Recruitment
• Reduction in the degrees of freedom
• Direction maintenance
• Marking critical features
• Frustration control
• Demonstrating

Scaffolded inquiry and problem-based environments allow engagement in complex tasks.

Current Thinking on Scaffolding

Scaffolding is increasingly provided by resources (e.g., digital technology) and is not restricted to individual interactions.

Important Issues to Consider

• Designing scaffolds based on multiple ZPDs in a classroom
• Fading scaffolds

Dynamic Assessment

Dynamic assessment evaluates a child’s approach to a learning task, focusing on the learning process rather than the outcome.

• Involves the analysis of both cognitive and emotional factors.
• Examines a child’s response to mediation (or scaffolding).
• Helps establish a broader picture of strengths and limitations.

Key Questions in Dynamic Assessment

• Is the child using a plan or strategy?
• What type of strategy is being used and how successful is it?
• Can the child explain how they solved the problem?
• Can the child remember or hold relevant information in mind?
• Can the child sustain attention?
• Is the child seeking assistance and willing to collaborate?
• How is the child responding to the type of assistance?
• Does the child appear relaxed and comfortable?
• How does the child respond to difficulty or frustration?
• Does the child persevere despite difficulty? What helps re-engagement?
• Does the child seem motivated and engaged?
• Is the child alert, aware, or showing signs of tiredness?
• Is the child pausing to reflect on answers?
• Does the child change approach if the first approach was unsuccessful?

Executive Functions

Executive functions control and guide goal-directed behavior.

• Executive function difficulties can inhibit academic achievement.
• Executive functions can be measured by EPs through standardized testing, questionnaires, or observation.

Executive Functions (Dawson & Guare, 2018)

Thinking Skills (Cognition)

• Working Memory
• Response inhibition
• Planning and Prioritizing
• Emotional control
• Organisation
• Sustained attention
• Time management
• Task initiation
• Meta-cognition
• Goal-directed persistence
• Flexibility

Example Executive Functions

• Working Memory: Holding and manipulating relevant information in short-term memory during learning.
• Response Inhibition: Thinking before acting, resisting urges.
• Organization: Creating and maintaining systems to keep track of information.
• Time Management: Estimating time, allocating it, and staying within limits.
• Goal-Directed Persistence: The capacity to have a goal and follow through to completion.
• Flexibility: Revising plans when facing obstacles, setbacks, or new information.
• Metacognition: 'Thinking about thinking'

Example Executive Function Classroom Strategies

• Working Memory
  • Chunking information.
  • Interactive video games.
  • Visual reminders and checklists.
  • Additional processing time.
  • Repetition and paraphrasing.

Other Barriers to Learning in School

• Attitudes to learning and motivation.
• Indirect effects of other developmental issues (social, emotional etc).
• Home issues: lack of sleep, nutrition, resources, parenting.
• Lack of identification of need/difficulty.
• Limited teaching differentiation or adaptation.
• Lack of funding / learning resources.
• High staff-student ratios.
• Diagnosed learning difficulties: Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dyspraxia.

Dyslexia

Dyslexia primarily affects skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features include difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory, and verbal processing speed (Rose, 2009).

Signs of Dyslexia in Primary School Children

• Poorer standards of written work.
• Confusing similar letters (e.g., b/d).
• Poor handwriting and spelling.
• Difficulty blending letters.
• Slow and hesitant reading.
• Difficulty with reading comprehension.
• Potential for a spiky profile of academic ability.

Example Dyslexia Strategies

• Encourage alternatives to writing (drawing, dictating, recording).
• Limit writing demands and give plenty of time.
• Teach the use of keywords, highlighting, colors, and images.
• Use multi-sensory teaching approaches.
• Assistive technology (dictation/recording equipment, transcribing tools).

Fixed/Growth Mindsets (Dweck)

Children's beliefs influence their rate of progress. Those with a fixed mindset believe they have limited ability, while those with a growth mindset believe ability is malleable.

Growth Mindset Ideas

• Display reminders of growth-mindset vocabulary.
• Avoid praising intelligence and effort. Instead, give feedback that highlights the values of planning and trying different learning strategies
• The word "yet" can change disparaging sentences into positive ones, promoting growth (e.g. Child: ‘I can’t do it.’ Teacher: ‘Yet’)
• Setting achievable micro-goals to encourage students’ consistent, incremental progress
• Discuss positive role models who have experienced setback and failure
• Be aware that how parents view setbacks and failures can predict the growth or fixed mindset of their child

How to Study/Learn

• Highlighting text
• Re-reading
• Writing summaries of information learnt
• Testing yourself.
• Dunlosky et al (2013) reviews 10 learning techniques in detail.

Learning Techniques (Dunlosky et al. 2013)

For each learning technique:

• General description of the technique and why it should work
• How general are the effects of this technique? Learning conditions, student characteristics, materials, tasks.
• Effects in representative educational contexts
• Issues for implementation
• Overall assessment

Summary of Effectiveness

• Strongest evidence: Practice testing and distributed practice.
• Moderate evidence: Elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, and interleaved practice.
• Low evidence: Summarization, highlighting, keyword mnemonic, imagery use for text learning, and rereading.