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Lecture Notes: Developmental Psychology and Workplace Assessments

Real-world context: job application assessments

  • The speaker asks how many people have taken a quiz about honesty and skill sets during job applications.

  • They describe these quizzes as annoying.

  • This is presented as a real-world method used in the hiring process to evaluate candidates.

Academic context: Wright State and human factors psychology

  • The speaker mentions that Wright State University has a graduate program in human factors psychology.

  • Human factors psychology broadly involves studying how people interact with systems, tools, and environments to optimize usability, safety, and performance (contextual explanation).

  • Relevance to study: connects to cognitive development, task design, and real-world applications such as usability and effectiveness of interfaces or assessments.

Developmental perspective: developmental jumps in behavior

  • The speaker states that we all undergo developmental jumps in terms of how we behave and what we do.

  • Interpretation: suggests that human behavior evolves over time through qualitative changes, not solely gradual, linear growth.

Developmental models for cognitive development

  • The speaker says they will discuss developmental models for changes in cognitive development.

  • This implies examining frameworks that describe how cognitive abilities change across age, experience, and learning.

  • Significance: such models help explain why performance, problem-solving, memory, and other cognitive functions shift over time.

Language development as an illustrative example

  • At age three, vocabulary is far more limited than it is later.

  • You could likely say a few words at three that you couldn’t say before.

  • This example illustrates rapid growth in expressive language and vocabulary, reflecting broader cognitive development.

  • Implications: language growth serves as a tangible measure of cognitive and linguistic development.

Course logistics: assignments and due dates

  • Before leaving, the instructor notes that the first participation assignment will be collected.

  • The assignment is due on Monday.

  • Practical note: this establishes an early participation expectation and a firm deadline for students.

Connections to broader themes and real-world relevance

  • Real-world relevance: concepts of development and cognitive change apply to education, hiring practices, and the design of user-centered systems (link to human factors).

  • Foundational principles: development involves both qualitative leaps (jumps) and progressive growth in abilities like vocabulary.

  • Practical implications: understanding development informs assessment design, usability considerations, and educational strategies.

Ethical, philosophical, and practical considerations (implicit)

  • Implicit concerns about fairness and validity of honesty/skill quizzes in hiring processes.

  • Considerations of how assessments measure true constructs (honesty, capability) and potential biases.

  • Practical considerations include student workload, pacing of assignments, and alignment with learning goals.

Quick study prompts

  • What is the purpose of pre-employment assessments like honesty and skill quizzes?

  • What do developmental models aim to explain about cognitive change over time?

  • How does vocabulary development at age 3 illustrate broader cognitive growth?

  • What is human factors psychology and why is it important in designing systems and tasks?

Note on data and formulas

  • The transcript contains no numerical data, statistics, formulas, or equations to present in LaTeX.