Read the STUDY GUIDE for Chapter 1 below.
Read Chapter 1 of the textbook, focusing your attention on the information indicated in the Study Guide.
Take notes on any text information that is mentioned in the Study Guide.
Answer (in written form) any questions asked in the Study Guide.
Complete a written response to all WRITING ASSIGNMENTS and DISCUSSION QUESTIONS mentioned in the Study Guide.
You will use all of these "notes" when you take ONLINE EXAM 1!
You will only be tested over information indicated on this study guide!
Any information in the textbook that is not on this study guide will not be tested on EXAM 1!
WRITING ASSIGNMENTS:
You need to complete all Writing Assignments, but you are not required to post your answers in the Writing Assignment "Discussion" area (found under the "Communications" icon on the Homepage).
You will be tested over the information you learn about in the Writing Assignments in ONLINE EXAM 1.
You will be able to discuss the Writing Assignments (including your questions and comments about the relevant developmental concepts)
in the "Discussions" section (found under the "Communications" icon on the Homepage).
Please post your questions and comments for the Writing Assignments for Chapter 1 under the "Writing Assignments – Chapter 1" discussion topic.
DISCUSSION QUESTION for CHAPTER 1:
In the Chapter 1 Study Guide, I will indicate the DISCUSSION QUESTION for this chapter.
The question is located at the point in chapter 1 where the information on "cohorts" is to be found.
I WANT ALL STUDENTS TO PARTICIPATE IN THE DISCUSSION OF "DISCUSSION QUESTION – CHAPTER 1"!
To participate in the online discussion on the Discussion Question for Chapter 1:
Open the "Communications" icon on the course Homepage.
Open the "Discussions" icon.
Open the "Discussion Question – Chapter 1" topic.
Open the first posting ("DQ for Chpt. 1") from John Mastenbrook.
Read the Discussion Question, construct your answer from information in the text and the study guide.
Then post your response to the question by replying to the "DQ for Chpt.1" message posting.
As more and more students respond to the question, I will post a "Follow-up" question.
Read that "Follow-up Question", construct your answer, and post your response by replying to the "Follow-up Question".
Read other student responses the Discussion Question and the "Follow-up Question".
In order to earn full points for each Discussion Question, you need to answer the DQ and the Follow-up Q and post "substantive" replies to a number of other student's responses to the questions.
A "substantive" reply is one that adds to the discussion or deepens the discussion in "substantial" ways. (Just agreeing with another student is not a "substantial" reply!)
The grading criteria for your participation in the discussion are described in the "DISCUSSION QUESTION GRADING" icon located on the HOME PAGE.
Please look ahead to the Discussion Questions for Chapters 2 and 3.
You will choose one of these two questions for your second online discussion for ONLINE EXAM 1!
Be sure and begin your participation in the DISCUSSION QUESTION early in your studying, so you can earn full points for your participation.
Check the CALENDAR on the HOMEPAGE to see when the ONLINE EXAM 1 is available.
STUDY GUIDE for Chapter 1 - Introduction
Chapter 1 of the textbook gives an introduction to developmental psychology.
Human development studies the ways in which people change and remain the same (or similar) as we grow older.
This course will cover human development throughout the lifespan, from conception to death.
We will discuss the changes we all experience and some changes that only some people experience.
Your study of human development through the lifespan will be divided into different periods:
prenatal development,
infancy and toddlerhood (birth - 2 years),
early childhood (the play years),
childhood (the school years),
adolescence,
young adulthood,
middle adulthood,
and late adulthood.
This course presents developmental changes throughout life! That is almost too much to learn about in one semester, so we will be selective in the topics you will study.
But before you begin to study the development in the different times of life, you will learn about general aspects of human development that apply to all times of life.
Developmental psychology studies how we change and how we remain similar throughout our lives.
Pages 3-4 in the text describe the scientific nature of the study of human development and the "characteristics" of developmental changes.
Our development is very complex and is influenced by many factors!
Notice the "characteristics of development" briefly explained on page 4.
The first four use the suffix "multi-" to indicate the complexity of the different factors that influence development:
Multidirectional - Change is not constant or "regular"! The changes we experience happen in "spurts" rather than in a constant, even pace.
A particular characteristic will increase over a period of time, will later decrease, and then might increase later still!
Read on pages 4-6 about examples of developmental changes that are multidirectional! The examples include physical growth in infancy, childhood, and adolescence!
Multicontextual - The many factors that influence our development include changing physical, psychological, and socio-cultural "contexts" or influences.
Each of these factors or contexts can change over time.
Pages 6-11 discuss different "contexts" that influence our development, such as our "cohort", socioeconomic status, culture(s), etc.
Discussion Question 1:
Describe of your characteristics of your age or historical cohort and how your parents' cohort differs from your cohort in all of the following ways:
values or goals; ways of fashion or dress; music you enjoy; use of information technologies; attitudes towards people of different ethnic/cultural groups; and any other characteristics of your cohort that are different from your parents' cohort.
(I suggest that you first answer the Discussion Question above as a Writing Assignment.
You can then use your Writing Assignment answer to respond to the Discussion Question.
Post your answer early in the week, so you can respond to any further questions about your cohort that I ask during the week!)
Multicultural - The different cultures, including ethnic cultures, that impact development must be studied.
Pages 11 – 14 provide discussions of different cultural influences on development.
Multidisciplinary - Development is influenced by so many physical, psychological, and socio-cultural factors that the study of human development involves many scientific "disciplines", including physiology, psychology, and sociology.
Pages 14-15 briefly discuss the ways biologists, sociologists, and psychologists add to our understanding of two well-known sisters' lives!
Plasticity - The last characteristic of development is that our characteristics (or traits) are "plastic" throughout our lives.
A characteristic (for instance, a personality trait like shyness) is changeable at any time in one's life!
See the discussion of plasticity on pages 15-17.
Writing Assignment (potential OLE 1 – Essay Test question!):
The author presents information about the life of their "nephew David".
His life provides some wonderful examples of unexpected "plasticity"!
Describe at least three of his characteristics or traits that changed "unexpectedly" and some life experiences that probably made that change possible.
Additional concepts to understand:
Know the different factors that make up one's socioeconomic status (SES).
Socioeconomic status is correlated with many developmental indices (mental health, family size, disease incidence, etc.)
Know the definition of an ethnic group. Notice that we can belong to more than one ethnic group.
Why is race often not a very useful "categorization" in the social sciences?
The last part of this chapter provides a review or the scientific research methods that are used to study aspects of human development.
You will need to understand how information is gathered using each research method.
You will also need to understand the advantages and limitations/problems of information gathered using each research method.
This part of chapter 1 should be a review of information you learned in PSYC. 2301.
Developmental Psychology as a Science:
What does it mean to replicate a research study? Why is it important to do this? (Page 19)
Be able to describe an example of a SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATIONAL STUDY. (Naturalistic observational research, one type of observational study, is mentioned in PSYC. 2301!).
In what types of "settings" is information gathered?
What is the advantage of naturalistic observational research over research done in a laboratory?
Do the researchers have control over the environment (as they do in experimental research) in naturalistic observational research?
Do scientific observational studies (whether in a laboratory or naturalistic setting) give us information about why people behave as they do?
Another way to state this question is: Does the observational method test for the causes of behavior?
What kind of information do these studies give us? (Choose one: description, prediction, or do these studies "test cause-effect"?)
Be sure and know a limitation or potential problem with using this method to gather information.
Be able to describe an example of a CORRELATIONAL STUDY.
Does this type of study give us information about whether one factor causes changes in another factor?
What kind of information do correlational studies give us? (Choose one: description, prediction, or do these studies "test cause-effect"?)
Writing Assignment (potential OLE 1 – Essay Test question!):
Search for and find an example of a "correlational study" on the internet!
In the study you find, identify the two "factors" that are correlated.
Does the fact that these two factors are correlated provide scientific proof that changing one "factor" causes a change in the other "factor"?
For instance, in a correlational study of diet and heart disease:
Does finding a correlation between these two "factors" provide scientific proof that changing one factor (diet) causes a change in the other factor (heart disease)?
EXPERIMENTS:
Experiments are the only type of research study that can answer what question?
Be able to determine the independent and dependent variable in an experiment.
Be able to determine the difference between the experimental group(s) and the control group in an experiment.
Writing Assignment (potential OLE 1 – Essay Test question!):
Identify the hypothesis, independent variable, and dependent variable in the first Harlow experiment described in Chapter 2, pages 40-41.
This is the experiment in which infant monkeys were raised with two "surrogate mothers", each group of monkeys being fed from only one of the "mothers".
One of the most important questions in the experiment is: How much time did the monkeys spend with each mother?
Do you think there is a control group in this experiment?
Why is it a problem that laboratory experiments gather data in "artificial" environments?
Be sure and know a limitation or potential problem with using this method to gather information.
SURVEYS OR INTERVIEWS:
What are the advantages and limitations/problems of gathering information using surveys or interviews?
Why is information gathered using these methods not always accurate?
What kind of information does this type of research studies give us? (Choose one: description, prediction, or do these studies "test cause-effect"?)
CASE STUDY:
How many subjects are studied in a case study? What kinds of information are gathered in case studies?
What are the advantages and limitations of information gathered in case studies?
What does it mean that it is difficult to "generalize" the results of case studies to other people?
What kind of information does this type of research studies give us? (Choose one: description, prediction, or do these studies "test cause-effect"?)
CROSS-SECTIONAL and LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH to determine "stages" of development:
Sometimes we want to study how people's behavior changes over a period of time. For instance, how language communication skills develop from birth through five years of age.
We gather information from people of different ages comparing their behaviors to detect changes in the behavior from one age to another.
When we do this research we are often looking for the common ways all people change over the period of time (such as, language skill development in childhood or changes in cognitive skills in late adulthood).
We may find that there are certain "stages" of development that all people go through in their development!
One example of developmental stages in Piaget's stage theory of cognitive development discussed in Chapter 2!
The text mentions three types of studies used to gather developmental information over a part of the lifespan.
You will concentrate on two of the types of studies, cross-sectional and longitudinal research.
Be able to describe the differences between a cross-sectional study and longitudinal study.
Study Figure 1.6 (page 24) to see the differences in the characteristics of the subjects and the ways information is gathered in each type of study.
Which type of study is the fastest and least expensive to conduct?
How many age cohorts are in a cross-sectional study? What are some of the potential problems or "drawbacks" of information from cross-sectional studies?
How many age cohorts are in a longitudinal study? What are some of the potential problems or "drawbacks" of information from longitudinal studies?
Potential OLE 1 question:
Why are longitudinal studies preferred by developmental psychologists in determining the stages of change that most people go through during a part of life? (for instance, changes in language communication skills from birth through five years of age)
Why do longitudinal studies give more accurate data than cross-sectional studies concerning the common changes each individual subject goes through?