Developmental psych in the real world

Question 1

what is Memory development?

Answer 1

• Two factors, relevant to eyewitness testimony, which influence memory development are:
  
  • Knowledge development and scripts
  • Metamemory

Question 2

what is Knowledge development and scripts? (1)

Answer 2

• Knowledge development supports memory
• Recall of events is supported by our knowledge of how events work in general – scripts

Question 3

what is Knowledge development and scripts? (2)

Answer 3

• Familiar events have a ‘script’ – a generalised event representation:
  
  • Scripts: A series of slots and causal links between the slots
  • E.g. what normally happens at a restaurant / at school / at the doctors
• Scripts provide top-down structure for events
  
  • Fill in the gaps rather than remember everything
  • Make assumptions that events fit the script
  • Congruent events recalled more accurately.
• Memory is constructive

Question 4

what is Knowledge development and scripts? (3)

Answer 4

• Children can generate recall of events based around scripts
• Preschoolers can generate scripts, e.g. for eating out events
  
  • Limited detail – focus on main actions
    (Nelson & Gruendel, 1981)
• Younger children prone to error or missing detail – less knowledge
  
  • E.g. young children recall leaving a building then hearing a fire alarm (Pillemer et al., 1994)
• With age and experience children’s scripts become more detailed

Question 5

what is Metamemory?

Answer 5

• Procedural metamemory – awareness of how memory works
• 5-year-olds know long lists are harder and require more effort than short lists (Wellman, Collins & Glieberman, 1981)
• Declarative metamemory (memory monitoring) – knowledge about the appropriate use of mnemonics
  
  • Not used spontaneously by young children (before ~ 8-10)
  • Children can learn to use mnemonics – becomes more sophisticated with age.

Question 6

Children’s ability to act as eyewitness?

Answer 6

• Quantity and quality of recall increase with age:
  
  • developing memory processes
  • knowledge and language development (scripts)
  • understanding of and ability to use explicit memory enhancing strategies
• (Older) children’s recall of events tends to be accurate but limited in quantity.
• But children are more likely to give incorrect answers to misleading questions.
  Goodman and Reed (1986)

Question 7

Children’s ability to act as eyewitness?

Answer 7

• Suggestibility
  
  • Younger children are more susceptible to suggestion
  • More likely to create a false memory
  • Why might this be?
• Cognitive factors
  
  • Encode less information/more weakly  more gaps in memory
  • Difficulty with source monitoring – distinguishing what they experienced and information mentioned to them
• Social factors
  
  • Deliberately suggestive questions – children respond inappropriately
  • Social pressure to respond to an adult – police/lawyers are unfamiliar and authoritative
• Testimonial issues
  
  • Stereotypes – having a schema for something or someone can bias how memories are encoded/reported
  • Repeated questioning – repeated suggestive questioning of children’s (weak) memories can lead to false memory/changing response

Question 8

what is the Texas vs. Macias murder trial (1987)?

Answer 8

• Murder case in which Macias was convicted partly on the testimony of a child and sentenced to death.
• 9-year-old child witness:
  
  • Often told by parent that Macias was a ‘bad man’
  • Subjected to repeated detailed, suggestive interviews
  • Said she wanted to help the adults
• Recanted her testimony several years later, resulted in a stay of execution and eventual acquittal of Macias

Question 9

what did Leichtmann & Ceci, 1995 study?

Answer 9

• The effects of stereotypes and suggestions on preschoolers’ reports
• Preschool children witnessed a neutral event with a ‘clumsy character’ Sam Stone
• All children were questioned about it 4 times.
• All children had a cognitive interview 10 weeks later
• Control group: no information about Sam, neutral questions
• Stereotype group: presented with clumsy stereotype 12 times before event; neutral questions
• Suggestion group: no information about Sam, suggestive questions
• Stereotype + suggestion group: both manipulations
• The effects of stereotypes and suggestions on preschoolers’ reports
• False memories increased with interference but decreased with age.

Question 10

Memory development and eyewitness testimony?

Answer 10

• Memory processes develop continuously across infancy and childhood.
• These are partly due to development of ‘bottom up’ processes (increased encoding and retrieval) and partly due to ‘top down’ processes (increased language, knowledge, and explicit strategies).
• Children can form false memories – the interaction of cognitive and social factors is important for reporting of memory, for example in eye-witness testimony.
• Interview techniques which take development into account improve recall in children.

Question 11

Cognitive development and education?

Answer 11

• Developmental psychology research:
  
  • uncovers children’s cognitive capabilities
    
    • informs what they can manage in an educational setting
• provides theories of how and why they develop
  
  • informs how to teach them and how they can learn
• informs educational practice, theory and policy

Question 12

Constructivism → ‘Child-centred’ education?

Answer 12

• Levin et al., (1990): Training effects on conceptions of motion
  
  • 6th graders (10-11 yrs)
  • incorrect intuitive concept of speed
  • physical experience acting out problem changed understanding and led to generalisation.
• Developmentally appropriate provision
  
  • a child has to be cognitively ‘ready’ to learn a certain concept
    
    • ‘reading readiness’
    • logical reasoning
    • mathematical reasoning
• National curriculum
  
  • Core subjects
  • Attainment targets
  • Standardised Key Stages
• Assessment
  
  • Criterion-referenced testing, e.g. SATs assumes fixed and universal development stages.

Question 13

Egocentrism → Peer interaction

Answer 13

• Peer interaction can help challenge egocentrism
  
  • sociocognitive conflict – hold conflicting egocentric views
• Doise & Mugny (1984): 3-stage peer interaction paradigm.
  
  • Pre-test: Children tested individually
  • Test: Experimental children tested as pair; control children tested individually
  • Post-test: Children tested individually
• Working in pairs on this task improve performance long-term.
• Pair working in the classroom is a successful tool for learning.

Question 14

what is Piaget’s influence on education?

Answer 14

• Discovery based learning
  
  • Set up tasks and situations for children to explore
  • Allow problems to occur for the children to solve
  • ‘Child as a scientist’
• Developmentally appropriate provision
  
  • Children are not taught something before they are ‘ready’ to learn it
  • E.g. don’t teach an 8 year old formal operational concepts
• Peer interaction and collaboration
  
  • Egocentric children may learn more effectively from other children at similar developmental levels when they have conflicting ideas.
  • Pair-work, especially when understanding is conflicting

Question 15

Play and language → Early years learning?

Answer 15

• Children are given opportunities for pretend play
• Children are encouraged to talk out loud

Question 16

ZPD → Personalised learning?

Answer 16

• Zone of proximal development
• Distance between actual developmental level and level of potential development
• Teaching should be aimed at the ZPD.

Question 17

Scaffolding → Collaborative learning?

Answer 17

• The means by which an adult structures and simplifies a child’s environment to facilitate learning (Bruner, 1983)
  
  • Adult must assess current and potential level of functioning (ZPD)
  • Guide through a child’s ZPD – provide appropriate level of help  scaffolding.
  • E.g. Wood & Middleton, (1975)
• Peers can also provide scaffolding:
• More successful when paired with a child of higher ability
• More successful when children explain to each other what to do, (Fawcett & Garton, 2005)
• Peer tutoring: Interaction with / tutoring from a more advanced peer

Question 18

what were Vygotsky’s influence on education?

Answer 18

• Learning through play and language
  
  • Young children learn through pretend play
  • Children encouraged to talk out loud (private speech)
• Personalised learning (ZPD)
  
  • Activities pitched to appropriate level
  • Teacher provides support to suit individual
• Collaborative learning (scaffolding)
  
  • Teacher guides learning
  • Pair-work with mixed abilities/peer-tutoring
  • ‘child as apprentice’

Question 19

what were Kohlberg’s influence in education?

Answer 19

• Different stages of moral understanding  behaviour management
• Conduct and performance behaviours need managing.
• Acceptable vs unacceptable behaviours are well understood; how to manage them is less clear cut
  
  • Theories of children’s developing understanding can inform this - developmentally appropriate behaviours

Question 20

what were the Challenges and realities?

Answer 20

• Teaching has become curriculum-focused rather than child-focused.
  
  • “The school curriculum is at the heart of education” (DES, 1981)
  • Learning is assessed against criterion-referenced testing
• Personalised learning is hard to implement in large classroom contexts.
• Peer interaction can benefit but children aren’t as good as adults at giving guidance.
• Some things to think about:
  
  • How up-to-date are these theories in Psychology?
  • What do subsequent findings about cognitive development mean for education?
  • How might information-processing theory be applied to education practice?