Notes Week 1
PSYC 251
Midterm Notes
Week 1
Chapter 1
Reasons to learn about child development
● Learning about child development is valuable for many reasons:
○ it can help us become better parents
○ Inform our views about social issues that affect children
○ Improve our understanding of human nature
Historical Foundations of the Study of Child Development
● Great thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Locke, and Rousseau raised basic questions
about child development and proposed interesting hypotheses about them, but they
lacked the scientific methods to answer the questions
Enduring Themes in Child Development
● The field of child development is an attempt to answer a set of fundamental questions:
○ How do nature and nurture together shape development?
○ How do children shape their own development?
○ In what ways is development continuous, and in what ways is it discontinuous?
○ How does change occur?
○ How does the sociocultural context influence development?
○ How do children become so different from one another?
○ How can research promote children's well-being?
● Every aspect of development, from the most specific behaviour to the most general trait,
reflects people's biological endowment (their nature) as well as the experiences that they
have had (their nurture)
● Even infants and young children actively contribute to their own development through
their patterns of attention, use of language, and choices of activities
● Many developments can appear either continuous or discontinuous, depending on how
often and how closely we look at them
● The mechanisms that produce developmental changes involve a complex interplay among
experiences, genes, and brain structures and activities
● The contexts that shape development include the people with whom children interact
directly, such as family and friends; the institutions in which they participate, such as
schools and religious organizations; and societal beliefs and values, such as those
related to race, ethnicity, and social class
● Individual differences, even among siblings, reflect differences in children's genes, in
1
,Notes Week 1
their treatment by other people, in their interpretations of their own experiences, and in
their choices of environments
2
,Notes Week 1
● Principles, findings, and methods from child-development research are being applied to
improve the quality of children's lives
Methods for Studying Child Development
● The scientific method has made possible great advances in understanding children. It
involves choosing a question, formulating a hypothesis relevant to the question,
developing a method to test the hypothesis, and using data to decide whether the
hypothesis is correct
● For a measure to be useful, it must be directly relevant to the hypotheses being tested,
reliable, and valid. Reliability means that independent observations of a given behaviour
are consistent. Valid means that a measure assesses what it is intended to measure
● Among the main situations used to gather data about children are interviews, naturalistic
observation, and structured observation.
Data-Gathering Features Advantages Disadvantages
Situation
Interview/Ques Children answer Can reveal children's Reports are often biased to
tionnaire questions asked subjective experience reflect favourably on
either in person interviewee
or on a Structured interviews are
questionnaire inexpensive means for Memories if interviewees are
collecting in-depth data often inaccurate and
about individuals incomplete
Clinical interviews allow Prediction of future
flexibility for following up behaviours often is
on unexpected comments inaccurate
Naturalistic Children's Useful for describing Difficult to know which
Observation activities in one behaviour in everyday aspects of situation are most
or more settings influential
everyday
settings are Helps illuminate social Limited value for studying
observed interaction processes infrequent behaviours
Structured Children are Ensures that children's Context is less natural than
Observation brought to behaviours are observed in in naturalistic observation
laboratory and same context
presented Reveals less about subjective
prearranged Allows controlled experience than interviews
tasks comparison of children's
3
, Notes Week 1
behaviour in different
situations
● Correlation does not imply causation. The two differ in that correlations indicate the
degree to which two variables are associated, whereas causation indicates that changing
the value of one variable will change the value of the other
Types of Features Advantages Disadvantages
design
Correlational Comparison of Only way to compare many Direction-of-causation
existing groups groups of interest (boys- problem
of children or girls, rich-poor, etc.)
examination of Third-variable problem
relations among Only way to establish
each child's relations among many
scores on variables of interest (IQ
different and achievement,
variables popularity and happiness,
etc.)
Experimental Random Allows causal inferences Need for experimental
assignment of because design rules our control often leads to
children to direction-of-causation and artificial experimental
groups and third-variable problems situations
experimental
control of Allows experimental Cannot be used to study
procedures control over the exact many differences and
presented to each experiences that children variables of interest,
group encounter such as age, sex, and
temperament
● Data about development can be obtained through cross-sectional designs (examining
different children of different ages), through longitudinal designs (examining the same
children at different ages), or through microgenetic designs (presenting the same
children repeated relevant experiences over a relatively short period and analyzing the
change process in detail)
Design Features Advantages Disadvantages
Cross- Children of Yields useful data Uninformative about
Sectional different ages about differences stability of individual
are studied at a among age groups differences over time
single time
4
PSYC 251
Midterm Notes
Week 1
Chapter 1
Reasons to learn about child development
● Learning about child development is valuable for many reasons:
○ it can help us become better parents
○ Inform our views about social issues that affect children
○ Improve our understanding of human nature
Historical Foundations of the Study of Child Development
● Great thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Locke, and Rousseau raised basic questions
about child development and proposed interesting hypotheses about them, but they
lacked the scientific methods to answer the questions
Enduring Themes in Child Development
● The field of child development is an attempt to answer a set of fundamental questions:
○ How do nature and nurture together shape development?
○ How do children shape their own development?
○ In what ways is development continuous, and in what ways is it discontinuous?
○ How does change occur?
○ How does the sociocultural context influence development?
○ How do children become so different from one another?
○ How can research promote children's well-being?
● Every aspect of development, from the most specific behaviour to the most general trait,
reflects people's biological endowment (their nature) as well as the experiences that they
have had (their nurture)
● Even infants and young children actively contribute to their own development through
their patterns of attention, use of language, and choices of activities
● Many developments can appear either continuous or discontinuous, depending on how
often and how closely we look at them
● The mechanisms that produce developmental changes involve a complex interplay among
experiences, genes, and brain structures and activities
● The contexts that shape development include the people with whom children interact
directly, such as family and friends; the institutions in which they participate, such as
schools and religious organizations; and societal beliefs and values, such as those
related to race, ethnicity, and social class
● Individual differences, even among siblings, reflect differences in children's genes, in
1
,Notes Week 1
their treatment by other people, in their interpretations of their own experiences, and in
their choices of environments
2
,Notes Week 1
● Principles, findings, and methods from child-development research are being applied to
improve the quality of children's lives
Methods for Studying Child Development
● The scientific method has made possible great advances in understanding children. It
involves choosing a question, formulating a hypothesis relevant to the question,
developing a method to test the hypothesis, and using data to decide whether the
hypothesis is correct
● For a measure to be useful, it must be directly relevant to the hypotheses being tested,
reliable, and valid. Reliability means that independent observations of a given behaviour
are consistent. Valid means that a measure assesses what it is intended to measure
● Among the main situations used to gather data about children are interviews, naturalistic
observation, and structured observation.
Data-Gathering Features Advantages Disadvantages
Situation
Interview/Ques Children answer Can reveal children's Reports are often biased to
tionnaire questions asked subjective experience reflect favourably on
either in person interviewee
or on a Structured interviews are
questionnaire inexpensive means for Memories if interviewees are
collecting in-depth data often inaccurate and
about individuals incomplete
Clinical interviews allow Prediction of future
flexibility for following up behaviours often is
on unexpected comments inaccurate
Naturalistic Children's Useful for describing Difficult to know which
Observation activities in one behaviour in everyday aspects of situation are most
or more settings influential
everyday
settings are Helps illuminate social Limited value for studying
observed interaction processes infrequent behaviours
Structured Children are Ensures that children's Context is less natural than
Observation brought to behaviours are observed in in naturalistic observation
laboratory and same context
presented Reveals less about subjective
prearranged Allows controlled experience than interviews
tasks comparison of children's
3
, Notes Week 1
behaviour in different
situations
● Correlation does not imply causation. The two differ in that correlations indicate the
degree to which two variables are associated, whereas causation indicates that changing
the value of one variable will change the value of the other
Types of Features Advantages Disadvantages
design
Correlational Comparison of Only way to compare many Direction-of-causation
existing groups groups of interest (boys- problem
of children or girls, rich-poor, etc.)
examination of Third-variable problem
relations among Only way to establish
each child's relations among many
scores on variables of interest (IQ
different and achievement,
variables popularity and happiness,
etc.)
Experimental Random Allows causal inferences Need for experimental
assignment of because design rules our control often leads to
children to direction-of-causation and artificial experimental
groups and third-variable problems situations
experimental
control of Allows experimental Cannot be used to study
procedures control over the exact many differences and
presented to each experiences that children variables of interest,
group encounter such as age, sex, and
temperament
● Data about development can be obtained through cross-sectional designs (examining
different children of different ages), through longitudinal designs (examining the same
children at different ages), or through microgenetic designs (presenting the same
children repeated relevant experiences over a relatively short period and analyzing the
change process in detail)
Design Features Advantages Disadvantages
Cross- Children of Yields useful data Uninformative about
Sectional different ages about differences stability of individual
are studied at a among age groups differences over time
single time
4
