Essay and Critical Thinking Questions

Comprehension and Application Essay Questions

We recommend that you follow either our guidelines for "Answering Essay and Critical Thinking Questions," or those provided by your instructor, when preparing your response to these questions. Your answers to these kinds of questions demonstrate an ability to comprehend and apply ideas discussed in this chapter.

1. What is science? How does a scientific understanding of life-span development differ from an understanding produced by everyday experiences with people of various ages?

2. Compare and contrast the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Erikson. Also explain whether Erikson changed psychoanalytic theory in a fundamental way.

3. Explain the Piagetian concepts of organization, adaptation, assimilation, and accommodation. Also indicate how these concepts help explain cognitive change during the development of a child.

4. Explain the computer metaphor for information processing in your own words. Also indicate at least two unique kinds of questions about development prompted by an information processing approach.

5. Think about your life during the past 24 hours from the perspective of behavioral and social learning theories. Provide at least two examples of how (a) rewards, (b) punishments, and (c) observational learning have influenced your behavior during this time frame?

6. Explain and evaluate ethological theory by indicating its strengths, limitations, and what is missing from this approach to child development.

7. Define and distinguish the five systems in Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory. Also provide at least two examples of each system by citing aspects from your own personal life.

8. Explain the meaning of an eclectic theoretical orientation to child development. Also evaluate the pros and cons of such an approach before you explain which approach is most and least agreeable to you personally.

9. Discuss what factors influence your selection of a method (i.e., controlled observation in a laboratory, naturalistic observation, interviews and questionnaires, case studies, standardized tests, cross-cultural studies, physiological research, research with animals, or multimeasure, multisource, and multicontext approach) for scientifically collecting data about life-span development?

10. Compare and contrast correlational and experimental strategies for research in life-span development. What do you gain and lose by using a correlational rather than experimental strategy in research?

11. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches to research? In what ways do cross-sectional and longitudinal designs differ from experimental strategies? What kinds of conclusions can you draw from each?

12. Explain how research on development can be sexist. Also discuss ways to reduce sexism in life-span developmental research.

13. What precautions must be taken to safeguard the rights and welfare of a child who might be a psychological subject? In your answer, relate each precaution to a specific ethical concern in your answer. In addition, discuss at least two examples of other types of subjects who pose similar ethical difficulties for researchers?

14. Explain how you can become a wise consumer of information about life-span development.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16