Psychology of School Children - Essay Example

Psychology of School Children Many people wonder whether children are competent in any situation when they are going through their developmental stages. What kinds of questions can we ask of children and expect them to answer? Can we expect them to do certain tasks and not to do other tasks because of their stages of development? According to many children experts like Piaget or Siegel, the answer to these questions is "yes." Most children have certain areas of development that allow them to complete specific tasks. When they do, they are able to answer questions and do specific tasks that are related to their stage of development. If they are asked to go beyond their stage of development they can only do some of the tasks required, and this depends on the child. When watching children we must take a look at the various developmental studies so that we can be sure that children we are watching are doing those tasks that are appropriate for their developmental stage. Piaget suggested that there were four basic cognitive stages of development. The children that we researched were in the preoperational stage where "children begin to use symbols for objects, thinking is influenced by fantasy" and the child assumes that other people have the same viewpoint as they do. (Loose Leaf Library 1990). As we watched the children in our group, they seemed to be doing exactly as Piaget suggested. They were alert and were able to work with the plastacine and create their own object by making it something that they saw in fantasy. The cognitive stage of development is important to the project that our group did because it assumed that the children already knew how to work with plastacine and that they would understand the interview questions. A similar study was done by Bub, Masson, and Lalonde (2006) in which children were subjected to reading tests to see whether they could overcome Stroop interference in their reading. The point of the Stroop effect is to show that when a child reads a colour that is a different colour than the word, they will take longer to perform the task of reading the word (p. 351). This study worked with 65 children between the ages of 7 and 11. They used five colours (blue, green, pink, red, and yellow) and five words (back, cold, face, home, and look) for the colour matching and reading words (p. 353). What they found was that the younger children had more Stroop interference than the older children. Although this study was interesting to read, it would seem that this topic would not be very important in helping children learn how to read. The method that they used seemed to work fine for their research but it would seem that a larger sample may yield better results. I think that it is somewhat difficult to understand how a child might perceive these words and colours at this age because they have already learned the colours and the words by this time. In the study that we conducted, we created the hypothesis that when presented with the two plastacine pieces, children would not be able to see a difference between the two if the two shapes were different. In other words, they would perceive the two pieces to be different in size because they were different shapes. Method We conducted a small pilot study to determine whether our hypothesis was true or whether there were other issues to consider. Design We decided that a face-to-face observation design would be the most appropriate for our study. We went into a school and kept track of the childrens answers. Our plan is to go into a school and use a larger sample for our research. Only the experimental conditions will be tested in order to pilot the procedure and materials. Participants For the study we chose eight children: four boys and four girls. The children were chosen randomly and they were asked whether they wanted to participate in our "game". These children ranged in age from five to six and they were in year one of their schooling. Materials We provided enough plastacine for each child and for our demonstration. Children worked on tables and water was close by so that they could wash their hands. Each researcher had a clipboard and a score sheet to watch children and record the score. Procedure We went into a primary school and performed the task on the class. We asked the class if anyone wanted to participate in our game. The entire class wished to participate. We conducted that task at 1:00 p.m. which was after the children had lunch. Each child sat at a long table where they could be comfortable. We first asked each child individually how there were and whether they had been having a good day or not. We wanted to know whether there were any mood challenges that may decide how the child would work in the project; all children reported they were having a good day. Using plastacine, we presented the child with two identical balls of soft plastacine and asked them if they thought it had the same amount of plastacine in each ball. We recorded their answers on the score sheet (See Appendix 3). We took one ball of plastacine and squashed it down and then gave the other ball to the child and told them to squash it into whatever shape they anted. We asked them again, whether they thought that both balls had the same amount of plastacine. Results/Discussion At the end of the study we found that six of the eight children perceived that the balls were the same in size when we presented two equal balls. In the second question, when we changed the shapes of the balls, seven out of the eight children said that the two different shapes were still the same size (See Appendix 2). In this study, it was difficult to understand whether the children actually understood the directions. We kept a record of the total scores of whether the children had understood the directions (See Appendix 3) and we agreed as a group that we were not sure that the children understood the directions. In a full study, it may be a good idea to talk to each child a little more to make sure that they understand what we want them to do. As an example, we may start with two toys that are the same and ask them to tell us whether they are the same or different by pointing to them. Of course, we would have to do this in such a way that it did not change the results. In a full study, we may use 15 students but use the same form as we did in the pilot study. We feel that it worked well. We would change the instructions so that we would be certain to know whether they had understood the directions or not. References Loose Leaf Library. (1990). Patient Teaching: Piagets cognitive stages. Retrieved December 14, 2009 from http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/ FacDevCom/ guidebk/teachtip/piaget.htm. Bub, D., Masson, M.E. J, and Lalonde, C.E. (2006).Cognitive control in children. Psychological Science. 17 (4). p351-357. Retrieved December 14, 2009 from Academic Search Premier database. AN: 20238218. Appendix 1 Letter to Parents Dear Parents: We are writing this letter today to ask for your childs participation in a unique opportunity. We are students from the University who are studying child behaviour. We are doing a project to study the development of children from age 5-6 and we have chosen your childs classroom as the place where we will conduct our research. We are going to conduct a project that asks your child to identify whether two plastacine balls have the same amount of plastacine in them or not. We will record their answers on a score sheet. We will then squash toe balls and ask them to squash the balls into whatever shape the want; we will then ask them the question of whether they have the same amount in them or not. There is no danger to your child and the plastacine is hypo-allergenic so there should be no problem with them having allergic reactions to the plastacine. We will write up the answers to the study and provide them to our professor. No one outside our professor will have this information and all childrens names will be changed to provide confidentiality. We will only use those children who also say that they want to participate in the study. If you feel that this is something that your child would like to participate in and that you would like them to participate in, please sign the bottom of this form and send it with your child by January 27, 2010. I _________________, am the parent of ________________ and I agree that they should participate in this study. I understand that their names will be kept confidential an dthat they will do this only if they would like to participate. _______________________Signature of Parent Appendix 2 Example _____ Sheet Said it was equal before the shape was changed? 1st Task (Experimenter changes the shape) 2nd task (Child changes the shape) Participant Yes/no Equal Not equal Equal Not equal 1 Yes * * 2 Yes * * 3 Yes * * 4 No * * 5 No * * 6 Yes * * 7 Yes * * 8 Yes * * Appendix 3 Score Sheet This is a table showing whether for each response we felt they understood the Task/information they were being asked. Participant Number Rater 1 Rater 2 Rater 3 1 No No No 2 No No No 3 No No No 4 No No No 5 No No No 6 No No No 7 No No No 8 No No No 9 No No No 10 No No No 11 No No No 12 No No No 13 No No No 14 No No No 15 No- maybe guessing No- maybe guessing No *16 No No No 17 No No No 18 No No No 19 No No No 20 No No No 21 No No No 22 No No No 23 No No No *24 No No No 25 No No No *= child gave one correct response Read More