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PSYC2500B: FOUNDATIONS OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT THOUGHT PAPER ASSIGNMENT
Due: Friday, April 7, 2017 no later than 12:00pm noon, (submitted via the drop-box in cuLearn).
Length: Between 900 - 1000 words, not including references or title page (assignments that are too short, or too long, will be penalized). Make sure to include a word count on the cover page. While is not a long paper, is does require some time, and careful consideration, to do well. Plan accordingly.
Topic: You may select any topic covered in class or raised in the textbook, with the caveat that it has to be about child development involving human children. You then have to select an appropriate research article (see below for details).
Purpose: Thought papers should include a critical analysis of a research article, on a topic related to child development (any topic covered in class or in the text is fine). The goal of the assignment is to encourage students to think critically about the course content in a specific area of interest.
The Thought Paper must include:
- (a) a cover page with your name, the course code, my name, the word count (including everything
from the first word of the introduction to the last word of the discussion, not including the
references section); and the title of your topic (make the topic meaningful);
- (b) a brief introduction to the topic that contextualizes the topic (explains the significance of the topic,
situates it within the area of cognitive development, defines the main terms, etc.);
- (c) a brief introduction to your selected article that makes clear the study’s goals and defines any
additional key terms;
- (d) a summary of your chosen article;
(e) critical commentary on your research article (keep in mind that critical includes both negative and
positive aspects), making sure to include justifications;
- (f) an explanation of what you think the most valuable contribution that study has made is (i.e., take-
home message);
- (g) a reference section; and
- (h) the abstract the selected article (make sure to indicate which article they are from; cut and pasting
is fine, as is a screen shot of the abstract with identifying information).
Late penalty: You must submit the thought paper by the due date. After that, it will be considered late and a late penalty will apply (20% per day, or portion thereof), unless there is appropriate documentation to support the late submission.
Important: Your thought paper should reflect your own work, even if you discuss the topic with your peers. Be very careful to not plagiarize.
WHAT COUNTS AS A RESEARCH ARTICLE FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT?
A research article is defined as one presenting the results of a study (studies) or experiment(s). To help you understand the topic selected, you should consult additional sources such as books, book chapters, and review articles. The research article must be published in a peer-reviewed, scientific journal. Some good research journals that cover development include: Developmental Psychology, Child Development, Journal
of Experimental Child Psychology, Journal of Educational Psychology, Cognitive Development, British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Social Development, Infant and Child Development, Personality and Individual Differences, and Journal of Cognition and Development. This is not an exhaustive list.
The article you select on must be a report of empirical work (i.e., not just describing a theory) and must be reports of a study (or studies) that the authors conducted (i.e., not a meta-analysis or discussion of others' work). Additionally, they cannot be chapters in a book nor can they be theses/dissertations. In addition, you are to select articles published from the year 2007 onward (though it is fine if you consult older work to familiarize yourself with your topic). If you are not sure if an article meets the requirements, please come and talk to me or email one of our teaching assistants about it.
PsychInfo is a valuable database for finding the necessary article – make sure you know how to use it. If you don't, then contact the library staff for assistance (they sometimes hold workshops). When choosing an article, keep accessibility in mind (i.e., don't chose an article that you have to wait weeks to get delivered if the deadline is coming up). Many recent development articles are available on-line through the Carleton system.
If you select an article that reports more than one experiment, you may choose to write your paper on only one of them. If you do this, you must indicate that you are doing this in your paper.
Of course, it is fine to consult other resources to better familiarize yourself with the topic, methodology, etc.
WHAT WILL THE THOUGHT PAPERS BE EVALUATED ON?
In grading this assignment, we will be evaluating the inclusion all components, and their quality. Here is a list of what we will be evaluating (the bolded items are more heavily weighted, but all of them contribute to the final grade):
- Cover Page (including word count)
- Introduction to topic
- Introduction to paper
- Research article: Summary and Critical Commentary
- Take-home message and explanation
- Writing Quality throughout
- APA Throughout
- References
- Abstract arise included
- Articles published from 2007 onward
- Staying within the required word count
SOME GUIDELINES TO KEEP IN MIND:
1) Use VERY few quotes (ideally none, but if necessary, use one or two short quotes, making sure to cite them properly).
2) Don't report the statistics – report results in meaningful sentences (esp. if you don't understand them). For example, instead of reporting mean scores and t-values, report something like, “While the 6-year- olds performed significantly better on the single-addition task than did the 4-year-olds, there was no
difference between the 6- and the 5-year-olds on this measure.”. Typically, the beginning of an article’s
discussion section will report the main findings clearly.
3) Do not write article summaries with too much detail – you should be writing a summary such that whenwe read it, it is clear to us that you understand: (a) what question(as) the researchers wanted to answer; (b) who participated; (c) what the participants did; (d) what the researchers found; and (e) what the researchers interpret the results to mean. You should not present enough detail to replicate the study.
4) Report the dependent variable – spell it out (e.g., "Researchers measured ...")
5) Do not need to mention that participants didn't know about the purpose of the study unless you havereason to think otherwise (i.e., a concern).
6) Make your critical comments about meaningful aspects of the study. For example, were the tasksselected problematic in some way? Were there reasons to be concerned about the generalizability of the findings? Were there aspects of the study that were particularly well done? In all cases, justify/explain your critical comments.
A REMINDER ABOUT PLAGIARISM:
Make sure not to plagiarize.
It's not enough to just leave one word out, or to swap the clauses of a sentence, etc. You have to express content/ideas in your own words. I realize that your summaries will be similar to the articles that you are summarizing, however, be careful that there is sufficient variation between your words and those in the paper so as to not be considered plagiarizing. Plagiarism is very serious academic offence and suspected cases of plagiarism must be reported.
The University policy, in part, includes: “The University Senate defines plagiarism as “presenting, whether intentional or not, the ideas, expression of ideas or work of others as one’s own.” This can include:
- reproducing or paraphrasing portions of someone else’s published or unpublished material,
regardless of the source, and presenting these as one’s own without proper citation or reference
to the original source;
- submitting a take-home examination, essay, laboratory report or other assignment written, in
whole or in part, by someone else;
- using ideas or direct, verbatim quotations, or paraphrased material, concepts, or ideas without
appropriate acknowledgment in any academic assignment;
- using another’s data or research findings;
- failing to acknowledge sources through the use of proper citations when using another’s works
and/or failing to use quotation marks;
- handing in "substantially the same piece of work for academic credit more than once without
prior written permission of the course instructor in which the submission occurs."
Plagiarism is a serious offence, which cannot be resolved directly with the course’s instructor. The Associate Deans of the Faculty conduct a rigorous investigation, including an interview with the student, when an instructor suspects a piece of work has been plagiarized. Penalties are not trivial. They range from a mark of zero for the plagiarized work to a final grade of "F" for the course, and even suspension from all studies or expulsion from the
University.”
| Subject | Psychology | Pages | 7 | Style | APA |
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Answer
Developmental Psychology
(Word Count: 833)
Introduction
Child developmental psychology, as a topic, is increasingly vital because it seeks to determine factors that influence one’s future success in areas such as education. More so, it reveals the factors that need to be present from a young age to enable children develop skills as well as the knowledge required in life. It must be noted that the period of early childhood is significant and determines a person’s overall development. This is because the science surrounding early brain growth can be used to inform investment during the duration. The fundamental brain architecture is developed via an ongoing procedure that starts prior to birth continuing into adulthood. It is known that early experiences shape not only the trajectory, but also the quality associated with this architecture through establishing a stable or a fragile groundwork for the learning, health, as well as behavior. Indeed, social development hypothesis suggests that children’s development is affected by the environment around them including parents (Vernon-Feagans, Willoughby & Garrett-Peters, 2016). For instance, psychoanalytic models imply that early experiences of a child influence her or his subsequent development and Freud’s psychosexual theory perceives development as determined by the manner in which an individual resolves conflict at various ages. As such, the topic seeks to demonstrate why child development represents a foundation for a flourishing as well as sustainable society.
Introduction to the Article
The article explores the area of behavioral regulation about kindergarteners. It notes that behavioral control is a vital school readiness skill, and it can be traced to early executive function as well as later success in school achievement. In particular, the article focuses on poor home conditions and its relationship with early executive function and later behavioral regulation at school. It engages in a longitudinal as well as the representative sample of 1292 children living in modest rural America who studied from birth into elementary school.
Article Summary
Vernon-Feagans, L, Willoughby, M & Garrett-Peters, P. (2016). Predictors of Behavioral Regulation in Kindergarten: Household Chaos, Parenting, and Early Executive Functions. Developmental Psychology, 52, No. 3, 430 – 441.
The article by Vernon-Feagans, Willough & Garrett-Peters (2016) discusses the factors that are vital in determining school readiness skills among children from low-income households. The scholars base their work on the understanding that children’s early regulatory behavior represents core competencies that promote improved learning in school. More so, at school age, the coordination of executive function-like as well as regulatory skills are predictors of both enhanced school behavioral adjustment and thus better academic achievement. The article, thus, explores predictors of child regulatory skills including household chaos as well as poverty. These factors are related to socio-economic family status and thus vital in explaining children’s early cognitive as well as regulatory processes. The aim is to provide an experiment concerning whether the experience of cumulative chaos in the first three years of life is related to early executive function or child performance-based measures of behavioral regulation. A study was undertaken using a longitudinal as well as the representative sample of 1292 children from rural America. The researchers predicted that chaos disorganization would emerge as a stronger predictor than chaos instability regarding the issue of kindergarten behavioral regulation. The findings suggest that household disorganization chaos over time in childhood is negatively associated with parental responsiveness as well as acceptance of a child. This includes the finding that household chaos disorder over the first three years of life has an influence on parenting quality. The findings add to the all-significant literature on the role of processes in the home condition in early childhood concerning the development of school readiness skills (Vernon-Feagans et al., 2016).
Critical Commentary
The work by Vernon-Feagans et al (2016) presents substantial information to understanding the role of environmental factors in child development psychology. This is because these scholars present evidence regarding earlier suggestions that home environments play an active role in shaping children’s behavior at school. Indeed, they show that children from poor households are likely to experience household disorganization from early childhood leading to behavioral problems at school age. Such findings demonstrate the direct effect of home conditions on the early executive function as well as behavioral regulation. Criticism, however, can be raised about this work because it focuses only on children from low-income rural America. Readers can feel the implicit suggestion that these children are more likely to experience chaotic and disorganized surroundings. The researchers do not present enough evidence to validate such an assumption. Thus, keen readers might question the credibility of the entire work.
Valuable Contribution
The most vital information from the article is that household disorganization is directly linked to negative relationships regarding parenting. This suggestion is significant because people do not usually see family disorganization as problematic concerning the process of parenting as well as its outcomes. Rather, people tend to view chaos and violence as strong precursors to poor parenting. Household disorganization, however, is evidenced to lead to far-reaching consequences for a child’s first three years of life. As such, it is vital that intervention workers seek to understand the entire home environment rather than just focusing on violence and other extreme conditions. This is because household disorganization is particularly important predictor of a child’s foundation in school and life.
References
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Vernon-Feagans, L, Willoughby, M & Garrett-Peters, P. (2016). Predictors of Behavioral Regulation in Kindergarten: Household Chaos, Parenting, and Early Executive Functions. Developmental Psychology, 52, No. 3, 430 – 441. |