CHILD RESEARCH PROJECT



AP PSYCHOLOGY - DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH PROJECT

For this project you may work with a partner or by yourself. You and your partner will be learning more about how children develop physically, intellectually, emotionally and socially. You will conduct an observation of a child between the ages of 3 to 7. Enclosed in this packet are the instructions for completing this project. You will also be looking at other developmental areas of the lifespan with a creation and an additional interview to complete this project. Here are the steps you will need to take to do well on this project:

Your Group is to do the following:

1. You and Partner may turn in one form. Find a child of the appropriate age and obtain permission from the parent to do you observations. Have the parent sign the parental permission & the time verification form and these should to be turned in with the rest of your project on ________________ .

2. You and Partner : Kohlberg’s Moral Development - Create a moral dilemma one not too difficult due to the fact that you will be asking a child from the age of 2.5-6.5 to answer it as well as others.

3. You and Partner, but each turn in a copy: Conduct your interviews, activities and observations. Instruction sheets for interviewing the parent of the child and what activities you will perform with the child are included. Your notes on these sheets should be neatly written and legible, if not please type.

4. You and Partner : Take pictures of you, your partner and of your child throughout your visit, or you may choose to do a short video of your interactions instead.

5. You: Once you have completed the interviews, observations and tasks. You are then to review your data and write your own individual two paragraph summaries for each area of development comparing your results to psychologists theories studied in the Lifespan Development chapter, so you will have two paragraphs for each area including physical development, intellectual/cognitive development, social development, and emotional development.

6. You and Partner: You must then create a poster or scrapbook of you, your partner and your child’s experiences, including pictures that you took during the tasks or observations and pictures of all of you with the child (you can even add in parents or siblings if you like), maybe even pictures they drew during your visit. Your poster or scrapbook must include the child’s first name front and center. This is for them( Once your project has been graded you will give this poster to the child as a gift to remember their experience with you.

You must schedule a meeting time with the child’s parent outside of the school day. Plan on spending at least 2 hours with them(

7. You and Partner, but each turn in a copy: Kohlberg’s Dilemma - You are to interview at least 10 people, at least one from the following stages of our Lifespan; Early Childhood(2-6), Middle Childhood(6-12), Adolescence(12-18), Young Adulthood(18-40), Middle Adulthood(40-65), Late adulthood(65+). You must include each person’s age and response word for word…most importantly their explanation or reasons why. Then you are to go back using your textbook, notes, etc. any source needed and list what level each person is at per your analysis. You must explain why they are considered to be that level.

8. You: Late Adulthood Developmental interview with someone 65 years old or older. Make sure that you record their answers correctly and that again it is legible, if not type.

THIS PROJECT IS DUE:___January 10th, 2013_________________________

*Note: If you feel uncomfortable or your parent doesn’t feel comfortable with you completing this assignment please feel free to see Mrs. Bennett for an alternate assignment.

Child Study Permission Form

AP Psychology

To learn more about how children grow physically and intellectually, the AP Psychology classes at Spain Park High School are conducting observations of young children ages 3 to 7. The project includes interviews with the child’s parent(s) and interactive observations between the high school student and the young child. All information that is collected by this project is for classroom instructional purposes and will not be used for any outside research projects.

If you would like for your child to participate in this observation project, please sign the box below.

I would like for my child to participate. I understand that I can review all interview and observation materials before my child participates and my child may back out of this observation project at any time.

Child’s Name:

Spain Park Student’s Name:

Spain Park Student’s Name: _______________________________________

Parent’s Signature:

Time Verification Sheet

Name:________________

Spent _________ total hours with my child.

Name:________________

Spent _________ total hours with my child.

Parent’s signature:_________________ Date:_____

Cognitive Experiments/ Intellectual Development: Piagetian Tasks

Be as VERBATIM as possible with the child’s answer

Directions: After receiving parental permission, conduct the following tasks with a child between the ages of 3 and 7 years and record your answers:

1) To demonstrate egocentrism, ask the child the following questions:

a. Why does the sun shine?

b. Why is grass green?

c. Have him/her shut their eyes, then ask if they think you can still see them.

d. How many brothers and sisters do you have? (Follow up by asking how many children do your parents have?)

2) To demonstrate the inability to reverse information, ask the child, “Do you have a brother or sister?” Assuming an affirmative answer, ask if “Jim”, “Mary” etc. has a brother/sister? Similarly if working with a 6 or 7 year old, ask the child to perform simple arithmetic problems, “What is 8 plus 4?” Assuming that you obtain the correct answer, ask, “What is 12 minus 4?” Does the child need additional time to answer the second question after correctly answering the first?

3) To demonstrate the inability to understand conservation (the idea that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in appearance), use the following tests:

a. To test conservation of mass, roll equivalent amounts of clay into two balls. Ask the child, “ Which as more clay, or are they both the same?” If the child doesn’t seem to understand the question, try, “ If I take this one and you take that one, who has more clay, or do we both have the same amount?” Then flatten one of the balls into a pancake and repeat the question.

b. To test conservation of volume, show two identical glasses holding equal amounts of water to the child and ask, “Which has more water, or are they both the same?” Or, “Suppose you were very thirsty and wanted to drink the water in one of the glasses. Is there just as much water in each glass?” Then pour the contents of one glass into a different-shaped container that is clearly taller and narrower. Repeat the question.

c. To test conservation of number, sit down at a table with the child and 14 M&M’s or candy. Make a row of 7 M&M’s counting them out loud to the child as you do. Tell the child that this row is for him/her. Then make a second row, also counting, but this time spread them out so that the second row is considerably longer than the first one. Tell the child this second row is for you. Ask the child who has more. Record their answer.

4) Preoperational children also have difficulty understanding class inclusion, or the relationship of subcategories to categories. Cut our cardboard or construction paper into 5 squares and 4 circles (make sure they are the same color; cover or color them, example Blue construction paper cut into the different shapes). Line them up by shape and ask, “Are there more squares or more blue ones?” Preoperational children will have difficulty understanding that “square” is a subset of “blue” and often say “more squares”.

Social Development Interview and Observation Guide

Interview: Ask the parent(s) of the child the following questions:

1. What is the child’s behavior like at school? Has the child received any reports from the teacher (good or bad)?

2. With whom does the child play with when not at school? Where do these children live in relation to the child’s home? What is the child’s relationship with these children as they play?

3. Is there any evidence that the child is being picked on? Is there any evidence that the child bullies other children?

4. How does the child relate to other members of the family?

5. Does the child seem to be learning a particular sex role? If so, how is that being demonstrated?

Observations: Interact with the child, observing the following:

1. Have the child draw you a picture of his family. Tell him that you want him to have every member of the family doing something in the picture. Have him tell you who each person is and what they are doing. Write down the child’s comments to you regarding the picture.

2. Does the child seem to share and take turns?

3. Does the child seem to be shy or cautious or extroverted and assertive?

4. Does the child live with both parents? Describe the social environment of the home.

5. Does the child seem to have a healthy self-image?

6. Does the child seem too mature or immature for his or her age?

Moral Development Question:

Moral Development Response:

Level:

Emotional Development

The child’s emotional development is probably the most critical area in the entire developmental process. The child’s emotional health will determine his or her success in the other areas of his development. From the very beginning, we are emotional animals, and consequently, we must be aware of what emotions are, what emotions do, and how they can be controlled so that they can enrich our lives and make us complete persons.

Emotional growth is not easy to understand or even observe scientifically. For the casual observer, or the untrained person, understanding the emotions of a child becomes a very difficult task. Growth, or the apparent lack of growth in this area may be misinterpreted or overlooked. A child’s behavior reflects his emotional development. If he seems generally interested in life, reasonably happy and relaxed, free from undue strain and tension, and able to deal with situations in ways appropriate to his age, his emotional needs are being cared for adequately. If the child’s needs are met, a child is able to develop through the stages of childhood into an adequately mature adult. If one or more of these needs is consistently overlooked, his emotional growth may be affected, and he may have real difficulty achieving emotional maturity.

Address the following questions:

1) Ask the parents if they have seen ay evidence of the “vanishing child syndrome” (the idea that today’s child has to mature too quickly to adapt to a world of rapidly increasing knowledge).

2) What evidence do you or the parents have that indicated that the child is happy or unhappy?

3) Does the child seem to have the ability to deal appropriately with his fears?

4) Do the parents consider their child to be sensitive and empathetic or do they consider their child to be one who has difficulty expressing his feelings?

5) What is the evidence that the child is secure or insecure?

6) Does the home atmosphere seem to promote emotional tension or does the environment seem to be emotionally supportive?

7) Is there any evidence of withdrawing, aggressive or depressive behavior? Describe such evidence.

Moral Development

You are to interview at least 10 people, at least one from the following stages of our Lifespan; Early Childhood(2-6);you may use the same child you did for your project, Middle Childhood(6-12), Adolescence(12-18), Young Adulthood(18-40), Middle Adulthood(40-65), Late adulthood(65+). You must include each person’s age and response word for word…most importantly their explanation or reasons why. Then you are to go back using your textbook, notes, etc. any source needed and list what level each person is at per your analysis. You must explain why they are considered to be that level.

Your Moral Dilemma:

Age___________

Response:

Level:

Age___________

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Age___________

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Level:

Late Adulthood Development Interview Questions

65 years old or older

Interviewees name:__________________________________ Age:__________________

1. Did you attend high school? Did you want to? What kinds of subjects did you study? What kind of homework did you have? Did most of the adolescents in your neighborhood go to high school?

2. How many hours per week did you work (not including school-related work)? How much did you contribute to the family income? Did you want to go to work?

3. What were your clothes like? Were you concerned about fashion?

4. Did you date in high school? At what age were you allowed to date? What did you typically do on a date?

5. How did you and your friends spend your free time?

6. What was your most nagging problem as a teenager?

7. What do you see as the main difference between the teenagers of today and yourself as a teenager? What do you think of today’s teenagers?

8. What do you consider to be life’s major challenges?

9. What do you consider to be life’s major joys?

10. Are you satisfied with the life you have lived this far? Why or Why not?

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