Child Development and Pedagogy PYQs

Cognitive achievement of children is enhanced through social interaction with other people, particularly those who are more skilled.

Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy is a hierarchical organization of cognitive objectives. Bloom classifies learning objectives into three domains, cognitive, affective, and sensory domain.

1. Cognitive Domain: mental skills
2. Affective Domain: growth in feelings or emotional areas
3. Psychomotor Domain: manual or physical skills

The cognitive domain involves six categories of learning that serve in the development of intellectual skills.

• The lowest level of cognitive achievement is knowledge.

Hence, it becomes clear that the lowest level of cognitive achievement is knowledge.

Transfer of learning: It refers to the influence of learning one task on the learning of another. Transfer of learning is considered to be the basis of curriculum development as it provides a foundation for the arrangement of the sequence of skills to be learned. This transfer could either be lateral and vertical, positive and negative, and near transfer and far transfer. 

• Transfer of learning occurs when learning in one context or with one set of materials impacts performance in other contexts or with other related materials'.
• The vertical transfer is the acquisition of new responses contingent on the learning of prerequisite, subordinate capabilities. This transfer generally occurs when learning events occur in a hierarchy and is based on Gagne's Hierarchy of Learning. This means we cannot learn at a particular level on the hierarchy unless we have the prerequisite knowledge or skills, which serve the bases for the future learning task.

Hence it is clear that A boy who can ride a cycle is going to drive a motorbike. This is an example of a vertical transfer of learning.

Learning Plateau-

• If the learner arrives at a plateau in his learning process, imperfect linguistic items, rules, and subsystems will become relatively permanently incorporated into the learning system of a second language learner, in spite of further experience, explanation, or instruction.
• A learning plateau occurs when you stop learning quickly. It's easy to make quick progress early on, when you learn more, you naturally slow down. Because of this, learning plateau frequently occurs when learners reach an intermediate level of learning.

Key Points

Following are the cause of plateau of learning-

• Overgeneralization of the linguistic material of the target
• Strategies of communication
• limit of motivation
• Physiological limit
• Limit of knowledge
• lack of confidence
• doing the same things all the time

Hence it is clear that the non-cooperation of school is not a cause of learning plateau.

Learning: Learning is the total of an individual’s life experience acquitted through the socialization process. It exceeds a mere acquisition of factual information or mastering of skills, as it also includes the total of an individual’s life experience which are relatively permanent in nature and have survived values for him.

• Learning is not acquired by birth, but it is the process of acquiring competence by using hereditary resources.
• Temporary behavior change is not learning.

Important Points

Let us have a look at the definitions of learning given by various psychologists/educationists: 

• Gates and others: "Learning is the modification of behavior through experience and training".
• Crow and Crow defined learning as the process of acquisition of knowledge, habits, and attitudes.
• B.F Skinner defined the learning process by which a response is strengthened or extinguished through the reinforcement or punishment of a behavior.

Hence, we can conclude that the statement "Learning is the modification of behavior through experience and training" was given by Gates and others.

Intelligence is the ability to undertake activities that are characterized by difficulty, complexity, abstractness, economy, adaptiveness to a goal, social value, and the emergence of originals, and to maintain such activities under conditions that demand a concentration of energy and resistance to emotional forces.

Stanford-Binet Test

• Need to measure intelligence arise to trap individual differences in the general mental ability for a variety of purposes, such as academic classification, occupational counseling, and personnel selection. Intelligence tests can be defined as a test to evaluate the general level of cognitive functions and intellectual ability.
• In 1911, the Binet-Simon scale was revised for the third time. More items were added to extend the scale up to the age group of 16 years. The American version of the Binet-Simon test was developed by Terman and Merrill at Stanford University in 1916. It is known as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence scale.
• The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Form L-M, was different from its predecessor in that it included a deviation intelligence quotient with a normative mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16. This version also included the 142 most pertinent items from the two previous forms of the test.
• The four main areas assessed were verbal reasoning, abstract/visual reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and short-term memory.
• The latest version of the test, the Stanford- Binet Intelligence Scales–Fifth Edition (SB5) differs significantly from the SB4 with regard to theoretical structure, as the SB5 adheres rather strictly to the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) cognitive theory and the SB4 adheres to a less strict psychometric design.

Hence it is clear that the Stanford-Binet Test’ measures intelligence.

Personality: Personality also refers to the pattern of thoughts, feelings, social adjustments, and behaviours consistently exhibited over time that strongly influences one's expectations, self-perceptions, values, and attitudes.

• Personality is psychophysical that includes mental and physical aspects and both explain total personality.
• Personality theories are attempts to understanding both the characteristics and the way of development of personality.

Key Points

JUNG Classification of Personality

• His personality theory is known as an analytic theory or analytical psychology.
• Carl Jung suggested that all human beings share certain unconscious ideas because we are all human and were created from similar evolutionary circumstances and common ancestors.
• The unconscious that we all share is called the collective unconscious.
• Each individual has his own self-actualization. Jung expressed libido in a very comprehensive way, he equated libido as life energy.
• In light of libido, Jung proposed two types of personalities— extroverts and introverts.
• The persons in whom life energy (libido) flows inward are known as introvert while, persons whom the life energy flows outward are termed as an extrovert.
• In other words, the extraversion orients a person toward the external world while the introversion drives a person toward the inner, subjective world.
• According to Jung introvert and extrovert function under four aspects-sensations, feelings, thinking, and intuition.

Additional Information

FREUD:

• The first modern theory of personality was developed by Sigmund Freud (1923) that is known as the psychoanalytic or psychodynamic theory of personality.
• According to Freud, our most behaviour is caused by thoughts, ideas, and wishes that are created in a person‘s brain.
• These are not easily accessible by the conscious part of the mind but the unconscious mind.
• According to him, the mind could be divided into three abstract categories- the id, the ego, and the superego.

ALLPORT:

• Gordon Allport (1897-1967) was the first personality theorist who adapted the trait theory of personality.
• The trait theory is one of the most important and largest fields of personality psychology.
• According to this theory, personality is a composition of broad traits.

MUNN:

• Personality may be defined as the characteristics, and integration of an individual’s, structure, attitudes, capacities, abilities, and aptitudes

From the above, we can conclude that Carl Jung classified introverted and extroverted personalities.

Social development refers to the development of an individual in such a way as s/he becomes a useful member of society. Social development is the process of learning to conform to group standards.

Key Points

Factors Affecting Social development:

Some of the factors which have a bearing on the level of social development are the social-environmental elements:

1. The social development of a child is regulated by the culture and society in which he/she lives. That is why children coming from different cultures, have different styles of social responses.
2. Family: The family is the most important primary agency for the socialization of the child. Consciously or unconsciously, the child imitates the behavior of the parents and other members in the family and thus picks up many good or bad social characteristics.
3. The parent-child relationships, the language used by the parents, the educational level of the parents, and the socio-economic status of the parents, and availability of leisure to spent with the parents, number of members in the family are the other factors influence the social development of the child.
4. Peer Group: The peer group satisfies many needs of child-like acceptance, achievement, affection, approval, belongingness, fame, recognition, etc. A good company of peers especially in the pre-primary classes is of great help in learning good qualities. Through peer group interaction, the child understands how to cooperate, how to lead and follow, to think for a common cause, and adjust to challenging social situations.
5. The school: A lot of school-related factors influence the socialization of the child. The interpersonal relationship in the school, its tradition, values, and ideals maintained by the institution, the curricular and co-curricular activities, the social qualities and behavior of the teachers and school mates, etc. have a great role in the socialization of the child.

Thus it becomes clear that the factors affecting the social development of children are social-environmental elements.

Development refers to the process by which an individual's potentialities unfold and appear as new abilities, qualities, and characteristics. 

Physical development is the process that starts in human infancy and continues into late adolescence concentrating on gross and fine motor skills as well as puberty. 

• It means growing control over muscles and physical coordination.

Law of Rapid growth:

• Physical growth includes the attainment of full height and appropriate weight and an increase in the size of all organs (except lymphatic tissue, which decreases in size). Growth from birth to adolescence happens in two definite phases:
• Phase 1 i.e. from birth to 1-2 years: In this phase, rapid growth takes place, even if the rate of growth diminishes over that period.
• Phase 2 i.e. from about 2 years-puberty): In this phase, growth happens in relatively constant annual increments.
• Puberty is the process of attaining physical maturation from child to adult.

Additional Information

1. Law of difference from mental development: Mental development is an important aspect of growth, embracing various mental abilities. It starts from birth, and as the child develops with time his/her mental reactions also change.
2. ​Law of irregular development: When development occurs unexpectedly and exhibits an unusual pattern of behavior, emotion, or thought, it's called irregular development.
3. Law of relation to imagination and emotional development:

• Imagination: Imagination is an essential component of childhood, helping children learn many important lifelong skills. 
• Fine motor skills come into play with pretend money and coins, play food, dressing dolls with clothes, and playing with small cars or figurines
• Emotional- As the child grows, the emotional responses become less diffuse, less random, and more differentiated, and can be aroused by a wide variety of stimuli. 
• The commonly found emotional patterns in babyhood are anger, fear, curiosity, joy, and affection.

Hence, we can conclude that the Law of rapid growth is primary law of Physical development.

Development is a broad term that includes a series of qualitative and progressive changes.

• These qualitative changes lead to the enhancement of various abilities and enable one to function effectively.
• The changes rely on the quantitative changes brought about by growth.

THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT:

• Theory of continuous growth-
• Development is a continuous process that begins at conception and ends with life.
• The rate of developmental changes and the pace of the process may become slow or might gain momentum at certain times but it never ceases completely provided the environment is conducive for development.
• ​Theory of Interrelation-
• ‘All the domains of development and learning—physical, social and emotional, and cognitive—are important, and they are closely interrelated’.
• Development in one domain is accompanied and greatly influenced by that which occurs in the other domains.
• For example, day-to-day activities of children such as playing, studying, or socializing with peers involve activity in multiple areas or domains.
• Theory of Uniform pattern-
• ​The changes brought about by the process of development follow a sequential order.
• This sequence or order is generally the same for all. In the words of Anita Woolfolk, infants sit before they walk, babble before they talk, and see the world through their own eyes before they can begin to imagine how others see it’.
• A sequence is also observed in the stage-wise progression of development.
• A child undergoing a normal course of growth and development would pass through infancy, middle and late childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and finally to old age.

Additional Information

THEORY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX:

• The term conditioned reflex was coined by, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov. It is used to denote the criterion measure of a behavioral element of learning, that is, a new association between the signal and the consequential event referred to as the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus, respectively.

From the above, we can conclude that the Theory of conditioned reflex is not a Theory of development.

DEVELOPMENT:

• It can be defined as a progressive series of orderly, coherent changes leading towards the goal of maturity
• According to Hurlock, 1964 “Development is not limited to the growing layer. Instead, it consists of a progressive series of changes towards the goal of maturity. Development results in new characteristics and new abilities on the part of the individual”.
• It means qualitative changes that are directed towards maturation.
• Development is considered as a function of or a product of maturation and learning.
• The development follows an observable pattern that can be predicted.

Additional Information

• Arnold Gesell develops the Gesell developmental Schedules to assesses behavior in the areas of adaptive, gross motor, fine motor, language, and personal-social development.
• Douglas and Holland stated that the term environment is used to describe, in the aggregate, all the external forces, influences, and conditions, which affect the life, nature, behavior, and the growth, development, and maturity of living organisms.

Hence, we can conclude that "Development results in new characteristics and new abilities.” This statement is given by Hurlock.

Instincts are goal-directed and innate behavior that is not due to learning or experience.

McDougall tried to explain behavior in terms of a few distinct inherited tendencies which he called instincts.

• For him, instinct and emotion are always unified.
• Emotion is the conscious aspect of an instinctive activity.
• An instinct is an innate disposition that makes the organism sensitive to objects and disposes it to appropriate action.
• He states that "An instinct determines it's possessor to perceive and to pay attention to objects of a certain class, to experience emotional excitement of a particular quality upon perceiving such an object and to act in regard to it in a particular manner or at least to experience an impulse to action”.
• Further, he feels that an instinctive action is an outcome of, "A distinctly mental process, one which is incapable of being described in purely mechanical terms because it is a psychophysical process involving psychical as well as physical changes and like every other mental process.
• It stated three aspects, the cognitive, the affective, and the conative aspects; every instance of instinctive behavior involves knowing of something or object, a feeling in regard to it, and a striving toward or away from the object”

Additional Information

• Thorndike divided intelligent activity into three types :
• Social Intelligence or the ability to understand and deal with persons;
• Concrete intelligence or ability to understand and deal with things, as in skilled trades and scientific appliances and
• Abstracts intelligence, or the ability to understand and deal with verbal and mathematical symbols
• According to Woodworth, Both behavior and consciousness were the subject matter of psychology. His 'Dynamic Psychology' (1918) tried to explain behavior by merging theories of motivation, perception, learning, and thinking, also his book 'Psychology' (1921) became a standard textbook.
• Drever emphasized the element of satisfyingness in interest. To him, interest is a feeling of worthwhileness passing into satisfyingness.

Hence, it's clear that McDougall classified instincts into fourteen types

Attention refers to the active processing of specific information present in the environment by an individual.

• ‘Attention is the concentration of consciousness upon one subject rather than upon another’ Dumville (1938)
• It allows us to 'tune out' information, sensations, and perceptions that are not relevant at the moment and instead focus energy on the information that is important.
• Attention is the most consequential of all the tasks the human brain performs.
• Perceiving, thinking, learning, deciding, and acting deliberately, all depend on attention.
• Attention is the means by which one actively processes a limited amount of information from the enormous amount of information available through one‟s senses, stored memories, and other cognitive processes.

Additional Information

• Attention refers to the processing or selection of some information at the expense of other information (Pashler, 1998).
• Ross (1951): Attention is the process of getting an object or thought clearly before the mind.
• Morgan & Gilliland (1942): Attention is being keenly alive to some specific factor in our environment.
• McDougall states that emotions are the conscious concomitants of instinctive impulses at work.
• Norman L. Munn (1972) defined personality as the most characteristics, integration of an individual’s, structure, attitudes, capacities, abilities, and aptitudes

From the above, it's clear that the statement “Attention is the concentration of consciousness upon one object rather than upon another" is given by Dumville.

The pioneer of educational psychology E. L. Thorndike formulated three laws of learning.

• Thorndike also propounded "Trial & Error Theory" has developed three primary laws of learning that leads to development.

Key Points These primary laws are:

 

Hence, it becomes clear that the Law of multiple responses is not included in the primary law of learning.

Intelligence is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason. From various meanings of intelligence, it could be concluded that intelligence means the ability of an individual to solve the problems that have been received from general learning, experience, schools, and the environment. 

Verbal Intelligence Test

• Verbal tests use written language for their items and therefore, require the examinees to be literate.
• Most of the widely used mental ability tests, to some degree, depend on language and include tasks presented in verbal terms. S-B test, General Mental Ability Test (GMAT), and Army Alpha Test include the tasks testing the vocabulary by identifying the meaning synonym, antonym, completion of the sentences, etc. The tests in which this type of items is included are called the verbal tests

General Mental Ability Test (GMAT) :

• It is defined as the ability to understand and interpret verbal information, the ability to recognize and process numbers and information stated in tabular/ graphical format, ability to think broadside, and construct logical connections between unassociated concepts.
• Dr. S.S. Jalota propounded this test in Hindi to measure intelligence.
• By this test, we can measure the intelligence of a group and classify intelligent, average, and dull categories.

Additional Information

Army Alpha Test:

• First administered to nearly two million new recruits in World War I, and the Otis Group Intelligence Scale were forerunners of many other group tests that are administered economically and quickly to large numbers and were thus effective for use in schools and industry.
• Standardized group tests are administered for college and graduate school entrance, and for a number of civil service positions.

Non-verbal Intelligence Test:

• Tests, which require no reading and writing activity on the part of the subjects, are described as non-verbal tests such as Progressive Matrices, Pinter General Ability Test, Picture drawing test.
• The children's mental ability can be tested by means of pictures.
• This type of test consists of all the items in pictorial form.
• They are valuable for better diagnosis of cases that scoreless on verbal tests.
• It is better to use terms as 'pictorial' or 'no reading rather than Non-verbal.

Picture drawing test:

• ​Through this, we can analyze different areas of a person's subconscious, for instance, fears, dreams, and main personality traits in general.
• However, Projective personality tests, specifically, evaluate how a person responds to particular situations through a drawing.

Hence, it's clear that GMAT was propounded by Dr. S.S Jalota in Hindi.

Intelligence has been defined as the total of everything you know, as the ability to learn or profit from experience, as the ability to solve problems, or as the ability to cope with the demands of the environment.

Key Points The two-factor theory of intelligence: Charles Spearman proposed his theory in the year 1923.

• According to his theory, intelligence consists of two factors: ‘g’ and ‘s’, where ‘g’ stands for generalized factor and ‘s’ stands for the specific factor.
• As per him, the ‘g’ factor is responsible for different tasks which are common for all people while the ‘s’ factor is for abilities like musical, spatial, mechanical, etc.
• S-factor is applicable in specific fields and changeable in nature while G-factor is a universal innate ability to perform all cognitive tasks effectively.

 

Hence, we can conclude that Charles Spearman proposed the two-factor theory of intelligence.

Learning is the sum total of an individual’s life experience acquitted through the socialization process. It exceeds a mere acquisition of factual information or mastering of skills, as it also includes the total of an individual’s life experience which are relatively permanent in nature and have survived values for him.

• | Learning Theories | Proponents | | --- | --- | | Holistic Theory of learning | - The holistic approach is the totality of something much greater than the sum of its parts and their functioning.​ - The theory of multiple intelligences builds a strong basis for the concept of a comprehensive learning plan in universities which can improve student’s academic achievement. In this competitive era, a holistic approach towards developing intelligence is much needed to enhance student’s learning. | | Stimulus-response theory of learning | - The famous Psychologist, Edward L. Thorndike, (1874-1949) was the initiator of this theory which was based on the findings of his experiments on chickens, rats, and cats. - With the help of these experiments, he tried to evolve certain laws and propagated his theory of connectionism or trial and error learning. - Tries to explain the process of learning carefully based on actual experiments performed. - Connectionism is a learning theory that is based on the concept of bonds shaped between stimulus and response i.e., natural connections between Situations (S) and Responses (R) are formed and strengthened. - S-R bonds are formed which are considered as physical conditions. - This theory of learning is related to conditioning that utilizes the concept of association of connection. | | Classical Conditioning | - Russian Psychologist IVAN PAVLOV (1849-1936), who advocated the Theory of Classical Conditioning, considers learning as habit formation and is based on the principle of association and substitution. - It is simply a stimulus-response type of learning, wherein a place of natural stimulus like food water, sex, etc, an artificial stimulus like the sound of the bell, the sight of the light of a definite color, etc can evoke a natural response. - The Conditioning Theory of learning put forward by Watson and Pavlov involves the conditioning of respondent behavior through a process of stimulus association and substation. | | Operant Conditioning | - ​B.F. Skinner (1948) conducted a series of experiments with animals, put forward his theory of Operant Conditioning for learning, which involves not only simple responses but also, for learning, the most difficult and complex series of responses. - The theory of Operant Conditioning advocates the emitting of the desired response and its proper management through suitable reinforcement. - The learner responds in a certain way to produce the reinforcing stimulus. - The subsequent reinforcement gradually conditions the learner to emit the desired response and thus learn the desired act. |

 

• Clark L. Hull (1884-1952), a teacher in the universities of Wisconsin and Yale, is credited with putting forth a systematic mathematical and scientific theory of human behavior based on conditioning and connectionism of the earlier behaviorists. He built his theory on a logical structure of postulates and theorems.

Hence, we conclude that the Holistic theory of learning is not propounded by Hull.

The term 'Eugenes' in Greek means good in stock; hereditarily endowed with noble qualities. 'Eugenics' is the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally.

• The word 'eugenics' was initially proposed and defined by a Victorian scientist, Sir Francis Galton (1822—1911). He is the 'Father of the Eugenics'.
• A cousin of Charles Darwin, he was greatly influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution.
• He defined eugenics to mean 'the science of improving the inherited stock of a population, not only by judicious matings but by all other means' the word eugenics come fi-om the Greek word EU -good, genesis creation or birth.
• It is a polar opposite to the word 'euthanasia' EU - good than those - dead.
• Eugenics might be formulated as 'science applied to the qualitative improvement of the set of human genes to be transmitted to the next generation.
• This definition could be extended to cover methods for regulating population numbers as well as trying to improve the genetic composition of the next generation.

Hence, we can conclude that Francis Galton is the 'father of eugenics'.

Psychologically speaking personality is all that a person is. It includes everything about the person, his physical, emotional, social, mental, and spiritual makeup. The term personality signifies something deeper than more appearance or outward behavior. 

Factors Influencing Personality: The following factors influence the development of the personality of an individual. There are various glands in our body. These glands are cell structures. They are important for the individual’s physical and mental health and development. They secrete different substances which are responsible for this development.

Key Points

Cannon described different types of personality based on glands.

There are two types of glands:

1. The Duct Glands
2. The Ductless Glands.

The Duct Glands :

• The duct glands secrete their fluids through ducts and channels.
• These glands help in the digestive process.
• If the digestion is proper, then the individual becomes healthy.

The Ductless Glands:

• The ductless or endocrine glands exercise a great influence on the development of the various parts of the body and their activities' emotional stability and temperament.
• The hormones secreted by these glands play a vital role in the making of personality.
• The three important ductless glands are:

 

Hence, from the above, we can conclude that Cannon described different types of personalities based on glands.

Confusion Points 

• Kretschmer described personality on the basis of different body types.
• Kretschmer was a German psychiatrist who on the basis of his observation of patients classified people into four types. He used the physical constitution and temperament for this purpose The four types he talked about included:

(i) Pyknik type (ii)Asthenic type (iii)Athletic type (iv) Dysplastic type.

Creativity is the phenomenon whereby imaginative and original ideas are turned into reality. It relates to divergent thinking that refers to a way of solving problems by more than one approach.

The above-mentioned statement is given by 'Crow and Crow' as:

• It is the ability possesses by the people who are creative, persistent, and imaginative.
• Creativity is a cognitive ability to produce something original by offering a fresh perspective.
• It is related to divergent thinking which refers to a way of solving problems by more than one approach.
• It is goal-directed thinking which is unusual, novel, and useful and includes brainstorming and out of the box thinking in it

Hence, it could be concluded that the above-mentioned statement is given by 'Crow and Crow'.

 

Additional Information

Characteristics of Creative Children:

• Perceive relation between impossible things.
• Think quickly and solve problems in a novel way.
• Convert imaginative and original ideas into reality.
• Try new things and risk failure in executing innovative ideas.
• Use divergent and out of the box thinking in different situations.

Important Points

Childhood refers to the period of the human lifespan, ranging from birth to puberty. It consists of many developmental stages and 'adolescence' is one of them.

• 'Adolescence' comes from the Latin word 'Adolescere' which means 'to grow to become mature'. It is a stage which lies between the age of '10 to 19 years'.

It is divided into three parts:

1. Early adolescence: age 10-13 years
2. Middle adolescence: age 14-16 years
3. Late adolescence: age 17-19 years

Key Points

The tendency of Feeling of Revolt is concerned with 'early adolescence' as:

• It is a turbulent time charged with conflict and mood swings.
• The time period of transition from childhood and adolescence is of great stress.
• Adolescents fail to think clearly and it creates great frustration and stress in their lives.
• It is a transitional stage when a child develops physically and psychologically into an adult.
• It is a stage of storm and stress in which children are in conflict with their parents, are moody, and tend to spend more time with peers.

 Hence, it could be concluded that the tendency of Feeling of Revolt is concerned with 'early adolescence'.

Additional Information