Assignment: Microgenesis and microgenetic

Assignment: Microgenesis and microgenetic

In Kohlberg’s just community approach:

A.Moral dialogue and moral atmosphere frequently advance moral thinking two or more stages.
B.High school students are frequently friendlier to one another, but their moral thinking remains about the same.
C.There is little relationship between moral thought and moral behavior.
D.The moral thinking of high school students advances somewhat, primarily from stage 2 to 3.

7.Briefly contrast the views of Locke and Rousseau on how children develop.

8. Two part question:

a) What do ethologists, such as Lorenz, mean by imprinting on a parent-figure?
b) What observations led Bowlby to suggest that imprinting occurs in human infants? That is, what parallels between human infants and other species did he point to?

9.”For children to learn, we must praise their correct responses and correct their mistakes.” Would Montessori agree? Explain.

10.What did Werner mean by “microgenesis” and “microgenetic mobility?” Give examples. Discuss some valuable aspects of these concepts.

11.Piaget’s critics charge that he made development appear too slow. Discuss this criticism with respect to either: a) object permanence, b) conservation training, or c) Kamii’s teaching methods. Then, describe the Piagetian approach.

12. Compare conventional and postconventional morality in Kohlberg’s theory.Assignment: Microgenesis and microgenetic

Measuring change is one of the most fundamental aspects of psychology. Yet most research provides a snapshot of the events surrounding change, without describing the process itself. Take the coverage of development in most introductory textbooks, where a diagram shows a staircase with each upward step representing a more sophisticated level of Piaget’s four stages. This suggests that each transition is abrupt, simple and absolute, with all shifts from one stage to another occurring together. Yet people who have been able to observe the development of an individual child know that change is much more complex and variable than suggested by the staircase metaphor. Indeed, Piaget acknowledged the complexity of change with the concept of ‘horizontal decalage’ – the inconsistency in a child’s performance in which a certain cognitive ability is shown in some, but not all, circumstances.Assignment: Microgenesis and microgenetic Furthermore, recent research has shown that abilities that have been thought to show sudden, abrupt change, actually show gradual and variable change over time (Flynn, in press; Wellman et al., 2001).

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In this article we argue that psychological methods of inquiry that give us more than just a snapshot of the events over time are long overdue. A clear view of change as it is actually happening is provided by the microgenetic method. We describe this approach, provide some examples of its use and reflect upon how its techniques are being used to address key psychological questions.

What is the microgenetic method?

The microgenetic approach examines change as it occurs, thus attempting to identify and explain its underlying mechanisms. It involves taking repeated measurements from the same participants over the course of transition in the domain of interest. This contrasts with the usual, cross-sectional methodological approach, which provides snapshots of different competences displayed in two or more age groups. The cross-sectional approach is useful when these snapshots are taken for a number of people, so that the individual differences between these competences are examined, or when the snapshots for people in different experimental or clinical groups are compared. Yet these cross-sectional approaches do not tell us about how change occurs, or what mechanisms underpin change.

Likewise, longitudinal studies take multiple measurements over time, but such studies usually have lengthy intervals between testing sessions. Their results again indicate that a change has occurred, but shed little light on exactly how this happens. It may be of interest to know, for example, whether the change in behaviour was sudden or gradual, or to identify whether it was preceded by a particular behaviour, or accompanied by the person doing something in particular. Furthermore, conventional cross-sectional and longitudinal studies focus on group data and treat individual variation as statistical noise. Yet, this variation holds important information about when, and how, change is occurring.

The only way to specify the operations of the mechanisms of change is to closely examine the nature of a transition. This is just what the microgenetic method involves. It provides this information by following three critical principles:
l     Observations must span a known period of change.
l     Density of observations must be high in comparison with the rate of the change.
l     Observations are analysed intensively to establish the process that gave rise to them.