Learning Goals

A. Piaget's Theory

1.1 What is the nature of Piaget's theory of cognitive processes?

1.2 What is a schema?

1.3 What roles do assimilation and accommodation play in cognitive development?

1.4 What did Piaget mean by equilibration?

1.5 What are names and defining characteristics of Piaget's four stages of cognitive development?

1.6 How does an infant learn about the world in the sensorimotor stage?

1.7 What happens in the preoperational stage?

1.8 What are the characteristics of the concrete operational stage?

1.9 What did Piaget mean by operations?

1.10 What are the characteristics of conservation and classification?

1.11 What are the indicators of the formal operational stage?

1.12 What is hypothetical-deductive reasoning?

1.13 What has been the significance of Piaget's theory for adolescent education?

1.14 What were Piaget's main contributions to understanding cognitive development?

1.15 What are the major criticisms of Piaget's theory?

1.16 What are the distinctions between early formal operational thought and late formal operational thought?

1.17 What principles of Piaget's theory of cognitive development can be applied to education?

1.18 What were Piaget's main contributions, and has the theory withstood the test of time?

1.19 Who are the neo-Piagetians who expanded and modified Piaget's theory?

1.20 How strong is the evidence for a fifth, postformal stage of cognitive development?

A. Vygotsky's Theory

2.1 What were Vygotsky's main contributions to cognitive developmental theory?

2.2 What did Lev Vygotsky mean by the zone of proximal development (ZPD)?

2.3 How do the concepts of scaffolding, cognitive apprenticeship, tutoring, cooperativelearning,and reciprocal teaching contribute to cognitive development and learning?

2.4 Why do we say that Piaget and Vygotsky both were proponents of constructivism?

2.5 What is the difference between a cognitive constructivist approach and a social constructivist approach?

A. Characteristics

3.1 What, according to Robert Siegler, are the three main characteristics of the information processing approach to cognitive development?

3.2 What are the components of thinking, change mechanisms, and self-modification?

B. Attention and Memory

3.3 What are attention and memory and why are they such important adolescent cognitive processes?

3.4 What are the functions of short-term memory and long-term memory?

3.5 Why do many theorists choose to apply the concept of working memory?

3.6 How is long-term memory different from working memory?

C. Decision Making

3.7 What do we know about adolescent decision-making ability?

3.8 How is adolescent decision making different from that of children?

D. Critical Thinking

3.9 What does critical thinking involve?

3.10 What are the adolescent cognitive changes that allow improved critical thinking?

3.11 How does the Jasper Project enhance critical thinking skills?

3.12 What are the two main debates concerning critical thinking and adolescents?

E. Creative Thinking

3.13 What is creativity?

3.14 What is the difference between convergent thinking and divergent thinking?

3.15 What are seven strategies that can help adolescents become more creative?

3.16 What is brainstorming and how does it contribute to creative thinking?

F. Metacognition and Self-Regulatory Learning

3.17 What is metacognition?

3.18 How can adolescents develop better learning strategies?

3.19 What is self-regulatorylearning?

3.20 What are five characteristics of self-regulatory learners?

3.21 How can teachers or parents help students become self-regulatory learners?

A. The Psychometric/Intelligence View

4.1 What does the psychometric/intelligence view emphasize?

4.2 What did Huxley mean when he used the word intelligence?

4.3 What is the traditional definition of intelligence?

B. Intelligence Tests

4.4 What was the first valid intelligence test and why was it developed?

4.5 What was Binet's concept of mental age (MA)?

4.6 What is an intelligence quotient (IQ)?

4.7 What is a normal distribution?

4.8 What are the Wechsler scales and what kind of IQ scores do they yield?

4.9 How are the Wechsler and Stanford-Binet scales similar or different?

C. Theories of Multiple Intelligences

4.10 What was the concept of general intelligence and what are its origins?

4.11 What were Thurstone's seven primary mental abilities?

4.12 What are the components of Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence?

4.13 According to Howard Gardner, what are the eight types of intelligence?

4.14 How are Gardner's and Sternberg's theories different, and how are they the same?

4.15 What are some of the criticisms of Gardner's theory?

D. Emotional Intelligence

4.16 What is emotional intelligence and who is its major proponent?

4.17 According to Goleman's views, what are the four main areas of emotional intelligence?

E. Controversies and Issues in Intelligence

4.18 What are the three main controversies surrounding the topic of intelligence?

4.19 Is nature or nurture more important in determining intelligence?

4.20 Why is intelligence increasing around the globe?

4.21 Are there ethnic differences in intelligence?

4.22 What are the characteristics of culture-fair tests?

4.23 Are intelligence tests culturally biased?

4.24 What are the appropriate uses of intelligence tests? What uses are inappropriate?

A. Adolescent Egocentrism

5.1 What is adolescent egocentrism and what types of thinking does it include?

5.2 What does David Elkind believe brings on adolescent egocentrism?

5.3 What is an imaginary audience?

5.4 What is the personal fable?

B. Perspective Taking

5.5 According to Robert Selman, what are the five stages of perspective taking?

5.6 What is meant by perspective taking and according to Selman, what are its five stages?

C. Implicit Personality Theory

5.7 What is implicit personality theory?

5.8 Do adolescents conceptualize an individual's personality differently than children do?

D. Social Cognition in the Rest of the Text

5.9 What areas of adolescent development have been influenced by the concept of social cognition?