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Given the degree to which cognitive abilities change during adolescence, discuss whether it is reasonable to expect adolescents to make serious decisions and choices about career goals and plans. |
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| 2 | |
Discuss all of the ways that adolescents are "smarter" than children. How do these more advanced and efficient ways of thinking affect adolescent behavior, parent–child relationships, peer relationships, and the type of school work they are capable of doing? |
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| 3 | |
Compare and contrast the major theories of cognitive development (e.g., Piaget, information-processing, Sternberg, Vygotsky) and evaluate their utility for understanding real-life experiences of adolescents. |
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| 4 | |
If you were asked to serve on a committee to design a new test of intelligence to replace the traditional IQ test, how would you define intelligence? Would it be defined using the dimensions of verbal and mathematical abilities, or would you include additional dimensions of intelligence as suggested by Sternberg and Gardner? |
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Many students often complain that standardized tests do not measure their true ability and shouldn't be used by schools to evaluate their overall intelligence. Given what psychologists have suggested concerning cognitive development, how could standardized tests be changed to more comprehensively assess cognitive ability? How could these various dimensions of intelligence best be measured? (e.g., interviews, problem solving, performance of actual real-world tasks, etc.). |
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| 6 | |
Given that adolescents are thought to evaluate, value, and prioritize the rewards and consequences of behaviors differently than adults, how might a campaign be designed to communicate the risks of health-compromising behaviors (e.g., drug abuse, unprotected sexual relations, high-speed driving)? What are other ways to reduce adolescent risk taking? |
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| 7 | |
Why are television programs that use sarcasm so popular with adolescents? Explain the changes in thinking that take place during adolescence that allow teenagers to "get" the jokes made in shows such as Family Guy and South Park, whereas younger children do not think that they are funny. |
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| 8 | |
Given what scientists have discovered about brain maturation during adolescence (particularly the changes in the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system), why do you think adolescents might be more likely to engage in risky behaviors than adults? |
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