Free AIOU Solved Assignment Code 671 Spring 2024

Free AIOU Solved Assignment Code 671 Spring 2024

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Course: Educational Psychology (671)
Semester: Spring, 2024
Assignment No.1

Q.l       Educational Psychology evo9lved with the advancement of psychology and education, discuss it with references. Also highlight the historical issues in educational psychology.       

Today’s educational system is highly complex. There is no single learning approach that works for everyone.

That’s why psychologists working in the field of education are focused on identifying and studying learning methods to better understand how people absorb and retain new information.

Educational psychologists apply theories of human development to understand individual learning and inform the instructional process. While interaction with teachers and students in school settings is an important part of their work, it isn’t the only facet of the job. Learning is a lifelong endeavor. People don’t only learn at school, they learn at work, in social situations and even doing simple tasks like household chores or running errands. Psychologists working in this subfield examine how people learn in a variety of settings to identify approaches and strategies to make learning more effective.

Psychologists working in education study the social, emotional and cognitive processes involved in learning and apply their findings to improve the learning process. Some specialize in the educational development of a specific group of people such as children, adolescents or adults, while others focus on specific learning challenges such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or dyslexia.

No matter the population they are studying, these professionals are interested in teaching methods, the instructional process and different learning outcomes.

How much does the time of day when new information is introduced influence whether a person retains that information? What does culture have to do with how we process new ideas? How does age affect our ability to develop new skills, like language? How is in-person learning different from remote learning using technology? How does the choice of a media platform make a difference in learning?

These are all questions that educational psychologists are asking — and answering — in settings as diverse as government research centers, schools, community organizations and learning centers.

Today’s educational philosophies are based heavily in educational psychology. Educational psychologists study human development to understand how people learn. There are many different learning styles that impact a person’s ability to learn new information, focus on tasks and retain knowledge. The continued study of educational psychology is critical for creating teaching methods that support a diverse population of learners. Teachers can benefit from a foundation in educational psychology, as it enables them to understand “why” and “how” their students respond to the classroom environment the way they do. Such a foundation also prepares teachers with enhanced knowledge of specific teaching methods and educational material.

Educational psychology is rooted in the fact that all learners are unique and that students have different abilities and educational needs. To maximize each student’s academic potential, schools must present classroom material in a number of different ways to create each student’s optimal learning environment. This is especially true in special education classrooms, where students may struggle with physical or cognitive disabilities. Teachers who understand psychology can present students with a variety of learning tools to minimize gaps created by disabilities.

When special education teachers understand educational psychology, they know how to create a learning environment that feels safe to each student. Because noise, light or other children can easily overstimulate special needs children, the learning environment becomes an important part of their learning experience. When teachers understand the cognitive and physical characteristics of their students’ abilities and disabilities, they are better able to reduce distractions and triggers in the classroom.

Teaching special education is an opportunity to support a child’s health and success in school and beyond. It is important for special needs students to learn how to function socially, emotionally and behaviorally. Special education teachers with foundations in educational psychology become strong advocates for their students, and they commonly refer students to and connect students with resources that support their growth. For example, some special needs students may benefit from specific interventions, such as occupational therapy, speech therapy, counseling, art therapy or physical therapy.

The study of educational psychology has been critical in the development of assistive technologies for special needs students. These technologies support a diverse population of learners at home and in school. Through the use of computers, various tools can compensate for specific cognitive or physical disabilities. For example, children with dyslexia benefit from programs that read text out loud or that record audio for them to listen to repeatedly. The emergence of such technology has had measurable benefits for the special needs community and those working in schools to support them.

Candidates who earn an online master’s in special education graduate with advanced knowledge about the intersection of educational psychology and special education — as well as the “how” and “why” of human development and learning. In order to support the academic and personal lives of special needs students, as well as their future careers, it is essential that teachers find the right teaching tools, create the right learning environment, and connect special needs students with the right support.

Educational psychologists study learners and learning contexts — both within and beyond traditional classrooms — and evaluate ways in which factors such as age, culture, gender, and physical and social environments influence human learning. They leverage educational theory and practice based on the latest research related to human development to understand the emotional, cognitive, and social aspects of human learning.

Educational psychology can influence programs, curricula, and lesson development, as well as classroom management approaches. For example, educators can use concepts from educational psychology to understand and address the ways rapidly changing technologies both help and harm their students’ learning. In addition, educational psychologists play an important role in educating teachers, parents, and administrators about best practices for learners who struggle with conventional education methods.

As psychologists, these professionals often work directly with children — and in collaboration with parents and teachers — to improve a child’s learning outcomes. However, educational psychologists can also pursue careers as researchers, consultants, and teachers in a variety of contexts, including schools, community organizations, government research centers, and learning centers.

Behaviorist learning theories first emerged in the late 19th century from the work of Edward Thorndike and Ivan Pavlov. They were popularized during the first half of the 20th century through the work of John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner, and others.

Behaviorism defines learning as observable behavioral change that occurs in response to environmental stimuli. Positive stimuli — or “rewards” — create positive associations between the reward and a given behavior; these associations prompt one to repeat that behavior. Meanwhile, negative stimuli — or “punishments” — discourage the behaviors associated with those stimuli. Through this process of conditioning, people learn to either repeat or avoid behaviors.

Because early behaviorists tried to legitimize psychology as a science, their theories emphasized external, scientifically measurable behavioral changes in response to similarly measurable stimuli.

Although they admit that thought and emotion influence learning, behaviorists either dismiss these factors as phenomena beyond the realm of scientific inquiry (methodological behaviorism) or convert internal factors into behavioral terms (neobehaviorism/radical behaviorism).

Assuming that changes in behavior signify learning, methodological behaviorists see no fundamental difference between human and animal learning processes, and they often conduct comparative research on animals.

Behaviorism relies on the prediction or analysis of behavior based on causal stimuli, while education uses the process of positive and negative reinforcement to encourage or discourage behaviors. This school of thought emphasizes behavior’s learned causes over its biological one; therefore, behaviorism deeply values the ability of education to shape individuals.

Behaviorist learning theory distinguishes between classical and operative conditioning. The former involves natural responses to environmental stimuli, while the latter involves the reinforcement of a response to stimuli. Using a process often called “programmatic instruction,” educators use operative conditioning to reinforce positive and correct negative learnings that often accompany classical conditioning.

Behaviorist theories ascribe to a reductionist approach, which dictates that breaking behavior down into parts is the best way to understand it. Other schools of thought critique behaviorism for underemphasizing biological and unconscious factors, denying free will, equating humans with animals, and overlooking internal learning processes or types of learning that occur without reinforcement.

Writings of European philosophers and reformers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827), Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841), and Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (1782–1852) stressed the value of activity, prior experience, and interest. All these ideas are consistent with current work in educational psychology.

Psychology and key ideas in education. Developments in education continued to be closely tied to psychologists in the first half of the twentieth century. In fact, in 1919, Ellwood Cubberly dubbed educational psychology a “guiding science of the school” (p. 755). It was not uncommon for psychologists such as Thorndike, Charles H. Judd, or their students to be both presidents of the American Psychological Association and authors of materials for teaching school subjects or measuring achievement in reading, mathematics, or even handwriting. The work of Thorndike, Alfred BinetJean Piaget, and Benjamin Bloom illustrate earlier connections between psychology and education.

Thorndike, teaching, and transfer. Although Thorndike is most well known in psychology for his research on learning that paved the way for B. F. Skinner’s later studies of operant conditioning, his impact in education went beyond his studies of learning. He developed methods for teaching reading and arithmetic that were widely adopted, as well as scales to measure ability in reading, arithmetic, handwriting, drawing, spelling, and English composition. He supported the scientific movement in education–an effort to base teaching practice on empirical evidence and sound measurement. His view proved narrow as he sought laws of learning in laboratories that could be applied to teaching without actually evaluating the applications in real classrooms. It took fifty years to return to the psychological study of learning in the classroom, when the Soviet Union‘s successful launch of Sputnik in 1957 startled the United States and precipitated funding for basic and applied research on teaching and learning. Thorndike also had a lasting effect on education by demonstrating that learning Greek, Latin, and mathematics did not “exercise the mind” to improve general thinking abilities. Partly because of his research, required study of the classics decreased.

Binet and assessments of intelligence. About the time that Thorndike was developing measures of reading and arithmetic abilities, Alfred Binet was working on the assessment of intelligence in France. Binet, a psychologist and political activist in Paris in the early 1900s, was charged with developing a procedure for identifying students who would need special education classes. He believed that having an objective measure of learning ability could protect students of poor families who might be forced to leave school because they were assumed to be slow learners. Binet and his collaborator Théodore Simon identified fifty-eight tests, several for each age group from three to thirteen, that allowed the examiner to determine a mental age for a child. A child who succeeded on the items passed by most six-year-olds, for example, was considered to have a mental age of six, whether the child was actually four, six, or eight years old. The concept of intelligence quotient, or IQ, was added after Binet’s procedure was brought to the United States and revised at Stanford University to become the Stanford-Binet test. The early Stanford-Binet has been revised four times as of 2002, most recently in 1986. The success of the Stanford-Binet has led to the development of several other modern intelligence tests.

Piaget and the development of thinking. As a new Ph.D. working in Binet’s laboratory, Jean Piaget became intrigued with children’s wrong answers to Binet’s tasks. Over the next several decades, Piaget devised a model to describe the thinking behind these wrong answers and to explain how humans gather and organize information. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is based on the assumption that people try to make sense of the world and actively create their knowledge through direct experience with objects, people, and ideas. Maturation, activity, social interaction, and equilibration (the constant testing of the adequacy of understanding) influence the way thinking and knowledge develop. Piaget believed that young people pass through four stages in their cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete-operational, and formal-operational. Piaget’s theory transformed education in mathematics and science and is still a force in the early twenty-first century in constructivist approaches to teaching.

Bloom and the goals of instruction. Also during the 1950s and 1960s, results of a project directed by Benjamin Bloom touched education at all levels around the world. Bloom and his colleagues developed a taxonomy, or classification system, of educational objectives. Objectives were divided into three domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. A handbook describing the objectives in each area was eventually published. These taxonomies have been included in hundreds of books and articles about teaching and testing. Teachers, test developers, and curriculum designers use the taxonomies to develop instructional objectives and test questions. It would be difficult to find an educator trained in the past thirty years who had not heard of Bloom’s taxonomy in some form. The cognitive domain taxonomy was revised in 2001 by Lorin W. Anderson and David R. Krathwohl.

Moving toward contemporary educational psychology. In the 1960s a number of educational psychologists developed approaches to teaching that foreshadowed some of the contemporary applications and arguments. Jerome Bruner’s early research on thinking stirred his interest in education. Bruner’s work emphasized the importance of understanding the structure of a subject being studied, the need for active learning as the basis for true understanding, and the value of inductive reasoning in learning. Bruner believed students must actively identify key principles for themselves rather than relying on teachers’ explanations. Teachers should provide problem situations stimulating students to question, explore, and experiment–a process called discovery learning. Thus, Bruner believed that classroom learning should take place through inductive reasoning, that is, by using specific examples to formulate a general principle.

David Ausubel disagreed. He believed that people acquire knowledge primarily through reception rather than discovery; thus learning should progress not inductively from examples to rules as Bruner recommended, but deductively: from the general to the specific, or from the rule to examples. Ausubel’s strategy always began with an advance organizer–a technique still popular in the twenty-first century–which is a kind of conceptual bridge between new material and students’ current knowledge.

AIOU Solved Assignment Code 671 Spring 2024

Q.2      Discuss the basic qualities in home enable a pre-school special need child to achieve his/her best. Also analyzes it with main points of Illingworth emphasized for the special need child for his/her development in his/her environment.

In infancy, toddlerhood, and early childhood, the body’s physical development is rapid ([link]). On average, newborns weigh between 5 and 10 pounds, and a newborn’s weight typically doubles in six months and triples in one year. By 2 years old the weight will have quadrupled, so we can expect that a 2 year old should weigh between 20 and 40 pounds. The average length of a newborn is 19.5 inches, increasing to 29.5 inches by 12 months and 34.4 inches by 2 years old (WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study Group, 2006).

Children experience rapid physical changes through infancy and early childhood. (credit “left”: modification of work by Kerry Ceszyk; credit “middle-left”: modification of work by Kristi Fausel; credit “middle-right”: modification of work by “devinf”/Flickr; credit “right”: modification of work by Rose Spielman)

During infancy and childhood, growth does not occur at a steady rate (Carel, Lahlou, Roger, & Chaussain, 2004). Growth slows between 4 and 6 years old: During this time children gain 5–7 pounds and grow about 2–3 inches per year. Once girls reach 8–9 years old, their growth rate outpaces that of boys due to a pubertal growth spurt. This growth spurt continues until around 12 years old, coinciding with the start of the menstrual cycle. By 10 years old, the average girl weighs 88 pounds, and the average boy weighs 85 pounds.

We are born with all of the brain cells that we will ever have—about 100–200 billion neurons (nerve cells) whose function is to store and transmit information (Huttenlocher & Dabholkar, 1997). However, the nervous system continues to grow and develop. Each neural pathway forms thousands of new connections during infancy and toddlerhood. This period of rapid neural growth is called blooming. Neural pathways continue to develop through puberty. The blooming period of neural growth is then followed by a period of pruning, where neural connections are reduced. It is thought that pruning causes the brain to function more efficiently, allowing for mastery of more complex skills (Hutchinson, 2011). Blooming occurs during the first few years of life, and pruning continues through childhood and into adolescence in various areas of the brain.

The size of our brains increases rapidly. For example, the brain of a 2-year-old is 55% of its adult size, and by 6 years old the brain is about 90% of its adult size (Tanner, 1978). During early childhood (ages 3–6), the frontal lobes grow rapidly. Recalling our discussion of the 4 lobes of the brain earlier in this book, the frontal lobes are associated with planning, reasoning, memory, and impulse control. Therefore, by the time children reach school age, they are developmentally capable of controlling their attention and behavior. Through the elementary school years, the frontal, temporal, occipital, and parietal lobes all grow in size. The brain growth spurts experienced in childhood tend to follow Piaget’s sequence of cognitive development, so that significant changes in neural functioning account for cognitive advances (Kolb & Whishaw, 2009; Overman, Bachevalier, Turner, & Peuster, 1992).

Motor development occurs in an orderly sequence as infants move from reflexive reactions (e.g., sucking and rooting) to more advanced motor functioning. For instance, babies first learn to hold their heads up, then to sit with assistance, and then to sit unassisted, followed later by crawling and then walking.

Motor skills refer to our ability to move our bodies and manipulate objects. Fine motor skills focus on the muscles in our fingers, toes, and eyes, and enable coordination of small actions (e.g., grasping a toy, writing with a pencil, and using a spoon). Gross motor skills focus on large muscle groups that control our arms and legs and involve larger movements (e.g., balancing, running, and jumping).

As motor skills develop, there are certain developmental milestones that young children should achieve ([link]). For each milestone there is an average age, as well as a range of ages in which the milestone should be reached. An example of a developmental milestone is sitting. On average, most babies sit alone at 7 months old. Sitting involves both coordination and muscle strength, and 90% of babies achieve this milestone between 5 and 9 months old. In another example, babies on average are able to hold up their head at 6 weeks old, and 90% of babies achieve this between 3 weeks and 4 months old. If a baby is not holding up his head by 4 months old, he is showing a delay. If the child is displaying delays on several milestones, that is reason for concern, and the parent or caregiver should discuss this with the child’s pediatrician. Some developmental delays can be identified and addressed through early intervention.

Age (years) Physical Personal/Social Language Cognitive
2 Kicks a ball; walks up and down stairs Plays alongside other children; copies adults Points to objects when named; puts 2–4 words together in a sentence Sorts shapes and colors; follows 2-step instructions
3 Climbs and runs; pedals tricycle Takes turns; expresses many emotions; dresses self Names familiar things; uses pronouns Plays make believe; works toys with parts (levers, handles)
4 Catches balls; uses scissors Prefers social play to solo play; knows likes and interests Knows songs and rhymes by memory Names colors and numbers; begins writing letters
5 Hops and swings; uses fork and spoon Distinguishes real from pretend; likes to please friends Speaks clearly; uses full sentences Counts to 10 or higher; prints some letters and copies basic shapes
Developmental Milestones, Ages 2–5 Years

Cognitive Development

In addition to rapid physical growth, young children also exhibit significant development of their cognitive abilities. Piaget thought that children’s ability to understand objects—such as learning that a rattle makes a noise when shaken—was a cognitive skill that develops slowly as a child matures and interacts with the environment. Today, developmental psychologists think Piaget was incorrect. Researchers have found that even very young children understand objects and how they work long before they have experience with those objects (Baillargeon, 1987; Baillargeon, Li, Gertner, & Wu, 2011). For example, children as young as 3 months old demonstrated knowledge of the properties of objects that they had only viewed and did not have prior experience with them. In one study, 3-month-old infants were shown a truck rolling down a track and behind a screen. The box, which appeared solid but was actually hollow, was placed next to the track. The truck rolled past the box as would be expected. Then the box was placed on the track to block the path of the truck. When the truck was rolled down the track this time, it continued unimpeded. The infants spent significantly more time looking at this impossible event ([link]). Baillargeon (1987) concluded that they knew solid objects cannot pass through each other. Baillargeon’s findings suggest that very young children have an understanding of objects and how they work, which Piaget (1954) would have said is beyond their cognitive abilities due to their limited experiences in the world.

Just as there are physical milestones that we expect children to reach, there are also cognitive milestones. It is helpful to be aware of these milestones as children gain new abilities to think, problem solve, and communicate. For example, infants shake their head “no” around 6–9 months, and they respond to verbal requests to do things like “wave bye-bye” or “blow a kiss” around 9–12 months. Remember Piaget’s ideas about object permanence? We can expect children to grasp the concept that objects continue to exist even when they are not in sight by around 8 months old. Because toddlers (i.e., 12–25 months old) have mastered object permanence, they enjoy games like hide and seek, and they realize that when someone leaves the room they will come back (Loop, 2013). Toddlers also point to pictures in books and look in appropriate places when you ask them to find objects.

Preschool-age children (i.e., 3–5 years old) also make steady progress in cognitive development. Not only can they count, name colors, and tell you their name and age, but they can also make some decisions on their own, such as choosing an outfit to wear. Preschool-age children understand basic time concepts and sequencing (e.g., before and after), and they can predict what will happen next in a story. They also begin to enjoy the use of humor in stories. Because they can think symbolically, they enjoy pretend play and inventing elaborate characters and scenarios. One of the most common examples of their cognitive growth is their blossoming curiosity. Preschool-age children love to ask “Why?”

An important cognitive change occurs in children this age. Recall that Piaget described 2–3 year olds as egocentric, meaning that they do not have an awareness of others’ points of view. Between 3 and 5 years old, children come to understand that people have thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that are different from their own. This is known as theory-of-mind (TOM). Children can use this skill to tease others, persuade their parents to purchase a candy bar, or understand why a sibling might be angry. When children develop TOM, they can recognize that others have false beliefs (Dennett, 1987; Callaghan et al., 2005).

Cognitive skills continue to expand in middle and late childhood (6–11 years old). Thought processes become more logical and organized when dealing with concrete information ([link]). Children at this age understand concepts such as the past, present, and future, giving them the ability to plan and work toward goals. Additionally, they can process complex ideas such as addition and subtraction and cause-and-effect relationships. However, children’s attention spans tend to be very limited until they are around 11 years old. After that point, it begins to improve through adulthood.

One well-researched aspect of cognitive development is language acquisition. As mentioned earlier, the order in which children learn language structures is consistent across children and cultures (Hatch, 1983). You’ve also learned that some psychological researchers have proposed that children possess a biological predisposition for language acquisition.

Starting before birth, babies begin to develop language and communication skills. At birth, babies apparently recognize their mother’s voice and can discriminate between the language(s) spoken by their mothers and foreign languages, and they show preferences for faces that are moving in synchrony with audible language (Blossom & Morgan, 2006; Pickens, 1994; Spelke & Cortelyou, 1981).

Children communicate information through gesturing long before they speak, and there is some evidence that gesture usage predicts subsequent language development (Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005). In terms of producing spoken language, babies begin to coo almost immediately. Cooing is a one-syllable combination of a consonant and a vowel sound (e.g., coo or ba). Interestingly, babies replicate sounds from their own languages. A baby whose parents speak French will coo in a different tone than a baby whose parents speak Spanish or Urdu. After cooing, the baby starts to babble. Babbling begins with repeating a syllable, such as ma-ma, da-da, or ba-ba. When a baby is about 12 months old, we expect her to say her first word for meaning, and to start combining words for meaning at about 18 months.

At about 2 years old, a toddler uses between 50 and 200 words; by 3 years old they have a vocabulary of up to 1,000 words and can speak in sentences. During the early childhood years, children’s vocabulary increases at a rapid pace. This is sometimes referred to as the “vocabulary spurt” and has been claimed to involve an expansion in vocabulary at a rate of 10–20 new words per week. Recent research may indicate that while some children experience these spurts, it is far from universal (as discussed in Ganger & Brent, 2004). It has been estimated that, 5 year olds understand about 6,000 words, speak 2,000 words, and can define words and question their meanings. They can rhyme and name the days of the week. Seven year olds speak fluently and use slang and clichés (Stork & Widdowson, 1974).

What accounts for such dramatic language learning by children? Behaviorist B. F. Skinner thought that we learn language in response to reinforcement or feedback, such as through parental approval or through being understood. For example, when a two-year-old child asks for juice, he might say, “me juice,” to which his mother might respond by giving him a cup of apple juice. Noam Chomsky (1957) criticized Skinner’s theory and proposed that we are all born with an innate capacity to learn language. Chomsky called this mechanism a language acquisition device (LAD). Who is correct? Both Chomsky and Skinner are right. Remember that we are a product of both nature and nurture. Researchers now believe that language acquisition is partially inborn and partially learned through our interactions with our linguistic environment (Gleitman & Newport, 1995; Stork & Widdowson, 1974).

AIOU Solved Assignment 1 Code 671 Spring 2024

Q.3      Differentiate between cognitive equilibrium and disequilibrium. Discuss the organization with reference to Piaget theory and how do children organize their experiences. Support your answer with examples.                                   

Cognitive equilibrium, a state of balance between individuals’ mental schemata, or frameworks, and their environment. Such balance occurs when their expectations, based on prior knowledge, fit with new knowledge. The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget used the concept of equilibrium to describe one of four critical factors in cognitive development, the others being maturation, physical environment, and social interaction. Piaget conceived equilibration as an ongoing process that refines and transforms mental structures, constituting the basis of cognitive development. More equilibration tends to occur as an individual is transitioning from one major developmental stage to the next.

Equilibration also explains an individual’s motivation for development. Individuals naturally seek equilibrium because disequilibrium, which is a mismatch between one’s way of thinking and one’s environment, is inherently dissatisfying. When individuals encounter new discrepant information, they enter into a state of disequilibrium. In order to return to a state of equilibrium, individuals can ignore the information or attempt to manage it. One option for managing discrepant information is called assimilation, and the other option is called accommodation.

Assimilation is the process of modifying discrepant information so that it matches current schemata. For example, a child visiting a petting zoo may encounter a pony for the first time. The child recognizes some of the features of the animal, so the “dog” schema is activated and the child says, “Dog!” As a second example, a student who knows that the area of a rectangle is equal to the length multiplied by the width may attempt to calculate the area of a triangle by multiplying two sides together. In each example, the individual’s assimilations lead to error. However, errors do not always follow assimilations. A child who says “Dog!” upon seeing a poodle for the first time or a student who applies the formula for the area of a rectangle in order to calculate the area of a parallelogram would be assimilating the new information without error. Erroneous or not, assimilation does not produce cognitive change (which Piaget considered the source of development), because the schemata are unchanged.

Cognitive change, and thus cognitive development, can be achieved only through accommodation. Accommodation is the process of modifying current schemata so that they match discrepant information. For instance, in the previous example of the child at the petting zoo, the child’s caretaker might have said, “No, that’s not a dog; that’s a pony.” In this case, the child’s old schema did not work, so the child must reevaluate the “dog” schema. To do so, the child must determine whether the “dog” and “pony” schemata might both fall under a larger “four-legged animal” schema, whether they can both exist separately from each other, and which characteristics differentiate two animals. The child’s slightly modified “four-legged animal” schema is now less vulnerable to disequilibrium due to discrepant information and is therefore more stable. While cognitive equilibration is an ongoing process that utilizes the dual processes of assimilation and accommodation, there are certain instances in which one of the equilibration processes is more likely to occur than the other. Accommodation is more likely to occur when new information only slightly diverges from current schemata and when an individual is transitioning from one developmental stage to the next. Assimilation is more likely to occur when new information is vastly divergent from current schemata and as a precursor to accommodation. When new information matches existing schemata exactly, the individual remains in a state of equilibrium. It is this state of equilibrium that creates the basis for the disequilibrium and accommodation that propels individuals to subsequent developmental stages and higher levels of adaptability.

Disequilibrium, then, refers to our inability to fit new information into our schema. When you come across information or experiences that do not fit into your current knowledge base, this is where disequilibrium begins. What if you encounter an animal that walks like a duck and acts like a duck, but it has a long, furry tail? You know that ducks have beaks and webbed feet, but the furry tail throws you for a loop. This is where disequilibrium sets in because this new thing does not fit into what you already know about ducks.

AIOU Solved Assignment 2 Code 671 Spring 2024

Q.4      Do you think, imitation and identification are same or different, support your point of view with references and examples. Also discuss the persuasion and punishment in reference to child growth.  

Teachers in schools and parents in homes use punishment as one of the most important tool for controlling student’s behavior and discipline. Form the psychological point of view, punishment is defined to as anything that decreases the occurrence of a behavior; physical pain, withdraw of attention, loss of tangibles or activities, a reprimand or even something others would find rewarding, but the particular individual does not like (Lefton, 2002; Kosslyn & Rosenberg, 2002). One of the main goals of punishment is to invoke fear in the student, so that the behavior does not occur again. In the school, teachers punish students for being late to school, for not following the school rules, for not doing classroom assignment and for failure to perform better in tests and examinations and the like (URT, 2006). The kind of punishment given in response to these behaviors includes, caning the child, giving them physical labour such as watering school gardens, farming, kneeling on concrete stones, walking on knees , doing push-ups in the sun and carrying several buckets of sand (TEN/Met, 2008). School is not the only place where children get punished. At home they are also beaten by their parents when they do not go to school, stealing and the like. Children at home are punished by their parents through food denial, burning hands with fire for stealing and being chased away from home to go to sleep in the bush (URT, 2006).

Despite the fact that, punishment seems to be an appropriate technique to control behavior and student disciplines, the UN Convention on the Right of the Child recognized that, corporal punishment employed by teachers and parents in schools and homes seems to be ineffective, dangerous and unacceptable method of discipline as it brings negative rather than positive impacts to learners (Murphy & Vagins, 2010). Due to these impacts, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child declared corporal punishment to be banned. The Article 28 (2) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the child (1989) states the need to ensure that school discipline is administered in a manner that is consistent with the child human dignity and in conformity with this Convention. Thus, severe punishment in this regard is acknowledged to be beyond violation of the fundamental rights to the child as it may cause pain, injury, humiliation, anxiety and anger that could have long term psychological effects (TEN/MET, 2008).

Due to this fact, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the monitoring body of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child have emphasized that, human rights requires the elimination of all corporal punishment however light and other cruel or degrading punishment. In response to this Convention, several countries have declared themselves to abolish corporal punishment in schools. Despite the changes in the rules related to corporal punishment, the practice of corporal punishment is still common in Tanzanian schools whereby pupils are beaten, kicked, slapped, thrown against the wall and humiliated (URT, 2006). This situation brings a lot of negative impacts to child learning and general mental health.

Types of Punishment

There are two main types of punishment, the positive and negative punishment (Feldman, 2005; Lefton, 2002; Kosslyn & Rossenberg, 2002). Positive punishment refers to the punishment which decreases the probability of behavior recurring by administering aversive stimulus. In this kind of punishment the occurrence of behavior is followed by the presentation of an aversive stimulus and as a result the behavior is less likely to occur in the future. An example of positive punishment is slapping. Slapping is considered to be positive punishment because it involves infliction of pain so as to teach the child not to misbehave. On the other hand, negative punishment refers to the punishment which decreases the probability of behavior to occur by removing a pleasurable stimulus. That means, the occurrence of behavior is followed by the removal of a reinforcing stimulus and as a result the behavior is less likely to occur in the future (Coon, 2001). An example of negative punishment is when a teacher removes a child from the class because she/he is misbehaving or when a parent forbids a child to watch a television when he/she gets poor grade in the school.

Different people like teachers, parents and other educators have different views regarding to the punishment. There are those who support and those who oppose the use of punishment particularly corporal punishment.

Those who support the use of punishment believe that if children are not punished, they will develop into unmanageable and uncontrollable citizens. In the large classrooms for example, punishment is seen by teachers as proper way to deal with discipline when they find it difficulty in maintaining silence and instructions (Gershoff, 2002). In this context, teachers have the belief that, without the use physical punishment students will not keep silence and concentrate on learning. Furthermore, some parents feel that they, themselves receive punishment and therefore schools should continue with this style of disciplining (Cicognani, 2004). In South Asia, Kenya and Botswana, punishment is often considered necessary to children’s upbringing, to facilitate learning and to instill discipline. To some countries like Australia, teachers are unhappy about the ban of corporal punishment and fear that it will result in students becoming more aggressive (ibid).

People who oppose the use of corporal punishment view the harmful effects of punishment (physical punishment) as not only lasting in childhood, but often well into adult hood. They also believe that, punishment de-humanizes the children, violates children’s right to equal protection under the law and have negative rather than positive consequences to children. They generally believe that, punishment makes children worthless, scared and ashamed, increase child aggression, increase antisocial behavior, lower intellectual achievements and it can lead into mental health problems (Gazzaniga, 2003; Bootzin et al., 1986; Martin et al., 2000). Therefore, those people advocate and support the campaign towards the abolition of corporal punishment. Some countries persuade their parliamentians to adopt the legal and support measures needed to abolish all corporal punishment. Physical punishment of children in school is now banned in (108 nations) more than half of the countries of the world (Global Initiatives to End all corporal punishment of children, 2009)

AIOU Solved Assignment Code 671 Autumn 2024

Q.5      What do you understand by “inner light”, “superego” and “internalized policeman” and how are they developed?                                

Conscience, a personal sense of the moral content of one’s own conduct, intentions, or character with regard to a feeling of obligation to do right or be good. Conscience, usually informed by acculturation and instruction, is thus generally understood to give intuitively authoritative judgments regarding the moral quality of single actions.

Historically, almost every culture has recognized the existence of such a faculty. Ancient Egyptians, for example, were urged not to transgress against the dictates of the heart, for one “must stand in fear of departing from its guidance.” In some belief systems, conscience is regarded as the voice of God and therefore a completely reliable guide of conduct: among the Hindus it is considered “the invisible God who dwells within us.” Among Western religious groups, the Society of Friends (or Quakers) places particular emphasis on the role of conscience in apprehending and responding through conduct to the “Inner Light” of God.

Outside the context of religion, philosophers, social scientists, and psychologists have sought to understand conscience in both its individual and universal aspects. The view that holds conscience to be an innate, intuitive faculty determining the perception of right and wrong is called intuitionism. The view that holds conscience to be a cumulative and subjective inference from past experience giving direction to future conduct is called empiricism. The behavioral scientist, on the other hand, may view the conscience as a set of learned responses to particular social stimuli. Another explanation of conscience was put forth in the 20th century by Sigmund Freud in his postulation of the superego. According to Freud, the superego is a major element of personality that is formed by the child’s incorporation of moral values through parental approval or punishment. The resulting internalized set of prohibitions, condemnations, and inhibitions is that part of the superego known as conscience. Conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual’s moral philosophy or value system. Conscience stands in contrast to elicited emotion or thought due to associations based on immediate sensory perceptions and reflexive responses, as in sympathetic central nervous system responses. In common terms, conscience is often described as leading to feelings of remorse when a person commits an act that conflicts with their moral values. An individual’s moral values and their dissonance with familial, social, cultural and historical interpretations of moral philosophy are considered in the examination of cultural relativity in both the practice and study of psychology. The extent to which conscience informs moral judgment before an action and whether such moral judgments are or should be based on reason has occasioned debate through much of modern history between theories of modern[clarification needed] in juxtaposition to the theories of romanticism and other reactionary movements after the end of the Middle Ages.

Religious views of conscience usually see it as linked to a morality inherent in all humans, to a beneficent universe and/or to divinity. The diverse ritualistic, mythical, doctrinal, legal, institutional and material features of religion may not necessarily cohere with experiential, emotive, spiritual or contemplative considerations about the origin and operation of conscience.[1] Common secular or scientific views regard the capacity for conscience as probably genetically determined, with its subject probably learned or imprinted as part of a culture.[2]

Commonly used metaphors for conscience include the “voice within”, the “inner light”,[3] or even Socrates’ reliance on what the Greeks called his “daimōnic sign”, an averting (ἀποτρεπτικός apotreptikos) inner voice heard only when he was about to make a mistake. Conscience, as is detailed in sections below, is a concept in national and international law,[4] is increasingly conceived of as applying to the world as a whole,[5] has motivated numerous notable acts for the public good[6] and been the subject of many prominent examples of literature, music and film.

References

Arif, M.S & Rafi, M.S. (2007). Effects of Corporal Punishment and Psychological Treatment on Students Learning and Behavior. Journal of Theory and Practice in Education 3(2), 171-180

Bandura , A. (1973). “A social learning analysis” New Delhi: Prentice- Hall

Bernstein, D.A & Nash, P.W. (2002). Essentials for psychology (2nd ed). Boston; Houghton Mifflin Company.

Bootzin, R.R., Bower, G.H., Zajonc, R.B., & Hall, E. (1986). Psychology today” an introduction (6th ed).New York: McGraw-Hill publishers

Cicognani, L. (2004)To Punish Or Discipline? Teacher’s Attitudes towards the Abolition of Corporal Punishment.Johannesburg

Coon ,D. (2001). Introduction to Psychology: Gate Ways to Mind and Behavior (9th Ed).London: Wadsworth.

Feldman, R. (2005). Essentials of Understanding Psychology (6th Ed. New York: Mcgraw Hill Companies, Inc

Gazzaniga, M.S. (2003). Psychological Science: Mind Brain and Behavior. New York: W.W Norton and Company.

 

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