EDPY Unit A

Under which of the three contingencies referenced in question 14 did precourse creativity scores best predict originally of presentations? What is your explanation of this finding?

A non-contingent arrangement was found to have the highest predicted magnitude of creativity. This occurred only when the students received full credit for creativity irrespective of creativity observed in the presentation

Distinguish between the information provided by curriculum-based assessment and curriculum-based measurement. What is the differential value of that information?

Curriculum-based assessment is much more useful in determining students' specific skill deficits in academic areas than intelligence test and standardized achievement tests. On the other hand, curriculum-based measurement determines mastery of multiple skills and skill levels at specified times.

Why would the unusual nature of student responses to a challenging issue be better to judge before judging the relevancy of those responses?

Relevancy is targeted in practical assessments of creativity, causing the distinction between bizarre and relevant novelty difficult to immediately determine. This explains why teachers are advised to first acknowledge unusual responses before attempting to determine their relevancy.

To what degree do tests promote learning in courses? Why is such the case?

Students tend to retain information as well as learn more in a course where tests are given. The combination of studying for a test and actually taking a test produces higher exam performance in addition to higher retention of information learned over several weeks. Multiple-choice tests are ideal for measuring precision of information and thinking, whereas essay tests allow students to display certain knowledge while staying clear of areas where their knowledge is sub par.

Is there an optimal level of critical thinking in promoting test performance? If so, what is that level and why that level?

The optimal level of critical thinking occurs around the 70th percentile. This boosts both the level of exam performance and effort in preparing for exams (however, scoring about the 70th percentile does not enhance exam performance to a significant degree).

Explain the meaning of the following statement in the instructor notes: "With respect to environmental order, student conformity, emphasis on correct answers, and noise level, the relationship between these variables and creativity appears to be curvilinear."

A curvilinear relationship occurs when one variable increases as the other decreases up to a certain point, causing both variables to increase together. This statement is claiming that a rigid classroom structure causes the level of creativity to continually drop, whereas moderation of environmental order, student conformity, emphasis on correct answers, and noise levels can promote creativity (and in the long run a better-structured learning environment).

What type of knowledge base could be most or least conducive to creative thinking?

A knowledge base that is open to additional ideas can provide a fertile foundation for generating additional perspectives of issues. One of the most essential conditions for creative achievements is a knowledge base in an area being investigated by students. The least conducive knowledge base to promote creative thinking is one that consistently requires students to give one right answer.

To what extent would a mechanic and university professor likely differ in their use of concrete versus formal operational thinking?

A mechanic would likely make more use of concrete operational thinking by the use of concrete reversal (determining effects of subtracting/adding dimensions of physical entities), as well as explaining physical relationships between tangible objects/events. A university professor would make more use of formal operational thinking in terms of scientific thinking and knowledge in a specific domain but not necessarily less familiar domains.

Differentiate between the school psychologist's and teacher's role in using scores on curriculum-based assessment and curriculum-base measurement.

A school psychologist might choose to do curriculum-based measurement to determine a student's baseline skills in an academic area. Teachers, on the other hand, can help students progress beyond their current skill levels on curriculum-based assessment areas.

When brainstorming for ideas, the teacher could best use what sequence of group vs. individual brainstorming?

Brainstorming can contribute to a creative classroom climate. Teachers should begin with brainstorming individually, then collectively as a group.

To what extent does research evidence support Piaget's claims regarding the universality and longevity of cognitive development?

Research shows that Piaget's theory of cognitive development is not universally applicable across cultures. Environment influences cognitive development, as well heredity. Despite this, Piaget emphasized that cognitive development never ends as long as one remains mentally alert.

Both rewards and feedback are consequences often combined in promoting creative responses? When they are applied separately, which is more effective in promoting originality of responses?

Rewards promote greater originality and willingness to evaluate one's own work better than feedback for original problem solving.

How are schemes and operations alike and different? Can you have one without the other? Why is one more critical to logical thinking than the other?

Schemes are groups of similar thoughts, actions, and/or physical entities. An operation is a category that groups multiple schemes. Since operations are made up of schemes, you cannot have an operation without schemes. However, it is possible to have schemes but not an operation.

To what extent and in what way does schooling contribute to students' IQ scores?

Schooling contributes to one's IQ score by increasing the breadth and depth of learning experiences. IQ scores are on average 5 points lower for every year of delay in starting school.

Why would small-group collaboration rather than large-group discussion often be more useful in promoting critical thinking skills?

Small-group collaboration is more useful in promoting critical thinking skills because it allows students' peers to address reasoning questions that address issues of concern to the student. 3 Additionally, peer collaboration is more effective than teachers asking strictly factual questions and jumping to conclusions in answering student questions.

Distinguish between the quantitative and qualitative performance feedback provided by standardized achievement tests and curriculum-based assessment.

Standardized achievements tests identify broad areas in which a child's achievement is deficient, but not the specific skills on which the child is deficient. Additionally, they provide little indication of how best to remediate specific skill deficits. Curriculum-based assessments, however, are much more useful in determining students' specific skill deficits in academic areas (due to the breakdown of content into discrete academic skills).

What do GPAs, ACT scores, and 210 grades suggest about the cognitive ability and work habit differences of high and low performing low critical thinkers

Students who have high GPAs and ACT scores are more likely high performing critical thinkers (there will, however, be differences in how individuals perform as critical thinkers). 2 Additionally, high critical thinkers almost always do well in the 210 course while low critical thinkers have the potential to earn As or Bs. This suggests that numerical grades and standardized tests do not define an individuals' cognitive capability while factoring in hard work and dedication.

How well do IQ tests predict achievement test scores, school grades, and adult success?

IQ scores are more strongly correlated with standardized achievement test scores than with any other outcome measure (i.e. composite achievement test scores, achievement subtests). The correlations between IQ scores and school grades vary considerably, and the best way to assess this relationship is to correlate IQ scores with GPA instead. Finally, IQ scores have not been powerful predictors of overall adult success; however, IQ scores of gifted individuals better predicted adult health, happiness, marital success, and professional success (Terman's gifted study, 1916). Additionally, gifted youth often grow up to highly accomplished, earning creative achievements.

What is the major educational utility of IQ testing?

IQ tests are helpful when determining if a child is under-performing academically or has a specific learning disability. Specific learning disabilities are discovered when a child's achievement scores in one area substantially lower than IQ score.

What do IQ tests not measure?

IQ tests do not measure pure innate learning ability or common sense. They also do not measure achievement in domain-specific areas.

What are the major intellectual skills measured by IQ tests?

IQ tests measure the memory of previously learned notions as well as analytical skills that facilitate problem-solving. Some specific intellectual domains measured include general information, arithmetic reasoning, vocabulary, comprehension, and processing speed.

What are major reasons why teachers often teach subject matter rather than critical thinking skills?

In general, teachers would rather avoid an atmosphere of questioning in which students must use both inferential and deductive reasoning (teaching critical skills is also more difficult to teach as well as time-consuming than subject matter). Additionally, standardized tests are likely to emphasize specific subject matter rather than critical thinking skills.

Would a highly creative student be pleasant for a teacher to have in class? Why or why not?

In general, the teacher's need for environmental order, respect for teacher directions, correct answers from students, and low noise level are often at odds with creative student preferences. Some students who are highly creative may be annoying to teachers, simply by questioning the teacher's view, refusing to take no for an answer, being critical of others' ideas, as well as being a nonconformist. However, mutual comfort between teacher and student can be achieved by moderation in all areas.

For information to be useful in critical thinking, the information must meet what three criteria? Why were these criteria singled out in the instructor notes?

In order for information to be useful in critical thinking, it must be derived from independent sources, address all aspects of the problem, and not taken out of context. These criteria were singled out in the instructor notes to understand that not all information is equal if it does not represent the best evidence available regarding a particular issue.

What are the advantages of objective over essay tests and domain specific over generic tests in assessing critical thinking?

Most critical tests are objective rather than essay tests, which allows for easier grading and better understanding of how one has reached a particular conclusion. Additionally, domain specific critical thinking tests are better able to pinpoint exactly where someone is lacking in their critical thinking skills (whereas domain-specific critical thinking assessments only indicate if a person is a good or bad critical thinker).

Major news channels such as CNN often interview college professors in evaluating news stories. Is there any information in this day's notes to indicate that this practice represents good judgment on the part of a news channel?

No; the majority of college professors have arguably high IQ scores, which only measures more generic achievement by questioning general knowledge and vocabulary that most people have presumably encountered in their everyday life. While there is no harm in asking for one's opinion on a news story, it should not be limited to the people who are supposedly at the top of their field.

Why was Piaget's early work on cognitive development considered less scientific than his cognitive research later published in the U.S.?

Piaget developed his basic cognitive notions by observing his own children. These initial observations likely produced bias in his research. His later research included not only experiments by Piaget himself, but his colleagues as well, leading to an unrivaled number of experiments in the history of developmental psychology.

How did Piaget's early training in biological sciences and his work on the development of intelligence tests contribute to his later study of cognitive development?

Piaget's training in biology led him to interpret cognition as an adaptation to the environment. A pivotal notion in his theory is cognitive equilibrium.

Provide evidence of the extent to which Piaget's work in the U.S. affected his reputation in the field of cognitive development.

Piaget's work did not impact United States researchers until the 1950s. His work was viewed as unscientific (his theories came from observing his own children) and difficult to translate/understand. Now, Piaget's theory of cognitive development is the most comprehensive theory to date, and present in almost every developmental text currently on the U.S. market.

Why is preference for accommodation over assimilation listed among creative thinking skills in the Day 3 instructor notes?

Preference for accommodation shows that the child is able to cope with new experiences, as well as providing the fundamental for cognitive growth. If a child heavily relies on assimilation,they are likely unable to comprehend combinations of related schemes (operations).

Explain how reinforcement sharing works in promoting originality in class presentations. How effective was this strategy compared to an individual credit contingency or a non-contingent credit contingency in promoting originality of presentations? How would you explain these results?

Reinforcement sharing contingencies and individual contingencies have produced higher rates of creative presentations than a non-contingent arrangement. Only reinforcement sharing consistently produced high levels of creativity in class presentations by promoting pooling of ideas with the class (prior to each presentation). By sharing one's individual work with peers, students are subjected to constructive criticism while being everyone is recognized with full credit for that student's creativity (prompting more creative responses from other students).

What were the two primary missions of the Common Core?

The Common Core program was designed to promote higher levels of thinking, as well as to establish rigorous educational standards consistent for all states and students.

What is the primary difference between the way domain specific vs. generic creativity is assessed?

The assessment of domain specific creativity (i.e. unusual outcomes of one's work and/or perspectives) is likely to be identified by external judges rather than individually self-reported. The assessment of generic creativity (i.e. one's overall creative thinking) is the opposite; it is more likely to be self-reported than verified by experts in the field.

In what ways do the PowerPoint slides illustrate the benchmark achievement in the sensorimotor stage of development?

The benchmark achievement in the sensorimotor stage of development is the realization of object and person permanence. The PowerPoint slides illustrate this achievement by showing a baby uncovering his toys that have been covered by a blanket (the baby realizes that objects still exist even when they are not visible).

How should the distinction between concrete and formal operational reasoning influence the types of learning experiences that teachers provide students?

The concrete operational stage is distinct from the formal operational stage is terms of application of logic, development of conservation, and scientific thinking. Teachers should provide students in the concrete operational stage with experiences that allow experimentation with physical objects/processes, as well as exploring student's reasoning. Students who are in the formal operational stage should be presented with theoretical scenarios with changing variables, as well as opportunities to defend their reasoning/perspective with their peers (especially those at a higher level of cognitive development).

Why do many students prefer to learn subject matter and correct answers to questions rather learning critical thinking skills?

The majority of students have been schooled to expect simple answers to factual questions, causing them to find the process of answering inferential and deductive questions intimidating. Many students resist content that is intimidating, especially when an being given answers by authority figures represents an easier path to follow in education (as opposed to thinking through reasoning issues for oneself)

Of the contextual comparisons for determining one's level of creativity, which would be the most stringent and which the most realistic contextual comparison?

The most stringent comparisons when judging originality would be ideas coming from the whole of humankind. However, the most realistic comparison for judging a child's current accomplishment would be to examine the child's students' regular work

Explain the historical difference between verbal and performance IQ. Which was the better predictor of full-scale IQ?

Verbal IQ subtests typically consisted of information, similarities, and vocabulary, whereas performance IQ involved picture completion, picture arrangement, and block design. These differences allowed for the verbal score to predict academic achievement in addition to the Full Scale score, and the performance score added to the predictability of full scale IQ.

Of the four dimensions typically used in assessing creativity, what is the unique information provided by each dimension? Which dimension provides the most useful indication of creativity?

When assessing creativity, one must consider the dimensions of fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality. Fluency deals with the number of responses, flexibility refers to the number of different categories of response, elaboration highlights the degree of detail in a response, and originality is closest in meaning to creativity. Therefore, originality is the most important and useful dimension of creativity.

Identify which of Piaget's notions have continuing application in education.

While Piaget does not emphasize any particular instructional approach, his theory underlines the importance of physical and mental activity of children, as well as experiences slightly above the child's current level of cognitive function (promotes cognitive development). Additionally, a child should be exposed to a rich physical and social environment that allows the child to learn naturally.

What should be the relative emphasis on assimilation and accommodation in student thinking across grade levels?

While both assimilation and accommodation are required for cognitive development, accommodation is considered to be more fundamental. Assimilation deals with the perception of a new experience, while accommodation involves expanding one's mental framework to include a more diverse operation.

What is the relative benefit of using critical thinking as a predictor vs. outcome variable in critical thinking research?

While critical thinking has been a moderately strong predictor of performance in courses, it is more difficult to change at the course level. Critical thinking has been the most consistent predictor of exam scores; however, unless an instructional program is designed to directly teach critical thinking skills, individual college courses will likely have little to no impact in improving students' critical thinking skills.

What is the principal distinction between what IQ tests and achievement tests measure? Which provides more useful information about a child's cognitive development in school?

Achievement tests measure more domain-specific achievement that is related to school subjects, whereas IQ tests measure generic achievement as well as general knowledge. Individual IQ tests provide little indication of how to best remediate specific skill deficits determined by achievement tests.

Compared to the IQ scores and grades, how well did students' creativity scores in high school predict outstanding adult accomplishments?

An 18-year follow-study of high school seniors' showed creativity to be the strongest predictor of outstanding adult accomplishments. This correlation between success and creativity allows for more dependable predication of accomplishments than examining IQ scores and grades.

What is the comparative effectiveness of the following three testing conditions: studying just to learn and not taking tests, studying to learn but taking tests, studying for tests and taking tests? Which of these three testing combinations do students most prefer and why?

Arrangements where students study just to learn (not taking tests) show less evidence of learning than students who study for and actually take tests. Students who study as if they are going to be tested does have some benefit, but the combination of studying for a test and actually taking a test produces high exam performance and higher retention. Learning just to learn generates the weakest recall of important information and reasoning strategies. In general, most students prefer an essay-format test, which allows them to study for the test and take the test while steering clear of areas where their understanding is more limited

Overall, explain why you see cognitive stages or invariant functions as having the greater importance in education

Cognitive stages are significant in education because they dictate how far a child can be pushed (cognitively). Consequently, invariant functions play an even greater role in education because they can span not only cognitive stages, but age/grade groups as well.

What are the major instructional features that Common Core STEM have in common?

Common Core requires students to do more than simply memorize information. Students must employ several types of thinking, including critical, creative, complex, comprehensive, collaborative, communicative, and cognitive transfer. STEM overlaps with several of these notions, such as communication and collaboration. Additionally, STEM incorporates reasoning, exploration, understanding of others' views, adaptation of one's own views, and persistence in problem solving.

What do the concrete operational and formal operational stages have in common and what is their principal distinction?

Concrete operational and formal operational stages are similar in terms of logic when explaining physical relationships. Their principal distinction revolves around a child's ability to mentally manipulate concepts and ideas apart from their concrete manifestation.

Compared to IQ, academic achievement, and critical thinking, how difficult is creativity to define and assess?

Creativity is more difficult to define (operationally) than IQ, academic achievement, and critical thinking. This is because creativity is identified rather than defined/described, (there is no certain"image" for creativity) as well as created and observed by individuals.

What is the difference between the type of thinking assessed by creativity and IQ tests?

Creativity makes use of divergent thinking, which measure people's ability to generate alternative or novel ways of responding to cognitive challenges. IQ tests, however, require convergent thinking, or the ability to give correct answers to cognitive demand. Problem solving requires both divergent and convergent thinking, with divergent thinking often preceding convergent.

Describe the different ways that information and conclusions can be conceptually linked in critical thinking.

Critical thinking is the process of reaching defensible conclusions from available and sufficient evidence. Being able to think critically involves the skill of gathering and using information regarding a particular question to determine the most supportable answer to the target question. The quality of evidence and information controls the quality of conclusion to some degree (i.e. poor critical thinkers can reach bad conclusions from good evidence).

What should teachers teach and model to promote critical thinking

Critical thinking should be taught in steps, allowing students to understand the necessity of the order of actions. In order to promote critical thinking, teachers should identify the information needed to solve a reasoning problem, specify how to locate and retrieve said information, and demonstrate how to synthesize that information to address reasoning questions.

Why does heredity better differentiate between children's intellectual skills in an intellectually stimulating than an impoverished environment?

Heredity appears to be a more powerful contributor to intelligence than the environment. While environmental stimulation (i.e. education) impacts IQ scores, children raised in an intellectually stimulating environment are likely to have higher IQ scores, with the similarity to the natural parents' IQ scores increasing with age.

Overall, do hereditary factors or environmental events more strongly contribute to IQ scores? Provide evidence from the Day 2 instructor notes to support your answer.

Heredity factors have proven to be a more powerful contributor to intelligence than environmental events. However, the steady increase in IQ scores over the past few decades can most likely be attributed to environmental factors rather than heredity factors.

High performing and low performing low critical thinkers differ most and in what direction on comparison variables?

High performing low critical thinkers have better performances on course exams, better attendance, better note taking, similar ACT scores, and a much better GPA than low performing low critical thinkers. However, both of these groups remain below high performing high critical thinkers except in terms of attendance and increasing their critical thinking scores throughout the course.

In what ways could the culture in which one has been raised affect one's IQ scores? Achievement test scores

IQ scores are affected by cultural background as well as native intelligence. Because of this, one's culture can affect IQ scores simply because there are no culturally fair intelligence tests that have been developed.

Why is Piaget's second stage of cognitive development identified as preoperational?

The second stage of cognitive development is identified as preoperational because the child has yet to develop operational thinking (problem solving when an event is changing in more than one way).

What were Piaget's views on the timing and sequence of stages in cognitive development?

The sequence of developmental stages is fixed. However, the age schedule for each developmental stage is an approximation and differs between cultures and individuals.

What might be a difference in the ways that an environmentalist and cognitive psychologist would use the term "conservation"?

The term "conservation" would typically be used by an environmentalist to describe mankind's efforts to preserve and promote the growth of the planet (laws against deforestation, reducing air pollution, etc.). A cognitive psychologist would use the term "conservation" when discussing a child who is at the beginning of concrete operational period. Conservation of liquid and number typically occur around ages 6-7, while conservation of weight is realized later (around ages 9-12).

What accounts for the differences in correlations between virtual twins' and natural twins' IQ scores?

There is a small positive correlation between the IQ scores of virtual twins, which is around half the magnitude of correlations for fraternal twins who are reared together (as opposed to the significantly lower correlation when reared apart). However, identical twins that have been reared apart have more similar IQs than fraternal twins reared together.