Your best friend is the father of a 4-year-old. Your friend believes that early childhood education programs should stick to academic instruction. He is opposed to child-directed programs, believing that children have time to play at home, and school should be devoted to learning academic skills. What advice would you give your friend, and why?
What will be an ideal response?
Answers may vary slightly. The father should reconsider his choice. Research indicates that in preschool programs where academic instruction is heavily and rigidly emphasized through worksheets and teacher-directed lessons, children often show signs of distress such as rocking, have less confidence in their skills, and avoid challenging tasks--findings that are not evident in programs that emphasize more active forms of play-based learning. Moreover, academically oriented preschool programs that emphasize academics over self-directed exploration negatively influence motivation and learning. The father should look for a program in which teachers provide educational support in the form of learning goals, instructional support, and feedback, coupled with emotional support and aid in helping children learn behavioral management skills. Responsive teaching is attuned to children's cues and needs rather than being strictly academic.
You might also like to view...
Greenwald et al.’s (1998) “IAT” is an acronym for the _______.
a. Indirect Attitude Test b. Implicit Association Test c. Implicit Attitude Test d. Indirect Association Test
A newborn infant needs about ____
a. ?four times the amount of sleep of an adult b. ?three times the amount of sleep of an adult c. ?two times the amount of sleep of an adult d. ?the same amount of sleep as an adult
Which of the following is the best example of a confounding variable jeopardizing the internal validity of a study?
a. Researchers perform a factor analysis and, in the inferential factor-naming stage, assign names to the factors that cause disagreements with other researchers. b. A participant in a psychotherapy effectiveness study receives counseling from a minister in addition to the therapy provided in the study. c. A participant in a psychotherapy study who is placed on a waiting list receives no treatment at all while other participants in the same study are receiving psychotherapy. d. Two variables are found to correlate highly with each other, when in fact they are both caused by a third, unmeasured, variable.
A type of learning in which a neutral stimulus, when repeatedly paired with a stimulus that elicits a reflexive response, comes to elicit the response by itself is called
a. classical conditioning. c. operant conditioning. b. instrumental conditioning. d. neutral stimulus conditioning.