1. Chapter 5: Adolescence Module 5.2 Cognitive Development in
Adolescence
2. Cognitive Development
Approaches
Piaget
Information processing
Adolescent egocentrism
3. Piagetian Perspective
Fixed sequence of qualitatively different stages
Fundamentally different than child thinking
Utilized in variety of settings and situations
Incorporates new, more advanced, and more adaptive form of
reasoning
Occurs when biological readiness and increasingly complex
environmental demands create cognitive disequilibrium
4. Piagetian Stages Related to Adolescence
Concrete operations
6-11 years
Mastery of logic
Development of rational thinking
Formal operations
11+ years
Development of abstract and hypothetical reasoning
Development of propositional logic
5. Piaget Videos
Summary demonstrations of all stages :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yhXjJVFA14
Formal Operations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjJdcXA1KH8
6. Developmental of Formal Operations
Emergent
Early adolescence
Variable usage depends on conditions surrounding
assessment
Established
Late adolescence
Consolidated and integrated into general approach to
reasoning
7. Information Processing View
Study of cognitive development in component processes
Incorporates same techniques to understanding human reasoning
that computer scientists employ in writing programs
8. Changes in Information Processing
Gains during adolescence help to explain developmental
differences in abstract, multidimensional, and hypothetical
thinking
9. Changes
Include five basic areas:
Attention
Memory
Information processing speed
Organizational strategies
Metacognition
10. Thinking about Thinking
Metacognition improves during adolescence
Thinks about own thoughts self-consciousness
Monitors own learning processes more efficiently
Paces own studying
11. Adolescent Egocentrism
Imaginary audience
Belief that one is center of everyone else's concern and
attention
What is an imaginary audience? Can you think of a time during
your adolescence when you or your friends/school peers demonstrated
this?
What purpose does the Imaginary Audience serve in adolescent
development? How do you know?
Personal fables
Egocentric belief that ones experiences are unique
12. Imaginary Audience and Personal Fable videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn37ns89j3w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_DYRAIgbcc
13. School and Adolescence
The mean grade point average for college-bound seniors was 3.3
(out of a scale of 4), compared with 3.1 a decade ago. More than 40
percent of seniors reported average grades of A+, A, or A- (College
Board, 2005).
Independent measures of achievement, such as SAT scores, have
not risen. Consequently, a more likely explanation for the higher
grades is the phenomenon of grade inflation. According to this
view, it is not that students have changed. Instead, instructors
have become more lenient awarding higher grades for the same
performance.
What consequences does this have (potentially) for
college-bound students?
14. Socioeconomic Status and School Performance
Children living in poverty lack many advantages:
Their nutrition and health may be less adequate.
Often living in crowded conditions and attending inadequate
schools, they may have few places to do homework.
Their homes may lack the books and computers commonplace in
more economically advantaged households.
Later school success builds heavily on basic skills presumably
learned or not learned early in school
15. Ethnic and Racial Differences in School Achievement
Significant achievement differences between ethnic and racial
groups
On average, African American and Hispanic students tend to
perform at lower levels, receive lower grades, and score lower on
standardized tests of achievement than Caucasian students
Asian American students tend to receive higher grades than
Caucasian students
16. What is the source of such ethnic and racial differences in
academic achievement?
Much of the difference is due to socioeconomic factors.
More African American and Hispanic families live in poverty so
their economic disadvantage may be reflected in their school
performance.
Members of certain minority groups may perceive school success
as relatively unimportant: may believe that societal prejudice in
workplace will dictate that they will not succeed, no matter how
much effort they expend.
Process of involuntary immigration apparently leaves lasting
scars, reducing the motivation to succeed in subsequent
generations.
17. Drop Out Risk
Most students complete high school, but some half million
students each year drop out prior to graduating. The consequences
of dropping out are severe. High school dropouts earn 42 percent
less than high school graduates, and the unemployment rate for
dropouts is 50 percent.
Adolescents who leave school do so for a variety of reasons.
Some leave because of pregnancy or problems with the English
language. Some must leave for economic reasons, needing to support
themselves or their families.
Dropout rates differ according to gender and ethnicity.
Poverty plays a large role in determining whether a student
completes high school. Students from lower-income households are
three times more likely to drop out than middle- and upper-income
households. Because economic success is so dependent on education,
dropping out often perpetuates a cycle of poverty.
18. Adolescents Online
See: Adolescents in Cyberspace: Exploring a New Social
Universe:
Widespread availability of Internet and World Wide Web is
producing significant changes in lives of many adolescents.
Educational promise of Internet is significant. It is not yet
obvious how this will change education or whether impact will be
uniformly positive.
To obtain the full benefits of Internet, then, students must
obtain ability to search, choose, and integrate information to
create new knowledge.
19. Adolescents Online
20. Adolescents Online
Potential Problems:
Objectionable material available
Growing problem of Internet gambling
Safety
Digital divide:
Poorer adolescents and members of minority groups have less
access to computers than more affluent adolescents and members of
socially-advantaged groups.
