Question 1

Longitudinal designs are particularly useful for examining:

Accepted Answer

A) continuity and discontinuity in development. 
B) age differences on a particular variable. 
C) the processes that produce changes. 
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 2

According to the text, which of the following is NOT a stated reason for studying child development?
•to better understand human nature
•to provide help in the raising of children
•to help judge how children are treated under
different political systems 
•to gain insight into social-policy issues that affect
children

Accepted Answer

The answer of According to the text, which of the...

Question 3

The concept of the "active child" refers to:
•observations of children at play.
•whether an infant sleeps through the night.
•the importance of physical activity to child
development.
•how children contribute to their own development.

Accepted Answer

The answer of The concept of the "active child" refers...

Question 4

The term used for the social class measure based on income and education is:

Accepted Answer

A) race. 
B) socioeconomic status. 
C) culture. 
D) sociocultural context.

Question 5

Of the following, which is the MOST likely conclusion from Werner's Kauai study?

Accepted Answer

A) Children with prenatal or birth complications nearly always have later difficulties regardless of experience. 
B) Adverse family circumstances prevent normal
development. 
C) Prenatal and birth circumstances combine with experiences to determine children's development. 
D) Even when one knows both the birth circumstances and the family circumstances of children, one cannot predict how they will develop.

Question 6

Think about the different beliefs about intelligence that individuals can hold. Imagine that you were asked by a school principal to try to help children whose beliefs about intelligence were interfering with their school achievement. Which children would you want to intervene with, what would your intervention be, and what effect would you hope to find?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Think about the different beliefs about intelligence...

Question 7

Your Developmental Psychology class finds a positive correlation between the height and weight of the class members. A class member asks, "What does early nutrition have to do with this finding?" This class member has stumbled onto what issue associated with correlations?
•the third-variable problem 
•the direction-of-causation problem
•random assignment
•the independent variable

Accepted Answer

The answer of Your Developmental Psychology class finds a positive...

Question 8

Suppose you found out that there was a strong positive correlation between the number of minutes parents spend reading to children and the number of minutes parents spend engaging in athletic activity with children. If you conclude that engaging in high levels of athletic activity with children causes parents to read to them more, which of the following problems would be MOST likely to occur?

Accepted Answer

A) third-variable problem 
B) direction of correlation problem 
C) direction of causation problem 
D) insufficient knowledge problem

Question 9

The validity of a test refers to:

Accepted Answer

A) its consistency. 
B) the extent to which two raters agree on its result. 
C) the degree to which it measures what it is intended to measure. 
D) the level of agreement between different observers of the same behavior.

Question 10

What contribution to the emergence of child development as a discipline did the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud make?
•pioneering the study of intelligence in children
•studying differences in children of the same age
•promoting the theory that development is influenced
by biological drives 
•proposing that development is determined by
environmental factors

Accepted Answer

The answer of What contribution to the emergence of child...

Question 11

Variables A and B have a correlation of -.86. If you know Keira has a low score on A, what can you say about her score on B?

Accepted Answer

A) Keira is likely to have a high score on B. 
B) Keira is likely to have a low score on B. 
C) We cannot predict Keira's score. 
D) Keira's score on A is likely to be lower than her score on B.

Question 12

The experience that children in an experimental group receive that children in a control group do not is referred to as the:
•dependent variable.
•independent variable. 
•random assignment.
•correlational design.

Accepted Answer

The answer of The experience that children in an experimental...

Question 13

The extent to which two variables are related is referred to as their:

Accepted Answer

A) causal direction. 
B) coefficient. 
C) relativity. 
D) correlation.

Question 14

The technique of preferential looking draws from research demonstrating that infants consistently prefer to look at over .

Accepted Answer

A) animals; objects 
B) the color red; the color blue 
C) their mothers' faces; their fathers' faces 
D) a simple pattern; a gray block

Question 15

Imagine that you are a researcher who is interested in developmental changes in children's ability to cooperate when working on school projects together.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Imagine that you are a researcher who...

Question 16

The term reliability does NOT

Accepted Answer

A) consistency of measure. 
B) similarity in results when variable is measured at two different time points. 
C) ability to generalize measure. 
D) level of agreement in observations by different observers.

Question 17

The highest percent of the population below the poverty line is found in which of the following groups?

Accepted Answer

A) married-couple white families 
B) married-couple black families 
C) single-mother Asian families 
D) single-mother Hispanic families

Question 18

The first basic step in using the scientific method involves:
•developing a research plan.
•choosing a question. 
•formulating a hypothesis.
•drawing a conclusion.

Accepted Answer

The answer of The first basic step in using the...

Question 19

Variables X and Y have a correlation coefficient of -.47, which indicates that:

Accepted Answer

A) there is a moderate positive association between X and Y. 
B) as the level of Y increases, the level of X decreases. 
C) as the level of Y decreases, the level of X decreases. 
D) we have no expectation of what will happen to Y as X increases or decreases.

Question 20

A researcher would be MOST likely to use a cross- sectional design to examine:

Accepted Answer

A) the typical pattern of age-related changes in a particular skill. 
B) the pattern of stability and change in individual
children's development in a particular area. 
C) how change in a particular skill occurs. 
D) how individual differences remain stable over long periods of time.

Exam 1: An Introduction to Child Development