Advanced Developmental Psychology (PSYC3064B&C / 0064B&C) 2014 2015 Second Semester, Lecturer Dr. Wang Ivy Wong Office hours: Wednesday 4:30 5:30 pm or by appointment Jockey Club Tower 6.05 Pigeon hole: Department office 3917 7131, iwwong@hku.hk Tutor Mr. Chin hei Tom Wong Office hours: Tuesday 2:00 3:00 pm or by appointment Jockey Club Tower 6.17 Pigeon hole: #46, inside the Department Office 3917 8227, tchwong@hku.hk Lectures Tutorials Wednesday 12:30pm 2:20pm OR 2:30pm 4:20pm Podium, Centennial Campus, 2.45 Thursday 12:30pm 1:20pm; 1:30pm 2:20pm; 4:30pm 5:20pm; and 5:30pm 6:20pm (starting on Feb 05) COURSE OBJECTIVES This course aims at helping students interested in developmental psychology develop an advanced understanding of, and ability to tackle, issues in the field. Various topics in developmental psychology are selected to illustrate thematic, theoretical as well as methodological issues. As an advanced course, students are expected to go beyond understanding existing knowledge. Learning to analyze existing knowledge with a critical mindset and to contribute knowledge is essential. To achieve these aims, students will play an active role in the course. Through various class activities, the lecturer, tutor and peers will give timely feedback to students ideas and work. At the end of the course, students will produce a well prepared research proposal. LEARNING OUTCOMES 1. More knowledgeable of the various research designs and methodology commonly used by psychologists to study developmental phenomena. 2. Able to design and develop a sound research plan to answer interested research questions, and to communicate the research ideas to a research audience.
3. Through the evaluation of own and others research plan, gain insights into some of the key issues facing researchers. ASSESSMENT Students will engage actively in discussions and interact closely with the lecturer, tutor, and peers. Absence without adequate justification will be counted negatively towards class participation. 1. Research Proposal (40%) Write a research proposal in the APA format. You may choose any topic in developmental psychology. Imagine that you are submitting the proposal to a funding agency. The major goal is to convince the reviewers that your proposed research is both worthwhile and feasible. A typical research proposal begins with an Introduction that introduces the research question, review of relevant findings, and rationale for your study. The Methods section should clearly describe and justify your research design, choice of instruments, choice of analyses, predicted results and interpretations. If available, you can also include pilot data (e.g., testing whether a task is age appropriate by asking several children to perform the task). Please prepare consent forms for parents/guardians of child participants and for adult participants if you want to collect pilot data. Finally, include a complete list of references and appendices (e.g. research materials such as interview protocols and test items; tables or graphs; consent forms, etc.). You will learn more about proposal writing and be able to develop your ideas during tutorials. Components: You will be required to submit a draft and a final proposal (both soft & hard copies) in the APA 6 th Ed format. Use font 12 Times New Roman, double line spacing. Submission time is based on the time you submit the soft copy. Due dates: i) First draft (15%): Mar 25, 2015 11:59pm. Submit to tutor. This draft is aimed at helping you get on the right track early in the course. It should be 10 15 pages, excluding references and appendices. ii) Final proposal (25%): May 15, 2015 11:59pm. Submit to tutor. The final proposal should be 10 15 pages, excluding references and appendices. These assignments will not be accepted one week after their due dates. Late submission will be deducted 10% of the assignment grade per day. Extension of deadline will be considered only if your doctor gives you TWO or more consecutive days of sick leave inclusive of the day on which the work is due. 2. Individual Proposal Presentations (10%)
Due: Lectures 8 11 Present you proposal to the class, and answer questions from the floor. Each presentation should be around 15 minutes including time for Q&A. On Mar 05 (date of 4 th tutorial), submit your date preferences for the proposal presentation. Your tutor will announce date arrangements on Moodle by Mar 06. Lots will be drawn if too many of you prefer to present on any given day. 3. Unseen Quiz (10%) Date: Lecture 12 (May 06) Time: 1:30pm 3:30pm Venue: CPD 1.21 You will choose to read 1 unseen journal article, and write a critical review on it. Except for exceptional circumstances, no student will be allowed to take the quiz early. Those who cannot take the quiz but with sound justifications will be given a chance to take a make up quiz WITHIN one week of the regular quiz time. There is absolutely no make up quiz for this make up quiz. 4. Class and Tutorial Discussion (40%) Attendance and contributions to in class discussion (including lectures, tutorials and your classmates project presentations) will be considered. Components: i) Pre lecture questions (5%): A good question is half the answer. Coming to class with questions will also lay the foundation for our class discussions. At least 48 hours before each lecture, post 2 intelligent questions related to the assigned articles to Moodle. ii) Lecture discussions (18%). At the beginning of the course, you will be divided into base groups of approximately 4 members. All members read all the assigned articles, but each chooses to read one or two of the articles in greater depth. During lectures, you will discuss all the articles first with your base group. Then, you will meet members from other groups (forming an expert group ), who specialized in the same article, to discuss the article you specialized in. After that, you will go back to your base group to share what you ve learned from other groups. The lecturer and the tutor will join your discussions from time to time to assess your contribution and guide you through the discussions if necessary. Please bring the articles for a specific week to class. You will need to refer to them from time to time during discussion. iii) Lecture presentation (5%): At the end of each lecture, 1 to 2 base groups will be selected to present their conclusions on the articles. For this assessment, members of the same group receive the same grade.
iv) Tutorial performance (12%): In the first 2 tutorials, your tutor will teach you how to write a proposal. Tutorials 3 6 are in the form of a journal club. You will be given the chance to select an article or even a media piece (relating to a topic in developmental psychology) that inspires you (preferably one that leads to your research proposal), present it briefly, stimulate discussion, and ask for feedback from your tutor and peers. Your peers will also benefit from your feedback for their chosen article/piece. You are not required to read in detail all the articles/pieces your peers selected, although doing so will help you give more informed feedback. It is hoped that these tutorials will help you develop your research interests and/or research proposal. During the first tutorial, let your tutor know the subject area you re interested in. Your tutor will arrange students with similar interests to lead the journal club on the same day, and will announce this arrangement on Moodle before Tutorial 3. Tutorial 7 will be a short individual meeting with your tutor to discuss your research proposal shortly after you hand in the first proposal draft. For more details about tutorials, see separate handout from tutor. 2% of the course grade will be deducted for a no show or a late arrival > 15 minutes without sound justification. Academic honesty Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Any student who engages in any form of academic dishonesty (e.g., cheating on exams, plagiarism, interfering with grading) will receive a grade of F in this course and will be reported to the Office of Student Conduct & Ethical Development for further disciplinary action. There will be no exceptions. If you are not sure what constitutes the academic offense of plagiarism, check out the webpage at http://www.hku.hk/plagiarism. Beware of Plagiarism A hardcopy and a softcopy are required for all written assignments. The softcopy will be checked for plagiarism against a database of articles, books, webpages, and essays submitted by students at HKU and other universities. No credit will be given for an assignment that contains plagiarized materials (including those self plagiarized materials). Further penalties will also be applied. These penalties include a zero mark for participation in course tutorials and a zero mark for the course. Plagiarism will also be reported to your Faculty for consideration of possible disciplinary action. Make sure you know what constitutes plagiarism: http://www.rss.hku.hk/plagiarism/page2s.htm PRE REQUISITE PSYC2009/0009 (Life span Developmental Psychology) PSYC1004 (Introduction to Quantitative Methods in Psychology)
READINGS Several articles are required readings for each lecture and are available on the Moodle for this course. These articles serve as a starting point and as the basis for lecture discussion. You are encouraged to read more broadly, especially for your research proposal. There is no textbook for this course. Some optional readings (e.g., Teti, 2005, 2006, which is available as an e book and in print) may be useful for students looking for references on research methodology in developmental psychology. For lecture articles, all students should read all the articles. However, each student can choose one to two articles which they will read in greater depth, so that each group has an expert for every article. Optional reading: Teti, D. M. (2005). Handbook of Research Methods in Developmental Science. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Lecture Dates and Topics 1. Jan 21: Orientation What is plagiarism? (http://www.rss.hku.hk/plagiarism/page2s.htm) 2. Jan 28: Nature? Nurture Scarr, S., & McCartney, K. (1983). How people make their own environments: A theory of genotype environment effects. Child Development, 54, 424 435. Fraga, M. F., et al. (2005). Epigenetic differences arise during the lifetime of monozygotic twins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102, 10604 10609. Diamond, M., & Sigmundson, H. D. (1997). Sex reassignment at birth: Long term review and clinical implications. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 151, 298 304. 3. Feb 4: Gender Development Hyde, J. S. (2005). The gender similarities hypothesis. American Psychologist, 60, 581 592. Lytton, H., & Romney, D. M. (1991). Parents differential socialization of boys and girls: A metaanalysis. Psychological Bulletin, 109, 267 296. Chiu, S. W., et al. (2006). Sex dimorphic color preferences in children with gender identity disorder: A comparison to clinical and community controls. Sex Roles, 55, 385 395. Alexander, G. M., & Hines, M. (2002). Sex differences in response to children s toys in nonhuman primates (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus). Evolution and Human Behavior, 23, 467 479. 4. Feb 11: Infant studies
Moore, D. S., & Johnson, S. P. (2008). Mental rotation in human infants: A sex difference. Psychological Science, 19, 1063 1066. Jadva, V., Hines, M., & Golombok, S. (2010). Infants preferences for toys, colors and shapes: Sex differences and similarities. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39, 1261 1273. Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Helping and cooperation at 14 months of age. Infancy, 11, 271 294. 5. Mar 4: Being a social animal and the extreme case Auyeung, B., Wheelwright, S., Allison, C., Atkinson, M., Samarawickrema, N., & Baron Cohen, S. (2009). The children s empathy quotient and systemizing quotient: Sex differences in typical development and in Autism Spectrum Conditions. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39, 1509 1521. Gleason, K. A., Jensen Campbell, L. A., & Ickes, W. (2009). Role of empathic accuracy in adolescents peer relations and adjustment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 997 1011. Lawrence, E. J., Shaw, P., Baker, D., Baron Cohen, S., & David, A. S. (2004). Measuring empathy: reliability and validity of the Empathy Quotient. Psychological Medicine, 34, 911 924. 6. Mar 18: Aggression Brame, B., Nagin, D. S., & Tremblay, R. E. (2001). Developmental trajectories of physical aggression from school entry to late adolescence. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 503 512. Pasterski, V., Hindmarsh, P., Geffner, M., Brook, C., Brain, C., & Hines, M. (2007). Increased aggression and activity level in 3 to 11 year old girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Hormones and Behavior, 52, 368 374. Tackett, J. L., Waldman, I. D., & Lahey, B. B. (2009). Etiology and measurement of relational aggression: A multi informant behavior genetic investigation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 118, 722 733. 7. Mar 25: Siblings Wichman, A. L., Rodgers, J. L., & MacCallum, R. C. (2007). A multilevel approach to the relationship between birth order and intelligence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 117 127. Zajonc, R. B., & Sulloway, F. J. (2007). The confluence model: Birth order as a within or between family dynamic? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1187 1194.
Blanchard, R., & Lippa, R. A. (2007). Birth order, sibling sex ratio, handedness, and sexual orientation of male and female participants in a BBC internet research project. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 36, 163 176. William, W. H. (2004). The cause(s) of the fraternal birth order effect in male homosexuality. Journal of Biosocial Science, 36, 51 59. 8. Apr 1: Proposal Presentations 9. Apr 8: Proposal Presentations 10. Apr 15: Proposal Presentations 11. Apr 22: Proposal Presentations 12. May 06: Unseen Quiz (1:30pm 3:30pm, at CPD 1.21)