Schema Theory, Research Paper Example

Introduction

Schemas are defined as aspects of cognitive framework that help us organize and interpret information in a way that allows our brains to deal with the massive amounts of data we regularly receive. In order to fully understand how memories are stored in addition to our ability to recall this information when necessary, we can utilize the schema theory. Many psychologists believe that the concept of schema can help us understand the different stages of cognitive development; Jean Piaget’s developmental stages are a useful illustration of this example (Martin et al., 2002).

Overall, Piaget concluded that there are four distinct stages in the cognitive development of children. These stages include the sensory motor stage which occurs from birth to two years old, the pre-operational stage which occurs between two and seven years old, the concrete operational stage which occurs between seven and eleven years old, and the formal operations stage which occurs between eleven and sixteen years old. Children in the sensory motor stage begin to incorporate schemas that involve the concept of movement and convert them into action schemas which allows for the basic muscles movements we typically observe in newborns and toddlers. In the pre-operational stage, a child’s thought process begins to develop and their vocabulary becomes expanded. In addition, the child begins to rationalize the world using concepts such as egocentrism, animism, symbolism, and moral realism. In the concrete operational stage, the child’s thought process becomes more mature and adult-like. The hallmark of this stage is that children are finally able to grasp logical thought which includes the concept of reversibility. Lastly, the formal operations stage allows children to understand abstract ideas and they usually now have the full intellectual capacity as adults.

Although Piaget’s model is ideal in describing the cognitive development of children in some aspects, it does not account for physiological differences between children. For example, many people have observed that female children seem to mature more quickly than male children both physically and intellect (Magolda, 1989). In addition, it is difficult to describe how children with developmental and learning disabilities fit in to the model that Piaget proposed. Therefore, it is important to determine how male and female children fit differentially into Piaget’s model in order to gain a greater understanding of the difference in cognitive development due to gender differences. We hypothesize that girls progress through Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development more quickly than boys due to their ability to take advantage of schemas at an earlier age. Although we believe that the ages proposed by Piaget for his initial model will not be changed significantly, we hypothesize that girls will be seen to be entering and leaving each stage at the lower end of the age boundary he provides while boys will enter and leave an individual stage later in comparison. If proven true, this concept is likely a result of the different levels of hormones such as testosterone and estrogen that affect the brain during development since these chemical levels differ for male and female children throughout their developmental cycle.

Materials and Methods/Procedure

This will be a longitudinal study that will follow 30 children, 15 male and 15 female from birth until they reach 18 years of age. Pregnant mothers who are at least 6 months pregnant will be recruited and consented for the study at their primary care physician’s office. To control for confounding variables such as socioeconomic status, the recruited patients will only come from a single zip code (Burchinal et al., 2000). It is expected that the recruitment process will take between two and four months.

Data collection will occur yearly on each child’s birthday in addition to initial behavioral observations recorded by the primary researcher at the birth of each child. Each observation period will be granted a window of one week (for example if a child’s birthday is on January 1^st, the researcher will have until January 8^th to contact the patient’s mother and retrieve the information for the time point, otherwise the time point will be empty). Parents will be asked to describe the motor and cognitive ability of their child in detail, without any prompts from the interviewer other than “Can you tell me more?” if the information provided was succinct and not descriptive. It will be expected that the parent will report information that includes their child learning how to crawl, read, etc. Parents will mainly be interviewed by phone; if a family does not own a phone, e-mail will be used, and then a mail survey will be issued if they do not have a home computer. House visits may be necessary to ensure follow-up. Incentive for participating and remaining in the study will be a reward of $20 for the initial interview, with an incremental increase of $5 for each additional year they respond. Reminder messages will be sent to families yearly one month in advance of the interview.

A coder will then interpret this information and score the child as one of Piaget’s four stages of development according to the traits that the parent describes. It is expected that not all of the children will fit perfectly into one of these categories so they will be placed into the category that most closely describes their ability to utilize schemas.

At the end of the 18 years of observation, the ages of the children when they were considered to have entered each stage will be examined and compared boys versus girls. A student’s t-test will be used to compare the average age across these four categories between the two gender groups or the non-parametric equivalent will be used if it is found that these ages are not normal distributed within the ranges that Piaget defined for each stage.

Results

The girls reached each level of cognitive development before the boys in terms of average age at the time each stage was reached. Table 1 (below) summarizes this information. Table 2 evaluates whether the differences between these two groups is statistically significant using the student t-test.

Table 1 Average age of boys and girls as they enter each cognitive development stage.

Table 2 Statistical significance of the difference between age for the boys and the girls as they enter each cognitive development stage. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Discussion

In all four cognitive development categories, sensory motor, pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational, girls entered the stage earlier than the boys (Table 1). In addition, the difference between the two age groups was statistically significant for each age group. As a result, it is clear that among these group of children, girls are developing more quickly than the boys according to Piaget’s definitions of developmental stages. One possible explanation for this finding is that girls develop more quickly than boys. As a result of their slightly different brain chemistry, girls are able to incorporate schemas into their learning process earlier and more effectively than their male counterparts. To determine whether this new hypothesis is true, it would be necessary to recreate this experiment with the help of a neuroscientist; it may be useful to monitor brain chemistry using scientific assays in addition to brain activity using EEG.

One possible limitation of this experiment is that only 30 children were recruited total, allowing only 15 children in each gender group. It is possible that allowing a greater number of children to be included in the study would alter the average age found for each stage of cognitive development which would in turn reflect the study population more substantially. A second limitation is that the study only places the children into categories using Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. It may be useful to conduct a retrospective analysis of this data using different set of stages proposed by a different theorist, such as Erickson. In order to verify that it is female children who’s brains develop more quickly, we should ensure that their development appears to be quicker independent of the type of cognitive framework we choose to use for their study.

Conclusions

We have found that girls enter Piaget’s developmental stages more quickly due to their increased ability to use schemas in developing and processing thoughts. The age of the girls entering each developmental stage was consistently significantly significant compared to the age of the boys as they entered each developmental stage. Overall, this is a good model to study the differential development between boys and girls.

Consent Form

You will be providing consent for your child to participate in a psychology study that aims to evaluate the differences in cognitive development between boys and girls. At the beginning of the study, your child will be briefly observed to identify his or her behavioral characteristics and will then receive a follow-up interview from us once a year until your child turns 18. You will be contacted for interview starting the week of your child’s birthday and expected to respond within this week if you wish to continue to participate in the study. You will be sent a reminder message either through phone, e-mail, or mail based on your preference.

The interviews will be brief and not mandatory and you can opt to leave the study at any time you wish. Compensation for participation will be $20 at the initial interview, with an incremental increase of $5 each time you participate in the study. Neither you nor your child will be required to participate in any activities outside the scope of what is written in this consent form. Your participation in this project will not result in any harm or leak of information. Yours and your child’s records will be kept private and only viewed by approved research personnel.

If you agree with the above statements and are able to understand what you have read and wish to participate, please sign below. Your research coordinators, (NAMES), will be available for you to contact them with questions and concerns at (EMAIL) and (PHONE).

References

Burchinal MR, Peisner-Feinberg D. (2000). Children’s Social and Cognitive Development and   Child-Care Quality: Testing for Differential Associations Related to Poverty, Gender, or Ethnicity. Applied Developmental Science. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S1532480XADS0403_4#.UnJjxPk_vT8

Magolda, MB. (1989). Gender differences in cognitive development: An analysis of cognitive complexity and learning styles. Journal of College Student Development. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1989-41274-001

Martin CL, Ruble DN, Szkrybalo J. (2002). Cognitive theories of early gender development. Psychological Bulletin. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2002-18663-003