Child Psychology | OCR A-Level Psychology (H567)

Child Psychology

301 questions
27 subtopics
Component 03: Applied psychology
Component 03

Child Psychology is examined on component 03 of OCR Psychology, Applied psychology.

It is one of the four applied options, of which a student studies two. 301 recall questions across 27 subtopics.

Sample questions from Child Psychology

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

What psychologists mean by intelligence

Distinguish fluid intelligence from crystallised intelligence.

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Fluid intelligence is the ability to reason and solve novel problems without relying on prior knowledge, while crystallised intelligence is the store of knowledge and skills built up through experience and education.
Van Leeuwen et al. (2008) twin-family study of IQ: results, conclusions and evaluation

What is assortative mating, and what did the study find about it?

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Assortative mating is the tendency to choose a partner who resembles you on a trait; the spouses' intelligence scores were positively correlated, and the pattern was best explained by partners choosing each other on intelligence itself rather than on social background.
Impact of brain development on risk-taking behaviour

Why does the presence of friends increase the risks an adolescent will take?

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Peers heighten activity in the adolescent reward system, so the immediate social reward of taking the risk outweighs the distant cost, an effect that is much weaker in adults.
Strategies to reduce risk-taking using knowledge of brain development

What evidence supports graduated licensing?

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Evaluations of schemes in several countries report substantial falls in crash and fatality rates among newly qualified teenage drivers after they are introduced.
Play strategies to develop perception in young children

How does a basket of everyday objects of different textures develop perception?

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Handling objects that differ in texture, weight and shape lets the baby link what is seen with what is felt, building the cross-sensory associations that underlie size and shape constancy.
Wood et al. (1976) the role of tutoring in problem-solving

How was the behaviour recorded?

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Every session was videotaped, and the tutor's and the child's acts were later sorted into categories and counted.
Impact of failure to develop attachments

What did Bowlby's study of juvenile thieves suggest?

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The young offenders he described as unable to feel affection or guilt had far more often experienced prolonged early separation from their mothers, which he took as evidence that early deprivation causes lasting emotional damage.
Developing an attachment-friendly environment

Why should staff turnover be kept low?

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Every departure is a further loss for the children who have bonded with that adult, and repeated changes make it harder for a child to trust that an adult will remain available.

The 27 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
What psychologists mean by intelligence	Recall questions on what psychologists mean by intelligence, Spearman's g and s, fluid and crystallised intelligence, Gardner's multiple intelligences, Sternberg's triarchic theory, and calculating a ratio IQ from mental age.	9
Biological factors affecting intelligence	Recall questions on heritability, twin and adoption studies of intelligence, prenatal factors, brain size, the neural efficiency hypothesis, myelination, interpreting heritability estimates, and why biological research on intelligence is socially sensitive.	9
Van Leeuwen et al. (2008) twin-family study of IQ: background and procedure	Recall questions on the aim of Van Leeuwen et al.'s 2008 twin-family study of IQ, why parents were included, the Dutch families who took part, the Raven's matrices tests used for children and parents, and how testing was carried out.	8
Van Leeuwen et al. (2008) twin-family study of IQ: results, conclusions and evaluation	Recall questions on Van Leeuwen et al.'s findings on genetic influence, cultural transmission and assortative mating, their conclusion, and the evaluation of method, sample, the nature-nurture debate and determinism.	9
Assessing intelligence with standardised tests	Recall questions on assessing intelligence with the Wechsler children's scale, full scale IQ, the mean and standard deviation of IQ scales, standardisation, Raven's Progressive Matrices, the Stanford-Binet scale, reliability, and the benefits, risks and validity of testing children.	16
Brain development in childhood and adolescence	Recall questions on when the brain matures, synaptic pruning, grey matter changes, myelination, the order of regional maturation, the prefrontal cortex, the reward response, and why the dual systems model predicts risk-taking peaks in adolescence.	9
Impact of brain development on risk-taking behaviour	Recall questions on dopamine and adolescent risk-taking, common risky behaviours, peer presence, taking risks despite knowing the dangers, evolutionary explanations, adolescent sleep patterns, the law and young people, and criticisms of brain-based explanations.	8
Barkley-Levenson and Galvan (2014) expected value in the adolescent brain: background and method	Recall questions on the aim of Barkley-Levenson and Galvan's 2014 study, expected value and calculating it for a gamble, the method, design and sample, the adult age range, and why participants gambled with their own money.	8
Barkley-Levenson and Galvan (2014) expected value in the adolescent brain: results, conclusions and evaluation	Recall questions on Barkley-Levenson and Galvan's gambling task, the behavioural and neural findings on expected value, their conclusion that adolescent risk-taking is not simply irrational, and the evaluation of method, ecological validity, sample and ethics.	10
Strategies to reduce risk-taking using knowledge of brain development	Recall questions on strategies to reduce risk-taking using knowledge of brain development, including graduated licensing, reward-based and peer-based approaches, structured activities, school timing and brain education, applying them to a scenario, and criticising and evaluating them.	15
Perceptual development in children and animals	Recall questions on perception and sensation, nativist and empiricist accounts, depth cues and size constancy, newborn vision, preferential looking, habituation and high-amplitude sucking, animal studies including Blakemore and Cooper and Held and Hein, and cross-cultural studies.	17
Gibson and Walk (1960) the visual cliff	Recall questions on Gibson and Walk's 1960 visual cliff study, including the apparatus, human sample and procedure, the results for infants, chicks, lambs, rats and dark-reared kittens, the conclusion about depth perception, and its strengths, validity and ethics.	17
Play strategies to develop perception in young children	Recall questions on play strategies to develop perception in young children, including high-contrast and moving toys, texture baskets, peekaboo, shape sorters, crawling tunnels, active play, adult support, auditory play, inset jigsaws, and their limitations.	14
Piaget's theory of cognitive development	Recall questions on schemas, assimilation, accommodation and disequilibrium in Piaget's theory, his four stages and their ages, and the achievements and limitations of sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational thinking.	9
Impact of Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner on education	Recall questions on the educational implications and criticism of Piaget's theory, Vygotsky's zone of proximal development and scaffolding, group work versus discovery learning, Bruner's modes of representation and the spiral curriculum.	9
Wood et al. (1976) the role of tutoring in problem-solving	Recall questions on Wood et al.'s 1976 study of tutoring in problem-solving, including its aim, sample, block-building task, tutoring procedure, how three, four and five-year-olds behaved, the six tutoring functions, conclusions, and a strength and weakness.	18
Cognitive strategies to improve revision and learning	Recall questions on cognitive strategies to improve learning and revision, including scaffolding and fading, retrieval practice, spaced practice, interleaving, dual coding, mnemonics and elaboration, advising a student, and evaluating whether a strategy works.	16
Development of attachment in babies	Recall questions on what attachment is and how it shows, Schaffer and Emerson's stages, learning theory, Harlow's rhesus monkeys, and Bowlby's adaptive view of attachment, social releasers and monotropy.	9
Impact of failure to develop attachments	Recall questions on the internal working model, Bowlby's critical period, deprivation and privation, the juvenile thieves study, affectionless psychopathy, effects of failing to form attachments, institutional adoption research, and criticisms and social sensitivity of this research.	9
Ainsworth and Bell (1970) the Strange Situation: procedure and attachment types	Recall questions on the aim, sample and method of Ainsworth and Bell's 1970 Strange Situation study, its eight episodes, the behaviours rated, exploratory play, the three attachment types and how securely attached infants behave.	10
Ainsworth and Bell (1970) the Strange Situation: insecure types, conclusions and evaluation	Recall questions on how insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant infants behave in the Strange Situation, Ainsworth's conclusion about maternal sensitivity, the procedure's strengths, validity, ethnocentrism and ethics, and the later disorganised attachment type.	8
Developing an attachment-friendly environment	Recall questions on strategies for an attachment-friendly environment, including key persons, settling-in, low staff turnover, ratios, transitional objects, routines and responsive care, attachment-aware schools and hospital wards, and criticising and evaluating such policies.	15
Influence of television advertising on children	Recall questions on when children distinguish adverts from programmes and grasp persuasive intent, pester power, social learning and classical conditioning explanations, advertising techniques aimed at children, and food advertising as a public health concern.	9
Stereotyping and materialism in children's advertising	Recall questions on materialism, gender stereotyping in the content, production features and voice-overs of adverts for boys and girls, why stereotyping matters, arguments that advertising's influence is overstated, social sensitivity, and changes in children's exposure.	9
Johnson and Young (2002) gendered voices in children's advertising: background and method	Recall questions on the aim and content analysis method of Johnson and Young's 2002 study of gendered voices in children's advertising, the adverts sampled and when they were recorded, target audience categories, and the verbs used in boy-oriented adverts.	8
Johnson and Young (2002) gendered voices in children's advertising: results, conclusions and evaluation	Recall questions on Johnson and Young's findings on verbs in girl-oriented adverts and on voice-overs and their delivery, their conclusion, and a strength and weaknesses of the analysis, causation and generalising to today.	8
Strategies to reduce the impact of advertising aimed at children	Recall questions on strategies to reduce the impact of advertising on children, including advertising literacy programmes, restrictive and active parental mediation, regulation, separators, online and influencer advertising, applying them to a scenario, and their limitations and evaluation.	15

Child Psychology is 301 of the 3,537 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £8

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.