L. Todd Rose

Dynamic Development: A Neo-Piagetian Approach

The questions Piaget raised, and his concepts and observations for addressing them, have shaped virtually all research and theory in cognitive development over the last 50 years. Even those who rejected Piagets conclusions shaped their work in terms of his questions. Some approaches built upon his work directly whereas others sought to oppose it. The focus of this chapter is primarily on the former - research and theory that has built directly on Piaget to address new, revised, and expanded questions. The primary question raised in neo-Piagetian work is variability: the dynamic ways that peoples actions differ and change. At all ages and in all cultures, peoples actions vary dramatically across contexts, tasks, and emotional states. For example, in class Christina, a fifth-grade student, can read and explain a paragraph about how the eye works, but she cannot give the same explanation at home on her own. Seth, a high school freshman, can solve a math problem about the cost of schoolbooks when he does it with his mothers support, but in class the next day he is unable to solve the same problem. On the other hand, for a similar problem about the cost of new jeans, he solves it easily across all situations. This sort of variation can be frustrating, but it is normal, and it happens every day with everyone. Modern neo-Piagetian research and theory embrace this variability, using it to create better explanations of the complexity and diversity of human knowledge and action.

The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence: Intelligence in Childhood

This chapter discusses measuring of intelligence by Francis Galton, J. McK. Cattell, and Alfred Binet. Charles Spearman abhorred the program that would separate the mind into a loose confederation of independent faculties of learning, memory and attention. Although most intelligence researchers today probably accept that the general factor is to stay, they remain sharply divided on its explanation. These disagreements go well beyond a rejection of Spearmans specific suggestions that g is either mental energy or the eduction of relations and correlates. Spearman saw that he needed to provide a psychological or (better still) a neurobiological explanation of g. The two favorite paradigms for this program of research were inspection time (IT) and choice reaction time (RT). Aided by the new technologies of brain imaging, research on intelligence, working memory, and other so-called executive functions has begun to point to some of the brain structures common to them all.

Garbage In, Garbage Out: Having Useful Data Is Everything

The focus article by Coburn and Turner (this issue) seeks to provide a comprehensive framework for understanding data use in the context of data-use interventions. Clearly, issues of data use are complex, and we commend the authors for taking the complexity seriously in their framework. Our commentary is focused on what we see as a glaring omission in what is otherwise a valuable framework: the issue of “useful data.” It is our contention that the usefulness of data should not be assumed (as we believe is the case here), especially when it comes to teachers using data to make instructional decisions in their classrooms. Addressing the “useful data” issue will be critical to the success of any data-use framework, not only because teachers rarely get instructionally valuable data, but also because advancements in developmental and learning science provide powerful methods and tools that, for the first time, allow us to create assessments that actually generate the kinds of data teachers would find useful. It would be unfortunate if emerging data-use frameworks did not take this into account. After all, a data-use framework is only as useful as the data that are used to make decisions.