Product Description: This 32nd volume of the Minnesota Symposium on Child Psychology celebrates the 75th anniversary of the University of Minnesota's Institute of Child Development. All eight essays are devoted to developmental science, its history, and current status...read more

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Product Description: The papers in this special issue reflect the current status of research on the association between quality of care and children's adjustment while pointing toward a new generation of questions that have risen to prominence in the minds of both researchers and policymakers...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Systematic observation is essential for educators to evaluate properly the effectiveness of curricula and to address the problems of individual students. This volume emphasizes early childhood settings, and focuses on those skills that enable the observer to make appropriate, valid inferences and to arrive at decisions based on objective observation data gathered in natural learning environments and diverse educational settings. The edition includes new focuses on: procedures for observing environmental factors that affect learning and behaviour; the importance of understanding the cultural and linguistic characteristics of children's learning environments; the key role of observation in the assessment process; the forms of observation, with illustrative examples; and the exploration of reliability, sampling behaviour, recording formats, summarizing observational outcomes and validity. Using photographs, sample worksheets, a simple format and straightforward language, the authors cite real-life examples from early childhood that can be applied to a variety of classroom experiences. (view table of contents)