What's covered
Key facts
Early brain development
At birth the brain is about 25% of the size of an adult brain.
Learning and education: Dweck, Willingham
Applied to teaching, Dweck's theory says praise effort and give feedback on how to improve, not just on ability.
Piaget's theory and the stages: McGarrigle & Donaldson
Accommodation means changing an existing schema to fit new information.
Early brain development
In the first few years of life, more than 1 million new neural connections form in the brain every second.
Learning and education: Dweck, Willingham
Carol Dweck proposed the Mindset Theory of learning.
Piaget's theory and the stages: McGarrigle & Donaldson
Assimilation means fitting new information into an existing schema without changing it.
Early brain development
The brain doubles in size in the first year and reaches about 80% of adult size by age three.
Learning and education: Dweck, Willingham
Dweck argues children should be praised for effort rather than for ability.
Piaget's theory and the stages: McGarrigle & Donaldson
The concrete operational stage runs from about 7 to 11 years.
Early brain development
Brain development is sensitive to environment, including nutrition, stress and harmful substances.
Practice questions with answers
A taste of the 52 questions in this topic, answers marked. Sign up to practise the full set with spaced repetition.
What is the brain's approximate size at birth compared to an adult brain?
- ✓About 25%
- •About 50%
- •About 80%
- •Fully adult-sized
What is a growth mindset?
- ✓The belief that ability can grow through effort and practice
- •The belief that effort makes no difference to ability
- •The belief that intelligence is fixed and cannot be changed
- •The belief that only talented people can succeed at school
Which is the correct order of Piaget's four stages of cognitive development?
- •Formal operational, concrete operational, preoperational, sensorimotor
- •Preoperational, sensorimotor, formal operational, concrete operational
- •Sensorimotor, concrete operational, preoperational, formal operational
- ✓Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational
Which structure forms first when the neural plate folds over during brain development?
- •The cerebellum
- •The cortex
- ✓The neural tube
- •The thalamus
According to Dweck, people with a fixed mindset tend to do what when faced with a challenge?
- •Enjoy the difficulty
- ✓Give up quickly
- •Persevere for longer
- •Try several new strategies
At roughly what age does Piaget's formal operational stage begin?
- ✓About 12 years
- •About 16 years
- •About 2 years
- •About 7 years
Three minutes a day. Knowledge that sticks.
Practise all 52 Development questions with spaced repetition, so what you revise today is still there in the exam. Free to use, no card needed.
All GCSE Psychology key terms & vocabulary →