Upon completion of this course, the students should have a general knowledge of:
- The definition, basic theories, concepts, terminology and principles of developmental psychology as a scientific sub-discipline of psychology– both in pure and applied sense. The applied sense will give weight to educational aspects as per the needs of GPC undergraduate students.
- The ethics of study, research and practice of developmental psychology with some emphasis of practices in education, child development etc.
- The scientific methodology used in developmental psychology research and how this is applied to practice, e.g., education, counselling.
- Basic mental processes and relevant behaviour in the contexts of various different areas of practice of developmental psychology.
Students, who passed the course satisfactorily, should be able to:
- Define and understand the basics of developmental psychology with its fundamental concepts and principles.
- Identify critical theories, theoreticians and their main historical contributions to the field of developmental psychology. As well, students should be able to have a strong awareness of the current psychological issues that pertain to developmental psychology as they are linked to their historical pretexts as well as current issues, e.g., migration, education, counselling, etc.
- Understand and perceive the key ethical issues in psychological research and practice with humans and non-humans in the context of human development.
- Have a basic understanding of how developmental psychologists design research, collect and analyse data from a general point of view as well as what research designs they use that are widely used in developmental psychology, e.g., longitudinal designs. It is also aimed that students have a full grasp of how this knowledge gained from research is put into practice thus a crucial understanding of research-practice link.