CHILD STUDYTeacher Dodie M. de Castro

IntroductionChild study,also calledpaidologyorexperimental pedagogy,was the attempt to apply the methods of modern science to the investigation of children in order to discover the laws of normal child development

The child-study movement arose in the last decade of the nineteenth century in several Western countries and was inspired by a number of social reform movements that aimed to improve the health and welfare of children.

The connection between child study, schools, teachers, and movements for educational reform was particularly strong, because many reformers viewed the educational system as the most promising avenue to improve the conditions of children and to create the conditions for a better and more just society.

They became convinced that scientific insights into the nature of children would aid their efforts.

Initially, the child-study movement was inclusive: teachers, parents, ministers, psychologists, educational administrators, physicians, psychiatrists, and others concerned with the welfare of children participated in its research

After the turn of the twentieth century, psychologists and physicians aimed to make child study scientifically respectable by excluding lay researchers

In their hands, child study became the science of child development and developmental psychology.

Consequently, research into child development became a field of academic inquiry and lost its ties to social and educational reform.

Educational ReformersHerbert Spencer (18201903), an English philosopher, which emphasized free competition as the prime condition for social betterment.

In this view, a proper education equipped children with the tools for self-improvement and success in modern society, and would thereby help them lift themselves out of poverty.

JEAN-JACQUESROUSSEAU (17121778), a French philosopher JOHANNHEINRICHPESTALOZZI (17461827), a Swiss educationalists, FRIEDRICHWILHELMAUGUST FROEBEL(17821852), a German

These thinkers embraced romantic idealizations of childhood as an innocent and untainted period of life and wanted to re-create the educational system to provide a stimulating environment for freePLAYand exploration.

Despite the variety in their philosophies and political orientations, educational reformers agreed in their attempts to reform old educational practices that relied on rote learning, character education, the training of mental discipline, and an academically oriented curriculum.

According to them, education should become more practical and help children take their place in society. They proposed the introduction of project learning and practical and vocational training, and advocated the establishment of KINDERGARTENS.

The Beginnings of Child Study

The psychologist G. STANLEYHALL(18441924) initiated the child-study movement in the United States in the 1880s.

Hall was influenced by the evolutionary theory of the nineteenth-century English naturalist Charles Darwin and adhered to the recapitulation theory, which states that children repeat in their development the physiological and cultural development of the species.

Hall was also inspired by developments in psychology and education in Germany, where he had spent several years studying philosophy and psychology.

His organizational efforts in the child-study movement stimulated and consolidated existing interests and activities in several countries.

In 1882 Hall introduced a course in child study at Clark University, advocating child study as the core of the new profession of pedagogy.

He became a prominent member of the National Education Association, where he found an enthusiastic response for his plans.

Hall invited parents and teachers to participate in child-study research and sent out hundreds of questionnaires to collect observations of children.

Hall used the results of this research to provide arguments for educational reform.

In 1904 he published Adolescence, which he described as a period of life bestowed with special challenges and in need of special consideration. This book became very influential with parents, teachers, and individuals involved with child welfare agencies.

In 1891 Hall founded thePedagogical Seminary,which became the most prominent outlet for research in child study worldwide. (The journal was renamed in 1931 thePedagogical Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychologyand in 1954, theJournal of Genetic Psychology.)

Participants in the child-study movement investigated a wide range of topics, including the physical, cognitive, and moral development of children, health andHYGIENE, fatigue, educational practices and their effect on learning, the interests and imagination of children and the nature of their religious experiences, and children's attitudes toward various matters.

A wide variety of methods were used: undirected observations of children at home and at school; personal letters or journals by children; quantitative and qualitative answers to a variety of questionnaires; observations of concrete behavior; measurements of weight, physical growth, and mental growth;

results of a variety of special tests; diaries by mothers and teachers recording children's behavior; and autobiographical statements by adults reflecting upon their childhood.

During the first decade of the twentieth century, a number of psychologists and physicians argued that research in child study had resulted in vast amounts of incoherent data based on free observation under unspecified conditions, unguided by theories and hypotheses, and collected by untrained observers.

They urgently advocated lifting the scientific standards of child study through more rigorous, laboratory-based research by qualified scientists. There were two approaches to doing so.

The first one was advocated by education psychologists, who stated that pedagogy was the application of psychological knowledge that was based upon laboratory research or extensive psychometric testing. According to them, teachers and educational administrators needed to inform themselves about psychological research and apply its results.

A number of educators and pedagogists advocated a second approach: they proposed the establishment of experimental schools and pedagogical laboratories to conduct educational research. They were convinced that pedagogy or the science of education could not be reduced to psychological research.

Psychologists made two contributions to educational research: they developed mental testing and investigated the fundamental laws of learning

The firstINTELLIGENCE TESTwas developed in 1905 by ALFREDBINET(18571911), who had been associated with the French Society for the Psychological Study of the Child (Socit libre pour l'tude psychologique de l'enfant) and the educational system in Paris.

For Binet, the intelligence test was an individualized diagnostic tool to diagnose pupils with mentalRETARDATIONor learning disabilities in order to place them in appropriate classes.

The test was graded in terms of the age at which normal children would be able to solve a number of tasks. Psychologists in the United States and the United Kingdom found new uses for mental tests and developed the psychology of individual differences

In addition to developing mental tests, behaviorist psychologists investigated the laws basic to all learning and claimed that educational practices needed to conform to these laws in order to optimize learning in schools.