CHILD STUDY

Teacher Dodie M. de
Castro

Introduction
Child study,also
calledpaidologyorexperim
ental 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 Reformers
Herbert Spencer (1820
1903), 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
JOHANNHEINRICHPESTAL
OZZI (17461827), a
Swiss educationalists,
FRIEDRICHWILHELMAUGU
ST
FROEBEL(1782
1852), 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

The psychologist G.
Study
STANLEYHALL(1844
1924) initiated the childstudy 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.