1) Should students ever be allowed to fail at classroom tasks? According to social
cognitive theorists, the answer is:
a.Yes. Self-efficacy is highest when students fail at a task several times in a row before
accomplishing it successfully.
b.Yes. Occasional failures interspersed among frequent successes teach students that
perseverance pays off.
c.No. Failure gives students the message that school is not an enjoyable place to be.
d.No. Even a single failure can significantly deflate students self-efficacy.
2) According to Piaget, three of the following are essential for cognitive development.
Which one is not?
a.Brain maturation
b.High self-esteem
c.Interaction with other people
d.Interaction with the physical environment
3) To help herself learn the early explorers of the New World, Jessica makes a chart that
lists the Spanish explorers together, the Portuguese explorers together, the French
explorers together, and so on. Which one of the following processes is Jessica most
clearly demonstrating?
a.elaboration
b.meaningful learning
c.rehearsal
d.internal organization
4) Which one of the following is the best example of extrinsic motivation?
a.Enjoying scary movies
b.Finding a good book impossible to put down
c.Wanting a good grade in your history class
d.Thinking that aerobic exercise is a healthy way to spend your time
5) Lucy sees a boy who looks very familiar to her, but she cant remember who he is.
Then the boy says something with a thick French accent, and Lucy suddenly realizes
that he is the foreign exchange student from France. In this situation, the boys French
accent helps Lucy remember by:
a.Restricting the spread of activation
b.Providing a retrieval cue
c.Helping her elaborate on stored information
d.Facilitating a reorganization of her long-term memory
6) Three of the following statements describe advantages of challenging tasks for
motivation. Which statement does not accurately describe the motivational effects of a
challenge?
a.Although challenges promote little or no intrinsic motivation, they promote
considerable extrinsic motivation.
b.Challenging tasks are more interesting.
c.Success on challenging tasks enhances self-efficacy.
d.Success on challenging tasks cannot easily be attributed to luck or other outside
factors.
7) Which one of the following statements best describes intersubjectivity?
a.Recognizing that one does not know, and ultimately never can know, everything there
is to know about a topic
b.The point at which a teacher understands the nature of a childs existing knowledge
about a topic
c.The point at which a child acquires the same knowledge about a topic that a teacher or
other expert has
d.A mutual understanding between two people that each one knows what the other one
is seeing, thinking, or feeling
8) Which one of the following teaching strategies best reflects the perspective of
cognitive psychology?
a.Mr. Atherton plans classroom activities that are likely to elicit desirable student
behaviors.
b.Mr. Birleffi makes sure that he performs classroom tasks in exactly the same way he
wants his students to perform them.
c.Mr. Camacho tells his students both what they should do and what they should not do
as they use the equipment in his chemistry lab.
d.Mr. Darwin has students recall personal experiences related to new concepts they are
studying.
9) Four-year-old Becky is playing with blocks, stacking them one on top of another
until her towers eventually tumble, and then stacking the blocks again. Which one of
the following best reflects Piagets view of how Becky is probably learning in this
situation?
a.Because she is probably still in the sensorimotor stage, she will remember what she
learns about the blocks only while the blocks are still in front of her.
b.She is absorbing information about how the environment behaves (e.g., objects fall)
without consciously thinking about it.
c.She is actively thinking about and interpreting the results of her actions.
d.Because she builds one tower after another, she is obviously reinforced by watching
her towers tumble down.
10) Which one of the following examples best illustrates a problem with prospective
memory?
a.Meredith cant remember anything that happened in the few minutes before she was in
an automobile accident.
b.Marcus forgets to keep the appointment he made with his teacher after school.
c.Juan cant recall something his teacher told him because he was thinking about
something else while she was talking to him.
d.Chloe sees a person she knows she has met before, but she cant remember the persons
name.
11) You are working with Jerome, a student in your classroom for whom the only
effective reinforcer is something to eat, such as candy or raisins. You would like Jerome
to find your praise reinforcing as well. From an operant conditioning perspective, your
best strategy would be which one of the following?
a.Show Jerome that all his classmates respond positively to praise.
b.Whenever you give Jerome something to eat, give him praise as well.
c.Explain to Jerome that praise gives him feedback about the things he is doing well.
d.Explain to Jerome how important it is that he not be so reliant on concrete reinforcers.