Welcome to my Psychology 303 Objectives Page.  The following objectives will be assessed via the
paper assignments and multiple choice exams.  After taking this course, you should be
able to:

1)  Understand the role of theories in explaining adult development including
psychoanalytic, sociocultural, cognitive-behavioral, and contextual approaches.

2) Understand the concept of "age", as well as its different definitions (e.g.,
social, chronological, functional).

3) Appreicate the diversity of disciplines—psychology, sociology, medicine, education, and
ethology—that contribute to the field.

4) Appreciate the ethical issues adolescent researchers encounter when working with this
population and "touchy" topics (e.g., sexuality).

5) Describe different research methods (e.g., event sampling, observational methods) and
developmental designs (e.g., cross-sectional/longitudinal) adult development experts use.

6) Understand the difficulties in establishing strong conclusions about adult
development and how study results are sometimes hard to generalize to the
larger population.

7) Describe how applied professionals (e.g., marital therapists) use research in this
area to guide interventions.

8) Understand how research findings and theory (e.g., information processing theory) apply
to everyday life (e.g., grocery shopping).

9) Appreciate the value of research in guiding theory development and practice.

11) Understand how adult development may be influenced by communities,
ethnicity, and culture.

12) Appreciate how different contexts (e.g., family, historical context) influence development.

13) Understand how training in this field translates to applied jobs.

14) Understand the need for more workers with training in this field to meet the needs of our
aging population.