The University of Hong Kong

PSYC2009 Life-Span Developmental Psychology

Second Semester 2023/2024

Lecture Time & Venue: Wednesdays, 10:30-12:20 pm, at CYPP2

Teaching Team Office Phone Email Consultation hour
Lecturer Lucy HSU JCT606 39102188 lucyhsu@hku.hk Wed 9:30-10:30am
Tutor/Coordinator Terry TSE JCT619 39178231 yltsec@hku.hk Mon 12:00-1:00pm
Tutor Sandy CHENG JCT712 39177124 chengwys@connect.hku.hk By appointment
Kerina HONG JCT712 39177388 kerinahong@connect.hku.hk Tue 3:00-4:00pm
Marshall HUI JCT712 N.A. mhmc@connect.hku.hk By appointment
Jade TIN JCT712 39177378 jtin@connect.hku.hk By appointment

Course Objectives:
This course introduces developmental psychology from a life-span perspective and aims to
enhance students’ communication-related knowledge, skills and attributes. Different aspects of
development, including physical, cognitive, and social development, will be introduced. Basic
concepts, issues, research methods, and theories of development will also be discussed.

Learning Outcomes:
• Students will be able to better understand different aspects of human development from a
lifespan perspective.
• Oral and Written literacy: Students will be able to conduct hands-on research on a major
developmental psychology topic and present the data through the group presentation project
(oral presentation). Students will be able to justify critically and persuasively for a particular
side of some of the most controversial psychological topics through skill integration and
synthesis of relevant theories (written assignment).
•
Textbook:
Sigelman, C.K., & Rider, E.A. (2019). Life-span human development (9th Ed.). Cengage.

Course Assessment & Requirements

Tutorial participation 10%

4 Tutorial admission tickets 10%
Group project presentation 10%
Group project report 20%
Personal portfolio 20%
Midterm Test 15%
Final Test 15%

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 Meeting Schedule:
# Dates Topics Readings
Developmental theories Ch. 1, 2
1 17 Jan
Course overview
Genes, environment, and development
2 24 Jan Ch. 3, 4
Prenatal development and birth
Body, brain, and health
3 31 Jan Ch. 5, 6
Sensation, perception, and action
4 7 Feb Cognition Ch. 7
14 Feb CNY Holiday
5 21 Feb Memory and information processing Ch. 8
28 Feb Mid-term test
6 Mar Reading Week
6 13 Mar Intelligence and creativity Ch. 9
7 20 Mar Language and Education Ch. 10
8 27 Mar Self and personality Ch. 11
9 3 Apr Gender roles and sexuality Ch. 12
10 10 Apr Social cognition and moral development Ch. 13
11 17 Apr Emotions, attachment, and social relationships Ch. 14
24 Apr Final test

Lecture materials:
A short version of the lecture slides and supplementary materials, if any, for each lecture
will be posted on Moodle before each lecture. Please download the lecture materials before
attending the lecture.

Lecture optional readings:

Please refer to p. 8 for a list of lecture optional readings. These readings are for your
personal interest in a multi-perspective view of the topic and will not be tested in the
examination. Other additional reference materials will be given in each lecture.

Midterm and Final tests (40 MCQs@40%, 2 essays@60%)

a. Both the Midterm and Final tests are scheduled during class time on Wednesdays 10:30
– 12:20. Both tests will require your personal, physical attendance to a test venue on the
HKU campus.
b. You will answer 40 multiple-choice questions and two short essays (400 words each) in
each test. Each test is 90 mins in length. All materials covered in lectures, tutorials, and
the textbook will be included.
c. The tests are noncumulative.

Makeup test policy (for both mid-term and final):

Under normal circumstances, a make-up test will be arranged only when a doctor's
certificate (original copy) supporting a student’s absence is submitted to the tutor before or
within one week after the test (seven calendar days). Only in rare cases will a make-up test
be arranged for non-medical reasons, and the assessment may be subject to penalty
depending on the case. There will only be one make-up test regardless of the reason for
absence. Students failing to attend the test and the make-up test will receive a score of zero.
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Tutorial participation (10%)
a. Both attendance and participation during the tutorials will be counted.
b. Students are expected to be punctual to the tutorials. A mark deduction of 0.5% will
be for arriving 20 minutes or later in a tutorial.

Admission tickets (4 tickets @2.5%, Total 10%)

a. There will be an assigned reading for four of the five tutorials (no reading required for
Tutorial 2) available in the course Moodle. (please refer to the tutorial reading list on
p. 10)
b. You need to submit a softcopy of the admission ticket to Turnitin after reading each
assigned article, 24 hours before the start of each tutorial slot.
c. You would also need to bring a hard copy of your admission ticket to class.
d. The admission ticket should be no more than 300 words. The references section
is not included in the word count.
e. Extra credits will be given to work that shows critical thinking and additional readings.
f. There will be a penalty of 0.25 marks out of 2.5 for each hour late. There will be a
penalty of 0.25 marks out of 2.5 for submitting your work to the wrong folder.

Tutorial schedules and Group projects

Tutorial Group Topic Participants

Project
1 Orientation & discussion on Nature vs. Nurture (no group project presentation)
th
(29 Jan week) Tutors will introduce the rubrics for the group project's oral presentation and
written report components.
2 Discussion on the expectations and arrangements of group presentations, group
(19th Feb week) projects, and personal portfolio assignments
No reading or admission ticket is needed for this session.
3 1 Conservation 5 children between the ages of 6 and 8
th
(11 Mar week)
4 2 Parenting Style 6 parents with children in pre-school or primary
th
18 Mar week) grade, 3 Chinese families and 3 non-Chinese
families
5 3 Moral 12 participants, 3 in each group:
th
(25 Mar week) Reasoning 1. under age six (in his/her early childhood)
2. above age six but under age twelve (in
his/her middle childhood)
3. around twenty (in his/her adolescence)
4. above thirty (in his/her adulthood)

Group project presentation (10%)

a. [Oral Literacy - instruction]: During the first tutorial session, your tutor will
explain the group project assignment, review the oral presentation rubric, and assign
you into three groups, each working on one group project topic.
b. You are required to do a 25-minute group presentation at the tutorial, summarizing
the data you have collected.
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 c. Your presentation should have five sections: 1) what previous studies have found
and your hypothesis; 2) method; 3) results; 4) discussion.
d. [Oral Literacy – practice ]: To further refine their presentation skills, each
presentation group is required to rehearse their presentation by scheduling a practice
consultation session at the speaking studio: https://www.caescss.hku.hk/speaking-
studio. Evidence of attendance at the speaking studio, such as a group photo taken at
the studio or a written note from the speaking studio confirming attendance, must be
submitted to the tutor on the day of the presentation. You may also reach out to your
tutor for feedback on your presentation outline.
d. Show your tutor the speaking studio proof of attendance, consent forms and recording
sheets before you begin your presentation. You can destroy them after showing them to
your tutor.

Group project report (20%)

a. [Written Literacy – instruction]: During the first tutorial session, your tutor will also
go through the expectations of the group project report based on the report rubric.
b. Each group needs to submit ONE group project report ONLY.
c. The deadline will be at 23:59 two weeks after your tutorial presentation session. For
example, if you present on 12th March, the deadline for your group project will be at
23:59 26th March.
d. Your collected data will be thoroughly discussed in the tutorial, with inputs from your
classmates and tutor. This should equip you with better confidence in analyzing your
data and completing your report. You may also reach out to your tutor for feedback on
your report draft.
e. [Written Literacy – practice]: Students are required to book a consultation session
with the writing centre: https://www.caescss.hku.hk/writing-centre. Each group is
required to include in the appendix a proof of attendance (comments from the writing
centre support staff/ a note of confirmed attendance).
f. Your group project report should be 4 pages long (Times New Roman font, font size 12,
single line spacing and excluding References page).
g. You should state your hypothesis clearly at the top of your report.
h. You should discuss 1) whether your findings support your hypothesis - why or why not;
2) the limitations of your research, 3) implications for future research; 4) the references
page (in APA format).
i. There will be a penalty of 2 marks out of 20 for each hour late, a deduction of 1 mark
for exceeding the page limit and another deduction of 0.5mark for submitting your
work to the wrong folder.
j. Peer Evaluation – A peer evaluation form for the group project is available on Moodle.
Only fill this form in if you feel the group’s workload has been unfairly divided. Please
see the form for details

Personal portfolio (20%)

Portfolio is a type of performance assessment that helps students personalize their learning.
Self-reflection is the core of this portfolio assessment.
In this assignment, you are to prepare a portfolio about yourself. We want you to relate
what you have learned in this course to your own experience. There is no fixed format for
the portfolio. You may include photos, cliparts, cartoons, or charts. In the portfolio:

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Part A: Your history of development (Up to ten PowerPoint slides, with brief text in font
size 20 or larger and optional visual aids such as photos, cartoons, and charts)
1. Give a brief account of your development history in one or two selected aspects
(about your physical, language, cognitive, social, or personality development).
2. Find incidents or experiences that are worth exploring by:
• glancing through your photo albums;
• talking to your parents, caretakers, elder siblings, or cousins;
• thinking thoroughly about yourself after lectures and tutorials;
• observing the parent-child interactions around you; ……
Identify several incidents or experiences about selected aspects of development
relevant to what you have learned in this course and that you would like to share.
These incidents or experiences can be selected from infancy onwards up to
adolescence.
3. Collect the information needed to describe the incidents or experiences.

Part B: Reflection (Up to 5 A4 pages, double spacing, font size 12)

4. Reflect on those experiences and discuss how certain developmental theories and
research findings can be used to account for your experiences. For example:
• Do the theories account for your behavior?
• Is your cognitive or motor development stage-like? • How is your case
special or deviant from the norm?...

Here are some suggested topics:

INFANCY
Motor development Babbling or talking
Preterm baby Vocabulary spurt
Conditioning Attachment to parents (mother vs. father)
Discriminating caretakers from other people Stranger anxiety
Object permanence Sense of self (subjective/ objective)
Imitation Effects of day care

EARLY CHILDHOOD
Language development Gender concept
Theory of mind Self-control
Egocentrism Emotions
Relationships with siblings or peers

MIDDLE CHILDHOOD
Logical thinking (Inductive/ Deductive) Self-esteem
Schooling Media effects
Relationships with parents, siblings or peers

ADOLESCENCE
Puberty Relationships with parents, siblings or peers
Moral reasoning Romance relationships
Identity vs. role confusion Delinquency

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 Page limits:
Ten PowerPoint slides (font size at least 20) for Part A
Five A4 pages (double spacing, font size 12) for Part B

Evaluation of the assignment:

 Organization and expression (40%) – clarity and cohesion in presenting the
relevant experience and information
 Application of psychological theories and research (50%) – how relevant
theories and research findings in human development are applied in interpreting
personal experience and development
 Creativity (10%) – materials based on multiple sources of information and use
of interesting and effective formats

Deadline for submission: at 11:59pm 3rd May 2024 (Friday)

The completed Personal Portfolio should be submitted to the Course Moodle. There will
be two parts to the submission folder. Please submit Part A to Part 1 of the submission
folder and Part B to Part 2 of the submission folder.

Penalty for late submission: a deduction of 2 marks for each 12 hours late, 1 mark for
exceeding the page limit and 0.5 mark for submitting your work to the wrong folder.

Feedback Policy
In normal circumstances, students can expect to receive feedback within 3 weeks after
submitting written assignments. Test papers will not be returned to students; however,
students can receive individual feedback about each test through meetings with the
coursetutor. Tutors will provide instant feedback on students’ tutorial performance, but
the assessment result will not be released and is subject to inter-class calibration. The
course coordinator will release All official assessment records ONLY through Moodle.

Ethical Considerations

1. Consent for collecting data

a. You need to get written consent from your participant or their parent/guardian before
collecting your data.
b. Sample consent forms are placed in Moodle under the Tutorial>Consent forms section.
c. Ask your participant or parent/guardian to sign the form and hand it at the beginning
of your group project presentation tutorial.
d. If you cannot submit the consent forms, we will not allow you to present, and you will
receive zero marks for your group project presentation, for we consider such data might
be collected unethically.

2. Using, storing, and destroying your data

a. The data you have collected should only be used for your own analysis and group
project presentation.
b. Make sure the data contains no personal identifier by:
i. Not mentioning the participants’ information during your presentation
ii. Labelling your audio record by numbers, not names of your participants
c. Never upload any audio records onto Facebook, or share it with anyone apart from
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 your groupmates or your tutorial classmates during the presentation.
d. Destroy the audio record after you have submitted your group project report. Do not
keep any copies with you.

3. Data fabrication
a. Select excerpts of your audio recording and play it during your group project
presentation as proof of authentic data. Be sure the excerpt does not contain any
personal identifier of the participants, such as their names.
b. If you do not include such excerpts, you will receive zero marksfor your group
project presentation.

4. Academic Dishonesty
a. Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Any student who engages in any form of
academic dishonesty (e.g., cheating on exams, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, interfering
with grading, falsification and fabrication of data in any academic exercise, etc.) will
receive a grade of F in this course and will be reported to the Department/Faculty
Office/University Disciplinary Committee for further disciplinary action. There will
be no exceptions.
b. If you are not sure what constitutes the academic offense of plagiarism, checkout the
webpage at http://www.hku.hk/plagiarism. Department of Psychology has
formulated departmental policies/guidelines on student misconduct. Visit the website
at https://psychology.hku.hk/useful-information-to-current-students/ for more
information.

5. Plagiarism
a. A softcopy is required for all written assignments.
b. The softcopy will be checked for plagiarism against a database of articles, books,
webpages, and essays submitted by students at HKU and other universities.
c. No credit will be given for an assignment that contains plagiarized materials. Further
penalties would also be applied at the lecturer's discretion, including a zero markfor
the course. Plagiarism will also be reported to the Department/ Faculty
Office/University Disciplinary Committee for consideration of possible disciplinary
action.
d. For group projects, any plagiarized work will result in a penalty for the whole group.
Ifyou suspect your groupmates might have contributed plagiarized work, inform your
lecturer or tutor BEFORE submission of the project.

6. Generative AI policy
a. To ensure all students have an equal opportunity to succeed and to preserve the
integrity of the course, students are not permitted to submit text that is generated
by generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT, DALL-E), or any other automated
assistance for any classwork or assessments. This includes using AI to generate
answers to assignments, exams, or projects, or using AI to complete any other
course-related tasks.
b. Students may use AI as part of their research and preparation for assignments, or as
a text editor, but text that is submitted must be written by the student. For
example, students may use AI to generate ideas, questions, or summaries that they
then revise, expand, or cite properly.
c. Students should also be aware of the potential benefits and limitations of using AI as
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 a tool for learning and research. AI systems can provide helpful information or
suggestions, but they are not always reliable or accurate.
d. Violations of this policy will be treated as academic misconduct. If you have any
questions about this policy or if you are unsure whether a particular use of AI is
acceptable, please do not hesitate to ask for clarification.

FINAL NOTE:

If you decide to stay enrolled in this module, you are assumed to have read and agreed with all
the arrangements and regulations put in this document. Any objections to the above should be
raised during the add/ drop period, and no structural changes will be made after the add/ drop
period. Normally, adjustments will be made only for medical reasons or special education needs.

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 Classics (Optional)
To access the optional readings, students may visit the corresponding link to each article in the
course moodle. (See “Link to optional reading” in the moodle)

# Article

1. Cloud, J. (2010). Why genes aren’t destiny. Time, 175, 48-53.

2. Newton-Small J. (2012). Frozen Assets. Time, 48-52.

3. Hepper, P. (2005) Unravelling our beginnings. The Psychologist, Vol 18(8), 474-477

4. Bryant, P.E. (1992). Arithmetic in the cradle. Nature, 358, 712-713.

5. Wynn, K. (1992). Addition and subtraction by human infants. Nature, 358, 749-750.

Rosenstein, D., & Harriet, O. (1988). Differential facial responses to four basic tastes innew-
6. borns. Child Development, 59, 1555-1568.

7. Raine, A., Reynolds, C., Venables, P. H., & Mednick, S. A. (2002).

Stimulation seeking and intelligence: A prospective longitudinal study.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 663-674.

8. Diamond, A. (2000). Close interrelation of motor development and cognitive developmentand

of the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex.
Child Development, 71, 44-56.

Brown, L., & Iyengar, S. (2008). Parenting Styles: The Impact on Student Achievement.
9. Marriage & Family Review, 43, 14 – 38.

10. Lobel, T. E., Bar-David, E., Gruber, R., Lau, S., Bar-Tal, Y. (2000). Gender schema and social
judgments: A developmental study of children from Hong Kong. Sex Roles, 43, 19-42.

11. Winer, G.A. and McGlone, C. (1993). On the Uncertainty of Conservation: Responses to
Misleading Conservation Questions.
Developmental Psychology, 29 (4), 760-769.

12. Appel, L. F., Cooper, R. G., McCarrell, N., Sims-Knight, J., Yussen, S.R., Flavell, J.H.
(1972). The development of the distinction between perceiving and memorizing. Child
Development, 43, 1365-1381.

Harter, S. (1982). Perceived Competence Scale for Children. Child Development, 53, 87-97.
13.

14. Alberts, A., Elkind, D., Ginsberg, S. (2007). The personal fable and risk-taking in early
adolescence. Journal of Youth Adolescence, 36, 7176.

15. Yancey, A.K., Siegel, J.M., McDaniel, K.L. (2002). Role models, ethnic identity, and
health-risk behaviours in urban adolescents. Archives of Paediatrics and Adolescent
Medicine, 156, 55-61.

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 Tutorial Reading List
You are required to study the articles/book chapter before attending your tutorial. You
can find these on Moodle.
Tutorial Article

Diamond, M., & Sigmundson, H.K. (1997). Sex Reassignment atBirth:

1 long-term review and clinical implications. Archives of Pediatrics and
Adolescent Medicine, 151, 298-304.
Light, P. (1986). Context, Conservation and Conversation. Children of social
3 worlds: Development in a social context. Harvard University Press.

Wu, P., Robinson, C.C., Yang, C., Hart, C. H., Olsen, S. F., Porter, C.L., Jin, S.,
4 Wo, J., & Wu, X (2002). Similarities and differences in mothers’ parenting of
preschoolers in China and the United States.
International Journal of Behavioral Development, 26, 481-491.
Kohlberg, L. (2008). The development of children’s orientations towarda moral
5 order: I. Sequence in the development of moral thought.
Human development, 51, 8-20.
*Note: Tutorial 2 is arranged for students’ understanding of tutorial assignments, no reading or
admission ticket is needed in tutorial 2.

Tutorial Timeslots:

001 Tue 15:30-16:20 CPD2.18 (Marshall HUI)

002 Tue 16:30-17:20 CPD2.14 (Marshall HUI)

003 Wed 12:30-13:20 CPD2.46 (Jade TIN)

005 Wed 13:30-14:20 CPD2.46 (Jade TIN)

004 Wed 12:30-13:20 CPD-LG46 (Sandy CHENG)

006 Wed 13:30-14:20 CPD-LG46 (Sandy CHENG)

007 Thu 11:30-12:20 CPD-LG64 (Kerina HONG)

008 Thu 12:30-13:20 CPD-LG64 (Kerina HONG)

009 Thu 14:30-15:20 CPD4.17 (Terry TSE)

010 Thu 15:30-16:20 CPD4.17 (Terry TSE)

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