Assignment: Goals and Motives

By age 4, children can begin to focus more on information that is central to the plot than on incidental details (Lorch, Bellack, & Augsbach, 1987). Of course, younger children do best with age-appropriate content, programs that are relatively short in duration, and comprehension tests that assess forced-choice recognition rather than spontaneous recall (Campbell, Wright, & Huston, 1987). With development, children become increasingly able to extract events that are central to the storyline in a program (Collins, 1983; Durkin & Lowe, 1999). Yet the information younger children focus on is still likely to be fairly explicit in nature. For example, one study found that 4- and 6-year-olds most often recalled actions after watching televised stories, whereas adults most often recalled information about characters’ goals and motives (van den Broek, Lorch, & Thurlow, 1996). Actions are typically concrete and fairly vivid in television programming, making them easy to understand and represent in memory. Another study found that a majority of kindergartners thought an episode of Clifford the Big Red Dog was a story about dogs interacting, which meant they took the story quite literally (Mares & Acosta, 2008). At this young age, they missed the overarching moral lesson about social tolerance and inclusiveness. As

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discussed above, full comprehension involves apprehending not only explicit content but also implicit information in the unfolding narrative. For instance, in one scene, a protagonist might discover that a “friend” is trying to steal his money. In a later scene, the protagonist might hit the friend. The viewer must deduce that the protagonist’s aggression, which in isolation might appear unprovoked, is actually motivated by a desire to protect personal property. In other words, the viewer must link scenes together and draw causal inferences about content that is not explicitly presented. Studies show that older children are better able than their younger counterparts to draw different types of inferences from verbally presented passages (Ackerman, 1988; Pike, Barnes, & Barron, 2010). The same pattern emerges in the context of mediated messages. By roughly age 8 or 9, children show substantial improvements in their ability to link TV scenes together and draw connections between characters’ motives, behaviors, and consequences (Collins, Berndt, & Hess, 1974; Collins, Wellman, Keniston, & Westby, 1978; Kendeou, Bohn-Gettler, White, & van den Broek, 2008). This shift from concrete to inferential processing has implications for other forms of media as well. A video game and even a website require the user to make connections across space and time.

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To summarize, a number of important cognitive shifts occur between early and middle childhood. A preschooler watching screen media is likely to focus on the most striking perceptual features in a program. This child may comprehend some of the plot, especially when the program is brief and age appropriate. Yet comprehension will be closely tied to concrete actions and behaviors in the storyline. In addition, the preschooler is likely to have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy in the portrayals. As this same child enters elementary school, she will begin to focus more on conceptual aspects of the content such as the characters’ goals and motives. She increasingly will be able to link scenes together, drawing causal connections in the narrative. And her judgments of reality will become more accurate and discriminating as she compares media content with that which could possibly occur in the real world. Clearly, her overall understanding of a media message is quite advanced compared with what she was capable of as a preschooler. Nevertheless, her skills are continuing to develop even during her later elementary school years. Next we will explore some of the cognitive shifts that occur between late childhood and adolescence.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
- Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
- Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
- One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
- I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
- Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
- In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
- Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
- Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
- Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
- Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
- I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
- I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
- As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
- It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
- For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
- Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
- Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
- Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
- The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
- Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
- If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
- I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
- As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
- Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
  - Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
  - Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.