There are three different potential final assessments for this module.  Your teacher may choose to ask you to do one, two, or all three of the assessments.

The final assessment is a sample Paper 3.  Fill in each of the short-answer boxes to answer each of the questions.  

Time for this assessment - five minutes reading time, followed by one hour to complete your responses to the questions.

A mock paper

Please read the stimulus piece below.  When answering the questions, be sure to refer to the details in the study.

The development of social skills in preschool and early childhood can be linked to social skills later in life. Grady et al (2011) wanted to examine the relationship between parents’ behaviour when they drop their child off for preschool and how the children interact with their peers.

The researchers obtained consent from both the school and the parents in order to carry out the observations. No names of the children or parents were recorded in order to maintain the anonymity of the participants.

The researchers carried out a naturalistic observation to assess the impact of parental departure during daily drop-off at preschool on children’s settling into daily preschool routines. Forty-six 3–5-year-old children and their parents were observed during morning drop-off at a local preschool in the Appalachian region of the USA. 12 of the parents and 31 children were male. The parental community was highly educated (79.3% hold a university degree) and predominantly Caucasian.

There was a team of two researchers who took field notes. The preschool children, their parents/caregivers, and their peers were observed for three minutes after the parent and child arrived in the classroom. Child and peer interactive behaviours, as well as child and parent interactive behaviours, were recorded.

Mothers and other female caregivers were slightly more likely to pick up and hold their children during drop-off than fathers and other male caregivers.

Analysis revealed that when parents took longer to leave the preschool environment at drop-off, children spent less time engaged in either play with other children or solitary play. The extended parental presence in the preschool environment may actually delay children’s daily settling into the peer social environment. As children look to their parents for cues in determining when it is safe to approach and when to withdraw, parents who pick up and hold their children and hover by their children may be indicating to their children that it is not safe to leave their parents’ side. Their children may then maintain close proximity to their parents instead of engaging in the preschool environment.

The early development of emotional and social skills has implications for not only children’s later peer interactions and peer status, but also for children’s engagement in school and, ultimately, academic achievement. The current study found that children stay focused on parents and other adult caregivers when parents and caregivers take longer to leave the classroom, rather than interacting or playing with peers.