Professor Amanda Turner
4/29/13
For my case study I interviewed my friend’s daughter Hailey Murphy. Hailey is a
white 11 year old female. She is currently in 5th grade at Little Run elementary in Burke Virginia
which is also where she lives. Hailey has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder by her
doctors but it is not a severe case of it. Her parents are recently divorced and currently share
custody. Her family comes from a middle class socioeconomic status. Although I have known
Hailey’s family for about 7 years and I have babysat her and her siblings many times, I was a
little worried about doing this interview with her. I was worried because I wasn’t sure if she was
going to answer my questions honestly or just laugh at me because I’ve never asked her these
types of questions. Also I thought it might be difficult because of her ADD but I was pleasantly
surprised of how attentive and patient she was with me asking her all these as she put it “weird
questions.” Although her mom and I are the best of friends, I did not want to interview Hailey
without asking her permission first. So I brought a pen and some paper and we got started. I
promised her that I would buy her some cotton candy for her cotton candy machine that she had
so that she will have an incentive to answer these questions. She responded by saying “you
don’t have to buy me anything we’re friends Sorosh”. I told her I was going to anyways because
we’re friends and she could consider it a birthday present. Although I did not write everything
that she said because Hailey is a talker and she jumped from stories about her friends to school
when answering questions, I didn’t mind because it meant she was interested in what we were
doing and wanted to talk about.
Family
For this part I asked for Hailey’s mom Angela to let us have the conversation
alone because I did not Hailey to answer her questions about family honestly and not worry if
her mom heard it or not. Angela left for the kitchen to make us brownies and I got started with
questionnaire. Hailey has 7 people in her family. Her father’s name is Sean. Her mother as I
said is Angela. She has two older brothers Jed and Arzie. Jed is 15 years old and Arzie is 13.
She has two younger sisters Marin who is 9 and Ryley 6, finally her baby brother Wyatt who is 3
years old. Hailey’s parents recently divorced which according to Mcdevitt and Ormrod is very
common. “Once an infrequent occurrence, divorce is now commonplace. In the United States
more than 4 marriages end in divorce and approximately half of American children are affected
by their parents’ divorce (Pg.73). So her family is currently going through a lot of changes. Her
parents are currently sharing custody until everything gets resolved in court. She stays at her
dads on weekdays and with her on weekends. I know that she does not like to talk about her
family situation because she claims she does not know what is going on so I tried not to touch
on any sensitive topics about family because I did not want to upset her considering her parents’
divorce is still recent. Hailey described her parents as different and said that her dad is way
stricter than her mom. I did ask if her parents still get along and she said yes they do, which to
me means they are working as copartner which according to Mcdevitt and Ormrod means that
they are “partners in raising their children” (pg. 73). The book continued to say “Many parents
air their differences constructively and search for solutions that are mutually beneficial, giving
children valuable lessons in cooperation and conflict resolution” (pg. 73). So that told me that
her parents are trying to do what is best for their kids but I’m not sure if it is working that well
because her mom mentioned to me that her grades had fallen a bit since the divorce. According
to Mcdevitt and Ormrod lower grades are to be expected when dealing with a divorce “Custodial
parents…often struggle to complete all the tasks involved in maintaining an organized
household, including shopping, cooking, cleaning, and monitoring children’s activities and
homework” (pg. 73). One last thing I picked up from Hailey’s answers is that she gravitates
more towards her mom than her dad who is usually normal but I thought it was curious
considering she’s with her mom for only two day a week as to 5 days a week with her dad. But
perhaps that had to do with their different approach towards parenting. Her father seems to
have an authoritarian approach while her mother has more of an authoritative parenting style.
So her love towards her mom makes sense because according to Mcdevitt and Ormrod
“Authoritative parents’ guide children with flexibility, whereas authoritarian parents are less
affectionate and more rigid” (pg.80). Also it is usually her dad that is giving her punishments for
something she did wrong. Hailey also has a very good relationship with her 2 younger sisters
especially Marin and that helps their relationship with their mother. This seems common
according Mcdevitt and Ormrod “siblings serve many purposes…close sibling relationships can
supplement parent-child bonds” (pg. 82).
Cognitive Development
The first activity I did to determine Hayley is ask her to describe someone she
knows well to see where she is in the developmental stage and if she is capable of abstract
thinking like Jean Piaget ‘s formal operational stage’s suggests that a child her age should be
able to. According to Mcdevitt and Ormrod “children become capable of thinking and reasoning
about things that have little or no basis in physical reality. They can think logically about abstract
concepts, hypothetical ideas, and statements that contradict what they know to be true in the
real world” (pg. 203). Hailey showed me that she is capable of abstract thinking by describing
her mom Angela as nice and caring. Those are abstract ways of describing someone because it
does not have anything to do with her physical appearance. She also mentioned that she
sometimes gets annoyed with how loving her mom is because she’s “always trying to take
pictures together”. I think her irritation may be a sign that she is going through puberty. I don’t
know for sure if she is but according to Mcdevitt and Ormrod “Puberty begins in girls sometime
between ages 8 and 13” (pg. 165).
The Second activity that I asked Hailey to do was the Pendulum problem. I had
pencils but I did not have any string or weights that I could tie the string around. Angela had
string and I went to the trunk of my car to get 3 bolts of different size. After gathering all the
materials to do this activity, the difficult part was to explain it Hailey what I was doing and why I
was doing it. I explained that I’m making three pendulums that swing and the point of this
activity is for you to explain to me what happened and why it happened. She smiled and said
“ok I’m ready”.
I did the experiment and asked her questions about and she showed that she possesses some
formal operational thinking as Piaget says children her age do. I did think however that maybe
her formal operational thinking is still a work in progress because while she was able have
formulate hypotheses which were correct she did not mention all the reasons that pendulum
with the longer string and heavier bolt did not swing as high as the other 2 pendulums. She
mentioned the weight and the amount of force as the reasons but forgot to include the longer
string. According to the book Piaget “may have overestimated what adolescents can do. Formal
operational thinking processes emerge much more gradually than Piaget suggested, and
adolescents don’t use the skill as regularly as Piaget would have us believe” (Mcdevitt and
Ormrod, 2013, Pg.205). I still was fairly surprised with how well she did considering I’ve known
her since she was 5, but I never really asked her these types of questions when I babysit. I do
believe that her cognitive development will continue to progress gradually and eventually reach
the next stage which Piaget did not mention but some theorists believe that it exists. The book
calls it a “post formal stage in which they can envision multiple approaches to the same problem
and recognize that each approach may be valid from a particular perspective” (Mcdevitt and
Ormrod, 2013, Pg. 206).
Peers
On to the topic she liked the most, talking about friends. Hailey is a popular girl at
school and has many friends but she only has one true best friend and that is Eileen. Eileen and
Hailey spend a lot of time together; in fact I have on some occasions babysat both of them
together while their Moms went out. One of the things that surprised me is how well Hailey has
handled her parents’ divorce, because while her grades may have fallen a bit, she is still the
same happy- go- lucky person that I have known for 7 years. She almost never shown any signs
of depression or anger and part of that might be because of the relationship she has with Eileen.
According to Mcdevitt and Ormrod Peers “offer emotional support…the presence of familiar
peers helps children in new environments and cope with mild aggression…children and
adolescents who have peers to turn to have higher self-esteem, and fewer emotional problems”
(Pg. 570). I think Eileen has helped Hailey cope with her emotional problems because while
everything at home has changed with her parents’ divorce and her living in two houses instead
of one, the one thing that hasn’t changed is her friend and so Hailey gravitates to Eileen for
emotional support in a difficult time. Hailey mentioned in the interview that a friend is someone
you can talk to about anything and trust them with that information. This type of definition of a
friend falls into the early adolescence and the book says “Many begin to reveal their innermost
thoughts to others, especially to peers” (Mcdevitt and Ormrod, 2013, Pg. 575). Hailey was able
to distinguish the difference between a friend and a best friend very well. She mentioned that
she and her best friend Eileen have similar interests and sense of humor. I often hear them
laughing about things which I do not funny at all but is hysterical to them. Hailey is at an age
where she is trying to develop an identity and so naturally she will be friends that is the same
age as her and has similar preferences to humor, music and even boys. I once over heard them
talk about a boy in school and how they both thought that he was “cute”. Angela told me that
Hailey and Eileen spend a lot of time talking on the phone. I asked her if they do any physical
activities like playing sports and she said no they don’t like it anymore. I remember her being a
very good soccer player so I was surprised to learn that she no longer plays a sport, but
according to the book girls her age “spend much more time simply talking, sharing personal
concerns, telling secrets, offering emotional support and so on” (Mcdevitt and Ormrod, 2013,
Pg. 577).
Motivation/Self Concept
After spending a good deal of time talking about her friends, I asked her some
questions about school. I could see that she was not as excited to talk about this topic as she
was about her friends. Also because I had heard that her grades had fallen a bit recently. She
mentioned that her least favorite subject is math and that she has a very hard time with that
subject, which is normal for most students I believe. Math is usually the most popular answer for
least favorite subject among children and perhaps even adults. I handed Hailey the motivation
questions and asked her to grade herself honestly. She was able to understand the grading
scale very well after I explained it.
After seeing how she scored herself I averaged out her score for each of the
three motivation scales from PALS. She averaged a 2.8 in the Mastery Goal Orientation, a 3.25
in Performance-avoid goal orientation and a 2.4 in the Performance-Approach Orientation. The
results indicate that Hailey has a performance goal in which she “wants to present herself as
competent in the eyes of others and so tries to avoid mistakes if at all possible” (Mcdevitt and
Ormrod, 2013, Pg. 504). There are two types performance goals however performanceapproach and performance- avoidance. Performance-approach focuses on achieving positive
outcomes and the respect of classmates. Performance-avoidance which
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scored the highest on focuses more on “avoiding undesirable outcomes, such as exhibiting poor
performance in public or being the subject of peer ridicule”. While Hailey’s answers did reflect
more towards performance-avoidance, she did have a decent average on Mastery goal which is
the optimal situation according to the book. I believe that Hailey may have both Mastery and
performance avoidance goals, which is possible because these goals are “not mutually
exclusive…on many occasions children may simultaneously have two kinds, or even all three”
(Mcdevitt and Ormrod, 2013, Pg. 505). Hailey is at an age where she values the opinion of her
peers more than maybe teachers so this type of score is typical for young adolescent.
Moral Development
To determine Hailey’s moral development, read her the prompt about the two
children that wanted to buy a video game but didn’t have the money. One Child, Fred, stole $30
which he saw his neighbor drop and the other child, Dan, lied to a friend to get the money and
had no intention of returning it. I asked her which was worse, stealing like Fred or cheating/lying
like Dan. Her response was “they’re both bad but I think Dan is worse”. When I asked why she
said “because Dan lied to his friend and Fred only stole from his neighbor. So Hailey’s moral
reasoning is based on trust and loyalty towards friends. According to Kohlberg’s three levels
and six stages of moral reasoning Hailey’s answers show that she is in Level 2, Stage 3 of
moral development called conventional morality. People in this stage “are concerned about
maintaining relationships through sharing, trust, and loyalty and they take other people’s
perspectives and intentions into account when making decisions” (Mcdevitt and Ormrod, 2013,
Pg. 536). Hailey did mention that both of those boys were bad for doing that and it is a typical
answer from a person with conventional morality. According to the book conventional morality is
“characterized by an acceptance of society’s conventions regarding right and wrong” (Mcdevitt
and Ormrod, 2013, Pg.540). When I asked why she thought lying was worse she responded by
saying “it’s worse because you don’t lie to your friends or make promises you can’t keep”.
Hailey is at an age where friendship matters to her more than it ever did before so considers the
binds of friendship to be honesty and loyalty.
Bibliography
Mcdevitt, T., & Ormrod, J. (2013). Child development and education. (5th ed.). New Jersey:
Pearson.
Name of Child: Hailey Murphy
Gender: Female
Age: 11
Grade: 5
Disability: ADD
Family
1. Tell me about who’s in your family:
My Mom Angela, My Dad Sean, My older brothers Jed and Arzie my younger sisters Marin and
Rylee and my baby brother Wyatt.
2. What Kinds of things do you do together?
We all go swimming together and watch movies and we all eat together.
3. What do your parents say when they want you to do something?
They say Hailey “can you please do this?”
What rules do you have at home?
We have rules about being nice and respectful to each other and never say anything mean.
What happens when you break the rules?
I get in trouble and my dad grounds me.
What do they do if you hit someone in the playground; if you don’t do chores or if you come
home late?
I get grounded for a long time if I hit someone because my mom says “hands are for helping not
hurting”, if I come home late or don’t do my chores they get upset with me and ground me.
4.
How often do your parents ask about your friends?
They ask me all the time.
Do your parents know where you are after school? On Weekends? In the evening when you
go out?
Yes I always tell them because I have to get their permission first.
Do your parents encourage you to have your own ideas?
Yes they do.
Do they say you shouldn’t argue with adults?
Yea all the time when I try to argue with them.
Do they ask your opinion about things?
Yes.
Can you give me an example?
Well my mom asks me about my opinion on her clothes when she’s wearing a dress or
something and my dad asks me what I think he should buy for my sisters for Christmas.
What do you do if you have a problem?
I try and ask someone for help.
Do you discuss with parents?
Yea my mom is usually the first person I go to for help.
Can you count on them to help? Or is it best they don’t know?
I can count on them to help and they tell me that I should never be afraid to ask them for help
with anything and so I do because they’re smart and I know they love me.
The Information is very similar to the text. Hailey’s parents recently divorced and in (page 74) of
the book it says that children lose contact with one parent more often their father. Hailey
seemed to mention her Mother more than her father with the questions i asked about family. i
found it interesting because her parents share custody. Her father has her for weekdays and her
mother has her for weekends but somehow Hailey has a better connection with her mother. I
believe that has to do with their parenting styles. Her father has more of a authoritarian
parenting style and her mother is more authoritative.
Cognitive Development
Describe someone you know very well.
My mom Angela is pretty. She has pretty green eyes and she has long hair and she is skinny
because she works out a lot.
What else can you tell me about her.
She is a nice person, she’s very smart and caring. she loves to cook and she likes taking
pictures with me and my brothers and sisters every time we go somewhere. She’s like “hey let’s
take a picture together as a happy family.”
do you not like that?
well i do but sometimes it gets annoying but i love my mom.
Pendulum Problem
. I showed her a pendulum which i had made out of a pencil holding a bolt. Then i made more 2
more pendulums with slightly heavier bolts attached to it. I labeled the weights for her as light,
medium and heavy and also had 3 different lengths of strings attached to each bolt. the light bolt
had a short string. The medium weight bolt had a slightly longer string and the heavier bolt had
the longest string attached to it. I asked her to observe what she saw when i swung each
pendulum using the same amount of force. i think the one with shorter string and lighter weight
swung higher than the other 2.
Why do you think that was?
because the bolt on that one didn’t weigh as much as the other 2 and so the lighter one higher.
Were the other two the same?
No the heaviest one was moving the least but i expected it to.
Why did you expect that?
because you would have to swing it harder than the other 2 if you want it to go as high as the
other ones.
Peers
What is a friend? Or tell me about a friend of yours and why she is your friend.
A friend is a person who you can have fun with and talk to about anything and you can trust
them. My best friend is Eileen and we’re friends because we do everything together, we like the
same things we laugh at the same stuff and she’s super nice we’re like the same.
What is important about liking the same things and them being nice?
I can’t be friends with anyone who is not nice and we really can’t do a lot of thing together if we
didn’t like the same things.
How is this different from just a friend?
Well cause a friend you hang out with sometimes but a best friend is someone you hang out
with all the time and have sleepovers with and you can tell them anything.
Motivation?self Concept
I asked Hailey some questions about school and this was her response.
Do you like school?
yea sometimes
What do you mean sometimes?
I like some of the classes but some classes i don’t.
Which class do you not like?
Math
Why Math?
because its hard and i don’t get it.
Do you think it will be easier if you studied more?
not really because even when i study, i don’t get it.
Is that the only class you have trouble in?
yea i’m good at all my other classes
I then presented the motivation activity to hailey and asked her to score herself from a 4 point
scale whether she agrees with statements or not. I told her if she had any questions let me
know. i gave her a print out of the motivation questions and here is how she scored herself.
Think about your least favorite class and answer the questions with this
4 point scale (1) not at all true (2) not true (3) true of me (4) very true of me
1.
I’m certain I can understand the ideas taught in this class. 3
2.
It’s important to me that I don’t look stupid in class. 4
3.
One of my goals is to show others that I’m good at my classwork. 3
4.
It’s important to me that I look smart compared to others in my class. 3
5.
One of my goals in class is to avoid looking like I have trouble doing the work. 3
6.
It’s important to me that I improve my skills this year. 3
7.
I know that I will be able to learn the material for this class. 3
8.
One of my goals is to keep others from thinking I’m not smart in class. 2
9.
It’s important to me that I thoroughly understand my classwork. 2
10.
I expect to do very well in this class. 2
11.
One of my goals is to show others that classwork is easy for me. 2
12.
It’s important to me that I learn a lot of new concepts this year. 3
13.
One of my goals in class is to learn as much as I can. 3
14.
I am sure I can do an excellent job on the problems and tasks assigned for this class. 3
15.
One of my goals is to master a lot of new skills this year. 3
16.
It’s important to me that other students in my class think I am good at my classwork. 3
17.
One of my goals is to look smart in comparison to the other students in my class. 2
18.
It’s important to me that my teacher doesn’t think that I know less than others in class.
2
Motivation Scales: from the PALS
Mastery Goal Orientation (Revised) (alpha: .85)
1. It’s important to me that I learn a lot of new concepts this year. 3
2. One of my goals in class is to learn as much as I can. 3
3. One of my goals is to master a lot of new skills this year. 3
4. It’s important to me that I thoroughly understand my classwork. 2
5. It’s important to me that I improve my skills this year. 3
Average: 2.8
Performance-Avoid Goal Orientation (Revised) (Alpha: .74)
1. It’s important to me that I don’t look stupid in class. 4
2. One of my goals is to keep others from thinking I’m not smart in class. 3
3. It’s important to me that my teacher doesn’t think that I know less than others in class . 3
4. One of my goals in class is to avoid looking like I have trouble doing the work. 3
Average:3.25
Performance-Approach Orientation (Revised) (Alpha: .89)
1. It’s important to me that other students in my class think I am good at my classwork. 2
2. One of my goals is to show others that I’m good at my classwork. 2
3. One of my goals is to show others that classwork is easy for me. 2
4. One of my goals is to look smart in comparison to the other students in my class. 3
5. It’s important to me that I look smart compared to others in my class. 3
Average: 2.4
Moral development
Finally I gave her a moral development problem which i had printed out.
Two children always wanted to buy a special Nintendo DS game from the store, even though
the parents had said “no”. One child, Fred, saw that a neighbor had dropped $30 when he got
out of his car, and decided to keep it and use it to buy the game. The other child, Dan, asked a
friend for the money. He told his friend that he needed to get his mom a birthday present, and
promised that he’d pay him back. Really, Dan was going to use the money to buy the game and
had no intention of paying the friend back.
1. Which is worse, stealing like Fred or cheating/lying like Dan?
They’re both bad but i think lying like Dan is worse.
2.
Why is that worse?
because dan lied to his friend. Fred only stole from his neighbor.
3.
What do you think is the worst thing about cheating the friend (or stealing)?
I think the worst thing is that he promised his friend and he isn’t going to keep his promise
4.
Why is that the worst thing?
Its worse because you don’t lie to your friends and you don’t make promises if you're not going
to keep it.
5.In general, why should a promise be kept?
A promise should be kept because promise between friends is sacred.
6.What if it wasn’t a friend, but a neighbor or someone he didn’t know well?
Well you shouldn’t ask for money from someone you didn’t know but it wouldn’t be as bad as
lying to your friend.
7.Why or why not?
Because he doesn’t know him that well and so he probably doesn’t care if he keeps his promise
but with a friend you should care about keeping a promise.