Do you want to receive college credit for what you already know? For whatever reason, you may know a lot about life-span developmental psychology but have never received credit on your transcript for that knowledge. If this is the case, taking the DSST Life-Span Developmental Psychology exam might be a good option for you.
DSST is a prior learning assessment program – this means that students take an exam about something they already understand and receive college credit on their transcripts upon passing the exam. A DSST Test is a good way to graduate faster, move on to the courses you really want to take, and spend less money on your college education.
If you are interested in taking the DSST Life-Span Developmental exam, the first thing you need to do is set up an appointment with your academic advisor to confirm that your college accepts DSST exams and to decide whether that particular exam is right for your academic career. Because different colleges sometimes require a higher standard of passing than the minimum, you may also want to find out what score you will need in order for your college to give you credit.
The DSST Life-Span Developmental exam addresses the following five topics:
- The Study of Lifespan Development
- Biological Development
- Perception, Learning and Memory, Cognition and Language
- Social, Emotional, and Personality Development.
- The test covers the full range of lifespan categories (prenatal and infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood, late adulthood) for each of these topics.
For a more detailed outline you should check out a DSST Life-Span Developmental study guide, which will provide sample questions and other helpful resources.
DSST Life-Span Developmental Psychology Practice Questions
1. A correlative method of studying child behavior indicates what type of question?
A. which comes first?
B. what goes with what?
C. who did what?
D. why did that happen?
2. Time sampling is a type of:
A. systematic observation
B. semi-clinical interview
C. sondage
D. spontaneous conviction
3. According to Piaget, when a child’s answer to a question is the result of careful thought, it can be termed:
A. romancing
B. suggested conviction
C. answers at random
D. liberated conviction
4. Children who are very susceptible to external stimuli, may be called what?
A. field dependent
B. field independent
C. externally dependent
D. internally impaired
5. What was the focus of Jean Piaget’s theory of development?
A. physiological development
B. speech development
C. cognitive development
D. psychosocial development
6. Which of the following theorists focused primarily on psychosocial development?
A. B.F. Skinner
B. Sigmund Freud
C. Erik Erikson
D. Jean Piaget
7. What does the “cultural drift hypothesis” address?
A. effect rather than cause
B. cause rather than effect
C. neither cause nor effect
D. both cause and effect
8. If a research project involves naturalistic observation, does the researcher need to obtain informed consent from the subjects involved?
A. no, consent is never needed with naturalistic observation
B. yes, informed consent must always be obtained
C. yes, but only if it can be obtained without the subject’s knowledge of the type of research being done
D. no, if the research can be reasonably assumed to not be harmful
9. When does the blastocyst period take place?
A. from fertilization until the fifteenth week of development
B. from the third week until the eighth week of development
C. from the tenth week until the twelfth week of development
D. from fertilization until approximately the fifteenth day of development
10. A fontanelle is:
A. an early development in the first stage of pregnancy
B. an irregular indentation at the base of an infant’s skull
C. the soft spot on the top of an infant’s head
D. a treatment used for PKU after birth
DSST Life-Span Developmental Psychology Practice Questions Answer Key