Week 14 · Assignment: Traditional alternative (no AI)

Week 14 — Two Questions, Four Statuses: Reading Teen Statements Fairly — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Child Development Free sample edition

Traditional alternative (no AI), unpublished. In the course this is a separate assignment that ships unpublished beside the adaptive assignment: same objective, no AI. An instructor who prefers it publishes it and unpublishes or deletes the adaptive one, as the note at its top says.

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Assignment 13 of the term — count Dataset I's keys on Marcia's two dimensions, read the statements and record R8 with this week's concepts, and explain the identity statuses to someone who has them wrong.

This week you met identity vs. role confusion, Marcia's four identity statuses on two dimensions, ethnic and cultural identity, parents, peers and risk-taking, and digital media and well-being as an area of active research. In this assignment you work four short problems on Dataset I, interpret each one, and explain the identity statuses to someone who has them wrong. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Child Observation Workshop practice the same ideas from other angles. It builds on Week 10's two-dimension grid for parents' replies, and on Week 13's first reading of record R8 for the imaginary audience.

The task

Dataset I, the identity-status set, is illustrative: it was built for this course and describes no real teen. It holds eight teen statements, 2 keyed to each of four statuses on two dimensions, exploration (actively trying out options before choosing) and commitment (having made a choice and holding to it). Marcia (1966), "Development and Validation of Ego-Identity Status", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, described the four statuses: identity diffusion (neither), identity foreclosure (commitment without exploration), identity moratorium (exploration without commitment yet), and identity achievement (both). Statuses can change over time, and no status is keyed as better for every teen.

A youth soccer coach (illustrative) tells a 15-year-old's family, "Teens who haven't picked a path by 15 are drifting. The ones who know early are the mature ones." Your job is to answer the way a child development student would, starting from a few plain numbers.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic:

Dataset I holds 8 teen statements, and 2 are keyed identity foreclosure and 2 keyed identity achievement, the two statuses with a commitment. What percent of the 8 statements carry a commitment?
Dataset I holds 8 teen statements, and 2 of them are keyed identity moratorium. What percent of the 8 statements are keyed identity moratorium?
Dataset I holds 8 teen statements spread evenly across Marcia's 4 identity statuses. How many statements are keyed to each status?
In Dataset I's 8 statements, 2 are keyed identity foreclosure and 2 keyed identity achievement, the two statuses with a commitment, and 2 are keyed identity diffusion. How many percentage points larger is the percent with a commitment than the percent in identity diffusion?

Beside each count, add one brief interpretation:

Problem 1: name the two statuses with a commitment, and explain with Statement 3 ("I'm going to be a pharmacist like my mom. I've always known it.") and Statement 7 ("I tried teaching and nursing, and I chose nursing because I love the hospital floor.") why exploration, not commitment, separates identity foreclosure from identity achievement.
Problem 2: sort Statement 5 ("I'm volunteering at a clinic and taking a coding class to see what fits.") and Statement 1 ("I don't really think about what I'll do. I'll figure it out someday.") on both dimensions and name each one's status, and explain that a status describes a statement, never a label for a real teen.
Problem 3: explain why Marcia's statuses are cells in a grid that can change over time and differ across areas of life rather than a ladder, and use Statement 4 ("My family's always done it this way, so that's what I believe too.") to say why no status is keyed as better for every teen.
Problem 4: say why the difference is written in percentage points rather than percent, and read record R8 of the running case (illustrative: at 15 years, at a youth program, in an interview given with permission, the teen says they are trying robotics and art and "haven't decided anything") against Dataset I and Dataset E, as exploration without commitment yet within identity vs. role confusion.

Explain it to a non-expert

Write a 3–5 sentence message to the coach. Explain, in everyday words, that identity is described on two dimensions, whether a teen is trying out options and whether the teen has made a choice, so "knowing early" alone cannot tell a choice made after exploring from a choice made without it; that a teen still trying options is actively exploring, not drifting; and that statuses can change. Name one limit, such as that a status describes what a teen says, not the teen, or that a family path chosen without wide exploration can be a respected choice. Be respectful: the coach cares about the players. More than one good message is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a friend who says, "Anyone who visits five cities before choosing where to live is lost." Model message: "Choosing a place to live well usually takes two things: looking around and then deciding. Someone still visiting cities is doing the looking, which is often how a good choice gets made. One fair caveat: some people pick a city quickly and are happy there, so a long search is not the only good path."

Use that pattern for the coach, with your own wording and evidence.

Your reflection. After you check your draft, write two or three sentences on one of these, your choice: (a) which problem changed how you would talk with a teen who has not decided on a path, and why; or (b) which word or phrase in your first draft you replaced, and what the new wording gets right.

Deliverables

Submit a single report containing:

the four results, each with the counts and the arithmetic shown and the brief interpretation the task names for that problem;
your message to the coach, explaining exploration and commitment, that moratorium is active exploration, and that statuses can change, with one limit;
your reflection, on the option you chose; and
a one-line restatement of the counts you used, so your results can be checked.

Keep it to roughly one page. Clear and correct beats long.

Choose how you show it. Present your report as written text, or as a recorded audio or video explanation of about three minutes with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch of the two-by-two grid with a short explanation. Every form is graded by the same scoring criteria. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

This version is designed to be completed without AI: do the counts, the interpretations, and the writing yourself, without any AI tool. You may use a calculator or a spreadsheet for the arithmetic. Describe Dataset I and record R8 only as the course describes them, name people only by role, never use an identity status as a label for a real teen or family, never rank families or cultures, and treat no status as better for every teen. Submitting AI-generated work as your own, or copying another student's work, is an integrity violation under the course policy.

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