8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Outdated, Poor Editing, Not Professional Quality, October 26, 2010
This is one of the worst college textbooks I have used. I use it for my college Developmental Psychology class. Here are some of the major issues I have with this book.
- The accompanying study guide has many flaws and incorrect answers. Answers that contradict what is in the textbook, word for word.
- The author rambles on and on and on. This textbook is written as if it were her personal diary or stream on consciousness. This book is a good example of why psychology as a field struggles to be accepted as a "real science". There is very little fact in the book, and a lot of personal opinions of the authors and her colleagues.
- The few science-based subjects in the book are incorrect. For example, the definitions of Marasmus and Kwashiorkor completely conflict with my medical textbooks.
- The test banks provided to instructors is littered with problems. I have found many problems with the questions and answers that our instructor uses. Problems including poorly worded questions, and incorrect answer selections. I pointed these out to the instructor who said they are using a text bank of questions provided by the publisher/author!
If this were a 1st or 2nd edition of a textbook, I would be more compassionate and forgiving of the mistakes. But this is the 7th edition, and the book has been around for 27 years (1983)! The publisher and author have had a long time to correct these severe problems in the textbook, guide book, and test bank. Even the photos in the book are way out of date.
Please..... if you are an instructor, consider using a different textbook and different author and publisher.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Worthwhile book, November 29, 2008
I am taking a psychology class on line using this book. I was anxious for the class to start as I thought the subject material would be interesting. It is, and the book is well written and informative. However, now that the class is in its last 3 or 4 weeks, I'm getting a little tired.
Each section is covered in 3 chapters. For example, for adolescence you have a chapter about the biological changes, then about the cognitive changes, then about the psychological changes of that stage of life. After going through almost the whole book like that, I'm a little bored. Also - I don't know if all copies are affected, but for our class, which is using the paperback 7th edition, the publisher did not provide our instructor with an updated set of test questions. So the test questions we have been getting for all 6 tests we've had so far correspond to the 6th edition, not the 7th. This means that the test is supposed to cover chapters 20, 21, and 22, for instance, but it also contains questions from text as much as 100 pages past that!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great read, August 6, 2009
I took an introductory Developmental Psychology class during 7 weeks of summer school. This book is really easy and interesting to read, so finishing the whole book for summer school did not put me to sleep at all. What was really helpful were the personal experiences and case studies the author adds to make the concepts more concrete. The "Observations" and "Response for" tabs on the margins of the book (ex: response for future nurses or teachers or parents) also fosters learning and understanding the material.
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