Spring 2027

Cognitive Development

An introduction to cognitive development in childhood, covering theoretical approaches, perceptual, language, memory, and conceptual development, social cognition, problem solving, and academic performance.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 8

Past student reviews · Martha Alibali

The course required reading several articles and a textbook, with exams often described as challenging due to tricky multiple-choice formats.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Describe the basic tenents of major theories of cognitive development and highlight points of similarity and differences among them.

  • Identify and explain the major methodological approaches used in the field of cognitive development by researchers who adopt different theoretical perspectives.

  • Interpret children's behaviors from different theoretical perspectives and in light of existing knowledge about the development of perception, language, memory, concepts, social cognition, problem solving, and academic skills.

  • Describe basic phenomena and theoretical accounts of perceptual development, language development, memory development, concept development, the development of social cognition, the development of problem solving, and the development of academic skills.

  • Practice identifying claims about cognitive development in popular press, evaluating those claims based on evidence in the scientific literature, and evaluating popular press articles in light of the alignment between claims and evidence.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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AB
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

PSYCH 406, 413, 414, 460, 462, or 464

PSYCH 502

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

MARTHA ALIBALI is recorded teaching in Fall 2014, Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2024, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

VANESSA SIMMERING is recorded teaching in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2015. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Martha Alibali

Students found Professor Alibali to be a caring and knowledgeable instructor who delivered well-organized lectures on developmental psychology.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2022: 3.39 GPA, 61.9% A/AB (n=105 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.28 GPA, 51.7% A/AB (n=89 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.31 GPA, 60.0% A/AB (n=135 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Martha Alibali

The course required reading several articles and a textbook, with exams often described as challenging due to tricky multiple-choice formats.

Past student reviews · Martha Alibali

Assignments included two papers and discussion posts; one student noted papers were graded harshly but fairly, while another found the papers manageable with good instruction.

Topics

  • Theoretical approaches to cognitive development
  • Perceptual, language, memory, and conceptual development
  • Social cognition, problem solving, and academic performance

Skills

  • Describing and comparing major theories of cognitive development.
  • Identifying and explaining methodological approaches in cognitive development research.
  • Evaluating claims about cognitive development in popular press against scientific evidence.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "d4f538db9f190d05cd002f18784ef616c74a3aff3187ce937b69422fb6cb9823",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}