More students learn from John Santrock's Adolescence than from any other text in this field. Students and instructors rely on the careful balance of accurate, current research and applications to the real lives of adolescents. The fully-revised eleventh edition includes a new chapter on health, expanded coverage of late adolescence, and more than 1200 research citations from the 21st century.
A textbook for my adolescent psychology class. And I'll start out with the something. I noticed typos. Me. That's bad since I am just terrible with things like that.
I thought some things were winded in wording that made reading this clunky to read. But it was a psychology book so I was able to power through some of the stuff that made me go, "wait what's this" (not in a what the info is shocking but rather can I comprehend this.)
Overall I found it was interesting and eye-opening. And as one woman in my class said (she was in a much older generation than the rest of us in class) the generation is different nowadays.
Thoughtful survey on the critical developmental period known as adolescence. Santrock consistently keeps a positive view of this key period in life and successfully characterizes innumerable factors that play a role in the types of behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs that shape individuals.
As a general overview and an introduction to the psychology of adolescence, the textbook cohesively provides an excellent perspective for new students of the field.
i read this entire thing for my adolescence/young adulthood class and you know i am shamelessly counting it toward my reading goal. i didn’t read 600+ pages that cut into my normal reading time for nothing. this was actually a pretty decent read and one of the more interesting textbooks i’ve read. a bit repetitive at times, but it’s a textbook so that’s kinda to be expected. i didn’t want to die while reading it, so that alone earns this textbook at least three stars
Sonunda bitirdim 🥳. Lisans döneminde okuduğum gelişim psikolojisi kitabı gibi daha çok akademik araştırma odaklı, ergenliği detaylı açıklayan bilimsel bir kitap.
I have rather mixed feelings about this book; the good news is, it covers a lot of ground, works very hard at being impartial and evenhanded when describing various schools of thought regarding various aspects of adolescent psychology, and very specifically addresses the issue, when first describing statistical analysis, that correlation does not equal causation.
The bad news is, it's rather sloppily written, with numerous typos and sentences that either don't parse particularly well, or just don't make any sense ("In this study, for both boys and girls, lack of parental support and dietary restraint preceded future increases in body satisfaction." pg. 63, being an example of the latter, as was "After four months, the participants in the physical education class had improved their cardiovascular fitness and lifestyle activity (such as walking instead of taking the stairs and walking instead of driving short distances) pg 74, or "...40 percent of children who become obese have one obese parent, and 70 percent of children who become obese have two obese parents." pg 500; for an example of a simple typo that slipped through the editing process, the sentence "Having delinquent peers increases the risk of becoming delinquent for example, two recent studies found that the link between associating with delinquent; peers and engaging in delinquency held for both boys and girls..." pg 492, and another is on page 119, where we are told that "Three of the Wexler subscales are shown in figure 3.15", when in fact there are only two subscales shown in that figure, or again on page 128, when we are treated to the sentence "Capacity and speed of processing speed, often referred to as cognitive resources..."
Further, there is a bit too much of a tendancy to strive for political correctness for my taste; the text will expound at great length as to why a particular style of parenting, for instance, is less than ideal, but will then tie itself in knots justifying that particular parenting style when it is used in cultures other than our own; heaven forbid that it declare that a parenting style popular in another culture is WRONG. Unless, of course,it is used in our culture; then it can be declared wrong.
But perhaps the worst offense that this book commits is that it consistently, frequently, if not universally, ignores its own warning about not confusing correlation with causation. Many, many instances can be cited in which a study demonstrated a correlation, and this information is treated as if it showed a causation. For instance, on page 63 we are told that "A study indicated that 12 to 17 year old girls who were patients in psychiatric hospitals who had a negative body image were more depressed, anxiety-prone, and suicidal than same-aged patients who were less concerned about their body image." Granted, the text did not expressly state that having a negative body image caused the greater mental difficulties, but it certainly seemed implied, yet an equally likely explanation is that greater depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation might cause poorer body image, or indeed self-image in general. And on page 75, we are informed that "Eleventh-grade students who participated in organized sports were more likely to be successful academically...than their counterparts who did not participate in organized sports", as if suggesting that participating in sports raised the quality of the academic work of the participants, without even considering the possibility that the increased grades might be the result of teachers giving athletes grades that they didn't earn in order to let them maintain their academic standing and protect the school team's competitiveness, an event which has certainly been known to happen.
There are many more examples of each of these problems to be found in this book; these were just a few that I was able to make note of. So although there is much useful information to be found here, I cannot rate this book above three stars; it is just too sloppy for that.
There was nothing wrong with the 14th edition of Jonathan Santrock's text book ADOLESCENCE as a text book. It was certainly thorough and informative, though occasionally clunky in its prose and sloppy in it's word choice.
Where this book falters however is it's cost ($224 at sticker price, though of course it can be found a bit cheaper on Amazon) which seems petty if considered in absentia the fact that text books have a captive audience. As such we place a certain amount of trust in their publishers and the assigning professors that these books will be worth the investment and McGraw-Hill violates that trust.
$224 is more than I have paid for any other paper back book, and every unnecessary cost the publisher passes on to the student feels like an insult. Every page is printed in full color. Each chapter abounds with reprints of licensed cartoons. Each full color page you turn is provokes you to question the value of your investment.
While, in many ways the publisher's extravagant spending is on display, so top are the ways in which they cut costs. Notably these, paperback cover, thin easily torn pages, are the features which maintain the book's value for resale.
I have made no attempt to assess the quality of other text books, and--again-- this one certainly feels definitive, but I would encourage any instructor considering this book to think twice before assigning the 14th edition, at least until used copies are more widely available.
Grade: C ( about average for a textbook) This book is good if you want to get some extra information on adolescence and psychology. I bought this book for a dollar so it was worth the money, but doesn't require a cover to cover read. Although my sister sometimes sleeps with this book underneath her pillow.
This is a very informative and easy to read textbook. Most of the information is very interesting. Though I bought it for school I will keep it. This book will come in handy when I begin teaching or have children of my own.
This book was ok - it's a survey textbook for an introductory course. The later chapters on schools, achievement, careers, and culture were the most useful for me.