Communication in problem solving by preschool children: effects of subject's familiarity with experimenter and task orientation of experimenter

Abstract

The purpose was to examine effects of subject's familiarity with experimenter, and the task orientation of experimenter towards preschool children's communication in a problem solving situation. After subjects were given one of three different information about a target card, they were asked to identify the target one. However, subjects were unable to identify the target one without questions. The main results were as follows: (1) 5-year-olds made more questions and chose the target more often than 4-year-olds, (2) High familiarity group made questions and chose the target more often than low one, (3) Task-oriented group made more questions and chose the target more often than non-oriented one, and (4) Interaction of familiarity and the task-orientation was not significant. These results suggested that familiarity and task-orientation affected rate of communication occurrence in problem solving by preschool children.