Abstract
In this paper we analysed the metalogical and deductive inferential ability of a wide sample (1118 participants) of seventh and eighth grade school students (12–13 years old). We used two metareasoning tasks: an evaluation of propositional attitudes and a modal syllogistic task. Two additional deductive (propositional and syllogistic) reasoning tasks were used: a propositional inference task and a syllogistic construction task. We also tested the participants' working memory spans with the Reading Span test (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980). We found a reliable effect of working memory for all the tasks, but an effect of school grade only for the metareasoning tasks. The results support the idea that metareasoning competencies make unusual progress during preadolescence. This development is crucial for individuals to engage in analytical reasoning.
Published Version
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