Impact of Reminders on Children's Cognitive Flexibility, Intrinsic Motivation, and Mood Depends on Who Provides the Reminders.

Li Qu,Jing Y Ong

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01904

Abstract

Reminding children to think about alternatives is a strategy adults often use to promote children’s cognitive flexibility, as well as children’s engagement in and enjoyment of the task. The current study investigated whether the impacts of reminders on kindergarten children’s cognitive flexibility, intrinsic motivation, and mood are moderated by who provides the reminders. Eighty-three healthy 5-year-old kindergarten children were randomly assigned to 2 (Reminder: no reminders vs. Reminders) × 2 (Agent: Tester vs. Partner) conditions. Children’s cognitive flexibility was measured via the Block Sorting Task (Garton and Pratt, 2001; Fawcett and Garton, 2005). Children reported their motivation and mood before Block Sorting, after practicing for Block Sorting, and after the actual Block Sorting. Children’s intrinsic motivation was measured by evaluating children’s choices during a period of free play after Block Sorting. The results revealed that, depending on who provides the reminders, reminding children of alternatives can influence kindergarten children’s performance on Block Sorting, children’s intrinsic motivation, and children’s self-reported mood.

Highlights

Reminding children to think about alternatives, for example by pointing to an alternative and asking children “how about this one?”, is one of the widely used methods for promoting children’s cognitive flexibility, as well as children’s engagement in and enjoyment of a task (e.g., Vandermaas et al, 2003; Garton, 2004; McGee and Schickedanz, 2007; Larkina et al, 2008; Doebel and Zelazo, 2013)
In addition to bringing insights into the theoretical debate as to whether reminding children of alternatives influences children’s cognitive flexibility, motivation, and mood (e.g., Vandermaas et al, 2003; Garton, 2004; McGee and Schickedanz, 2007; Larkina et al, 2008; Doebel and Zelazo, 2013), our findings indicate that social context can likewise influence children’s cognitive flexibility, intrinsic motivation, and mood
The current study has revealed that, depending on who provided reminders, reminding children of alternatives can influence kindergarten children’s performance on Block Sorting, children’s self-reported mood, and children’s intrinsic motivation

Summary

Introduction

Reminding children to think about alternatives, for example by pointing to an alternative and asking children “how about this (different) one?”, is one of the widely used methods for promoting children’s cognitive flexibility, as well as children’s engagement in and enjoyment of a task (e.g., Vandermaas et al, 2003; Garton, 2004; McGee and Schickedanz, 2007; Larkina et al, 2008; Doebel and Zelazo, 2013). One of the widely used measures of cognitive flexibility in early childhood is the Dimensional Change Card Sorting task (e.g., Zelazo et al, 2003), a color–shape switching task In this task, children are asked to sort bivalent cards by one dimension (e.g., color) and switch to the other dimension (i.e., shape in this case). 12 blocks, a combination of 3 (color) × 2 (shape) × 2 (size), are used These blocks can be sorted in six different ways; kindergarten children generally can make up to four correct sorts (Garton and Pratt, 2001; Fawcett and Garton, 2005), possibly because flexibility largely relies on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which does not become mature until late adolescence (e.g., Bunge and Zelazo, 2006)

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