The shifting focus of maternal tutoring across different difficulty levels on a problem‐solving task

Abstract

The present study extends research into maternal tutoring which employs concepts of a ‘zone of proximal development’ and ‘scaffolding’. It examines the effects of different difficulty levels of a jigsaw task on mothers' tutoring behaviour with their 3‐year‐old children. A zone of proximal development was established for individual children and a titration procedure used to explore shifts in tutor behaviour. The nature of scaffolding shifted across levels. Like cross‐sectional studies children's puzzle‐making became increasingly other‐regulated with greater difficulty. Maternal teaching was most obvious and focused within the zone of proximal development.