Children's Problem Solving Research Articles

Acquiring an understanding of design: evidence from children's insight problem solving

The human ability to make tools and use them to solve problems may not be zoologically unique, but it is certainly extraordinary. Yet little is known about the conceptual machinery that makes humans so competent at making and using tools. Do adults and children have concepts specialized for understanding human-made artifacts? If so, are these concepts deployed in attempts to solve novel problems? Here we present new data, derived from problem-solving experiments, which support the following. (i) The structure of the child's concept of artifact function changes profoundly between ages 5 and 7. At age 5, the child's conceptual machinery defines the function of an artifact as any goal a user might have; by age 7, its function is defined by the artifact's typical or intended use. (ii) This conceptual shift has a striking effect on problem-solving performance, i.e. the child's concept of artifact function appears to be deployed in problem solving. (iii) This effect on problem solving is not caused by differences in the amount of knowledge that children have about the typical use of a particular tool; it is mediated by the structure of the child's artifact concept (which organizes and deploys the child's knowledge). In two studies, children between 5 and 7 years of age were matched for their knowledge of what a particular artifact “is for”, and then given a problem that can only be solved if that tool is used for an atypical purpose. All children performed well in a baseline condition. But when they were primed by a demonstration of the artifact's typical function, 5-year-old children solved the problem much faster than 6–7-year-old children. Because all children knew what the tools were for, differences in knowledge alone cannot explain the results. We argue that the older children were slower to solve the problem when the typical function was primed because (i) their artifact concept plays a role in problem solving, and (ii) intended purpose is central to their concept of artifact function, but not to that of the younger children.

Mothers' scaffolding of children's problem solving: Establishing a foundation of academic self-regulatory competence.

Mothers' scaffolding of children's problem solving: Establishing a foundation of academic self-regulatory competence.

Mothers' scaffolding of children's problem solving: Establishing a foundation of academic self-regulatory competence.

The study examined relations between dimensions of mothers' scaffolding and children's academic self-regulatory behaviors in school. Mothers and their preschool children (68 dyads) were visited in their homes the summer before the child entered kindergarten. Mothers' metacognitive content and manner of instruction, emotional support, and transfer of responsibility were coded as mothers provided assistance to their children during 4 problem-solving tasks. Children's self-regulatory behaviors were assessed the following school year. Metacognitive content and manner of instruction were predictors of child behaviors related to cognitive awareness and management: metacognitive talk, monitoring, and help seeking. Emotional support and transfer of responsibility were related to children's task persistence and behavior control in school. Mothers' scaffolding appears to lay the foundation for children's subsequent academic self-regulatory competence.

The Effect of Self-Observation on Children's Problem Solving

The effects of self-observation on children's problem solving were investigated. Children (N = 124) aged 6-8 years attempted to solve the 3-disc Tower of Hanoi problem. After pretesting, children were grouped into those who (a) practiced solving the problem independently, (b) received instruction on the most efficient solution, (c) observed a videotape recording of their previous attempt, and (d) served as a control. Subsequently, children were immediately tested on the 3-disc problem and a more difficult 4-disc problem. They were tested again 1 week later. Performance was most improved for children in the practice and video conditions on the 4-disc problem. Improvements were maintained over the 1-week interval. Unique characteristics of video self-observation are discussed.

How the Alchemy Makes Inquiry, Evidence, and Exclusion

An odd thing happens on the way to school. As the sorcerer of the middle ages sought to turn lead into gold, modern teaching and teacher education produce a magical transformation in the disciplines of the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. School subjects transmogrify the disciplines into social and psychological concepts about, for example, developing children's intuitive understandings, meeting academic standards, or forming the dispositions, attitudes, and content knowledge held by children. I call this transformation an alchemy. The alchemy of school subjects provides a way to think about the theory or frame of reference that organizes inquiry and constitutes evidence in teacher education. First, the organization of teaching school subjects is directed to the administration of the dispositions, sensitivities, and awareness of the child and teacher, what in earlier times was called the soul. Second, the alchemy obscures the normalizing and dividing practices of teaching. This includes reformulating questions of diversity into a particular curriculum enactment that has consequences for social exclusion and inclusion. ALCHEMY OF SCHOOL SUBJECTS Research on pedagogical content knowledge and clinical experiences assumes that teaching school subjects brings the academic knowledge of science, social science, the arts, and literature to children. But an alchemy occurs as the knowledge of an academic field moves into the school. School subjects are organized in relation to the expectations related to the school timetable, conceptions of childhood, and organizational theories of teaching. The question of academic or disciplinary fields is transmogrified into social psychologies of instruction and theories for changing the dispositions and characteristics of the teacher and child. The magic of the transformation is to reconfigure the academic fields in schools so that only the namesake appears, as a ubiquitous doorplate to mark a house. The fact that an alchemy exists in schools is not surprising. Children are not scientists or mathematicians. What is surprising is the peculiar school alchemy, three aspects of which are explored in this article. First, psychology is superimposed onto pedagogical practices. Its focus is the administration of the child. Second, teacher education research evaluates and calculates the governing of the soul of the teacher and the child. And third, school subjects are treated as secure, fixed things of subject content and propositions. This crystallization of disciplinary knowledge enables the pedagogical enactments that govern the soul. The three elements of the alchemy shape and fashion inquiry and evidence of teacher education. Psychology as the translation tool. The translation of school subjects into psychological concepts is obvious when curriculum standards are examined. Music and mathematics education, for example, are different practices, but they have the same organizing principles. The standards of curriculum are retrofitted into psychologies of the child. National curriculum standards in music are fundamentally about the child's ability to think (informed decision making or problem solving), to develop skill in communication (defending an argument, working effectively in groups), to produce quality work (acquiring and using information), and to make connections with community (recognizing and acting on responsibilities as a citizen). The standards of mathematics education are no different. They are arranged through psychological studies of age-related learning. School subjects are thus transmogrified into the performances of the psychologies of the child and teacher! In mathematics education, the alchemic transformation can be explored further. On the surface, the discussion is about teaching children about mathematics. Teacher education research focuses on the content and structure of teachers' knowledge, such as learning about the development of children's mathematical thinking and problem solving. …

Children in play, story, and school

Part I: Introduction. Goncu, Klein, Children in Play, Story, and School: A Tribute to Greta G. Fein. Part II: Children In Play. Sawyer, Play as Improvisational Rehearsal: Multiple Levels of Analysis in Children's Play. Cheah, Nelson, Rubin, Nonsocial Play as a Risk Factor in Social and Emotional Development. DeVries, Transforming the Play-Oriented Curriculum and Work in Constructivist Early Education. Bondioli, The Adult as a Tutor in Fostering Children's Symbolic Play. Glaubman, Kashi, Koresh, Facilitating the Narrative Quality of Sociodramatic Play. Part III: Children In Story. Sutton-Smith, Emotional Breaches in Play and Narrative. Herman, Bretherton, He was the Best Daddy: Postdivorce Preschoolers' Representations of Loss and Family Life. Pellegrini, Galda, So Glad I'm Glad: The Role of Emotions and Close Relationships in Children's Play and Narrative Language. Groth, Darling, Playing Inside Stories. Part IV: Children In School. Clarke-Stewart, Allhusen, Goossens, Day Care and the Strange Situation. Howes, Oldham, Processes in the Formation of Attachment Relationships with Alternative Caregivers. Fox, Bar-Haim, Conceptual Gaps in the Lifespan Theory of Attachment. Patt, Goncu, Talking the Talk: Constructivist Teachers Guiding Children's Problem Solving. Powell, Visions and Realities of Achieving Partnership: Parent-School Relationships at the Turn of the Century. Klein, Tarullo, Contexts of Quality: Implications for U.S. Child-Care Policy. Part V: Conclusions. Fein, Suppose There Were a Hill in Richmond Hill.

Social Problem Solving of Children With and Without Mental Retardation

Social skills and social status are important aspects of development that are likely to be influenced by an individual's ability to appropriately solve social problems. In this investigation, children (9–13 year olds) with and without mental retardation were asked to provide solutions to three types of social problems. Students were first asked to respond to open-ended questions and then were presented with three new problems in a forced-choice format. Children were also rated as liked or not liked by their same sex peers. Our findings indicated small but interesting differences between the children with and without retardation. In the open-ended benign situation (peer entry), students with mental retardation provided fewer assertive solutions and more appeal to authority solutions than their peers. In contrast, in the forced-choice hostile situation, children with mental retardation chose more assertive solutions and fewer appeal to authority than their peers. This same pattern of responses was reflected in a comparison of highly accepted children and less well-accepted children. The less accepted children chose more assertive solutions and fewer appeal to authority than their peers. It is possible that the different tendencies in the social problem solving of students with mental retardation could put them at risk for being less well accepted by their peers without mental retardation.

Peer assistance in children's problem solving

The current study aimed to investigate the extent to which the creation of a context which facilitates conversation and communication would enhance the cognitive capacities of children working on recognized problems. Using a collaborative problem‐solving paradigm, the communication patterns of pairs of 4‐ and 7‐year‐old children were analysed. It was found that collaborative problem solving facilitated lower ability children's subsequent individual problem solving when they were paired with higher ability children. In addition, it was found that older children used more language during collaboration. Holding number of utterances as a covariate, older children used more procedural language and more descriptive language than younger children and lower ability children used more language for checking with their partner. These uses of language were interpreted as demonstrating awareness on the part of older children of the other person in the collaboration although the extent to which this assisted subsequent problem‐solving ability in less able children of either age is not clear and requires further theoretical explication.

Mathematical Problems and Goals in Children's Play of an Educational Game

In his development of activity theory, Leontiev explained that the emergence of divisions of labor in society necessarily leads to collaborative activity in which individuals, with their own goals and actions, contribute to collective achievements. In this article, we describe emergent "divisions of labor" that are common in children's collective problem solving. Parallel to Leontiev's argument, we show that when labor becomes divided, children often become engaged in accomplishing different goals leading to different learning outcomes. We illustrate the utility of this analytic tack in analyses of 64 third and fourth graders playing an educational game, Treasure Hunt.

Schema induction in children's analogical problem solving.

Schema induction in children's analogical problem solving.

Schema induction in children's analogical problem solving.

Three experiments were conducted to explore the ability of school-age children to transfer solutions to analogous problems. This research addressed the issue of how the variability of procedural features in source examples facilitates the induction of a general problem schema and, thus, promotes subsequent transfer. Children were asked to solve a series of problems analogous to Luchins's (1942) classic water jar problems. All the problems shared a common isomorphic structure and a general solution but required either similar or different specific procedures. Children who experienced problems with variant procedural features were more likely than those who experienced problems with invariant procedural features to construct a general problem schema and to solve novel problems requiring unfamiliar procedures. This research sheds light on the cognitive mechanisms involved in strategy generalization and analogical problem solving.

The role of conceptual understanding in children's addition problem solving.

The study examined the relationship between children's conceptual understanding and addition problem-solving procedures. Forty-eight 6- to 8-year-olds solved addition problems and, in a 2nd task, were prompted to judge whether a puppet could use the arithmetic properties of one problem to solve the next problem. Relational properties between consecutive problems were manipulated to reflect aspects of additive composition, commutativity, and associativity principles. Conceptual understanding was assessed by the ability to spontaneously use such relational properties in problem solving (Task 1) and to recognize and explain them when prompted (Task 2). Results revealed that conceptual understanding was related to using order-indifferent, decomposition, and retrieval strategies and speed and accuracy in solving unrelated problems. The importance of conceptual understanding for addition development is discussed.

The role of conceptual understanding in children's addition problem solving.

The study examined the relationship between children's conceptual understanding and addition problem-solving procedures. Forty-eight 6- to 8-year-olds solved addition problems and, in a 2nd task, were prompted to judge whether a puppet could use the arithmetic properties of one problem to solve the next problem. Relational properties between consecutive problems were manipulated to reflect aspects of additive composition, commutativity, and associativity principles. Conceptual understanding was assessed by the ability to spontaneously use such relational properties in problem solving (Task 1) and to recognize and explain them when prompted (Task 2). Results revealed that conceptual understanding was related to using order-indifferent, decomposition, and retrieval strategies and speed and accuracy in solving unrelated problems. The importance of conceptual understanding for addition development is discussed.

The Relationship Between Marital Discord and Young Children's Social Problem‐solving Strategies: The Roles of Modeling and Parenting

The roles of modeling and parenting as possible mechanisms mediating the relationship between marital interaction and children's social problem solving were studied. Interviews were carried out with 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds as a means of determining their social problem‐solving strategies. Parents completed scales measuring their marital adjustment, tactics of conflict resolution, and parent behaviors. The results showed that marital discord was not related to young children's social problem solving. However, parents’ tactics of resolving spousal conflicts and parent behaviors were predictive of children's social problem‐solving strategies. Boys displayed social problem‐solving strategies similar to those used by their fathers, whereas girls’ social problem solving revealed more links to maternal involvement with their children. In addition, parents’ marital adjustment was associated with their strategies for resolving spousal conflicts and their parenting behaviors.

Social problem-solving skills in boys with conduct and oppositional defiant disorders

The current study compared the social problem-solving skills of a clinic-based sample of 30 boys diagnosed with conduct disorder (CD) and 25 boys diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). Past research has indicated that contextual factors influence children's social problem-solving; thus, three hypothetical conflict situations (i.e., child-child, teacher-child, and parent-child) and situations which differed by degree of negative intent of the provocateur (i.e., hostile vs. ambiguous intent) were examined. Problem-solving strategies were aggregated into three broad dimensions: 1) aggressive/antisocial solutions; 2) nonverbal-nonaggressive solutions; and 3) verbal-nonaggressive solutions. Compared to ODD boys, CD boys proposed more aggressive/antisocial solutions in parent-child conflicts when parental intent was ambiguous and in teacher-child conflicts regardless of intent. Compared to ODD boys, CD boys proposed fewer verbal-nonaggressive solutions in child-child conflicts. The implications of these findings for treatment intervention with CD and ODD boys were discussed. Language: en

Family process and child anxiety and aggression: an observational analysis.

Barrett, Rapee, Dadds, and Ryan (1996) described a phenomenon whereby family discussions magnified the style of children's problem solving in a way characteristic of their particular clinical diagnosis. That is, anxious children became more avoidant, aggressive children more aggressive, and nonclinic children more prosocial, after discussing ambiguous hypothetical situations with their parents. This study examined specific sequences of communications exchanged between parents and children hypothesized to underlie this family exacerbation of child cognitive style. Family discussions were videotaped and categorized for groups of anxious, aggressive, and nonclinic children and their parents. Results revealed differences between groups of parents in frequency of agreeing with and listening to their child and the frequency of pointing out positive consequences. Conditional probability analyses showed that parents of anxious children were more likely to reciprocate avoidance, while parents of nonclinic children were more likely to agree with and listen to prosocial plans from their child. Differences in parent behaviors observed during the family discussions were reliably associated with the child's response to the ambiguous situation proposed after the family discussion. Results support a model of developmental anxiety and aggression that emphasizes the interaction of family processes and social-cognitive development in the child.

Maternal Facilitation of Children's Problem Solving: Relation to Disruptive Child Behavior and Maternal Characteristics

Examined the relation between mother-child interaction behaviors, disruptive child behavior, and maternal characteristics within the context of maternal facilitation of children's problem solving. In a group comparison analysis, mothers of disruptive children took over the task more and provided fewer closed-ended questions than mothers of nondisruptive children. Subsequent regression analyses found higher levels of mothers' taking-over behavior predicted children's off-task behavior in the analogue tasks; lower frequency of mothers' closed-ended question behavior predicted higher teacher and parent ratings of disruptive behavior at school and home; and higher materal depression predicted fewer mothers' closed-ended questions during the analogue.

The Relation of Maternal Directiveness and Child Attachment Security to Social Competence in Preschoolers

The primary focus of this study was the assessment of children's social competence in relation to two aspects of the mother-child relationshipattachment security and maternal directiveness. Specifically, we expected concurrent child-mother attachment security to be positively correlated with children's positive social engagement and social problem-solving skills and negatively related to aggression, whereas maternal directiveness was predicted to show the opposite pattern of correlations. Subjects were 111 mothers and their 4-year-old target children, each paired with a same-sex, same-age unfamiliar control child. Maternal directiveness was assessed in co-operative task and free-play sessions involving the target child, target mother, and control child. The target child's social engagement and social problem-solving skills were measured during dyadic free play with the control child. Multiple regression analyses assessed relative contributions of maternal directiveness and attachment security to the prediction of child behaviour with the peer. Attachment security predicted positive social engagement. Maternal directiveness was associated only with aspects of the children's social problem-solving. These results support previous research linking child-mother attachment security, maternal control patterns and children's social competence, although our findings showed the importance of separating the influences of attachment quality and the socialisation aspects of parenting.

Learning in the Context of Peer Collaboration: A Pluralistic Perspective on Goals and Expertise

A pluralistic perspective on children's collaborative problem solving was used to investigate the performance of 19 dyads of fourth- and seventh-grade students while they worked on a projection of shadows task. All students were videotaped during their individual pretest and posttest sessions and during multiple dyadic sessions. The videotaped individual sessions were coded to assess two indices of thinking: transformational reasoning and geometric description. The dyadic sessions were coded to characterize the division of labor while experimenting. Repeated measures analyses of variance revealed that, on the average, students gained in transformational reasoning hut not in geometric description. However, one quarter of the sample gained in geometric description but not in transformational reasoning. Case study analyses were used to explore the diversity of performance patterns across sessions for individual dyads. The results for three dyads are discussed in detail to illustrate the emergence of new goals and expertise during peer collaboration. These findings suggest that future studies must take account of the plurality of goals, interests, and expertise that emerges during social interaction in order to effectively evaluate peer collaboration.

Précis ofBeyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science

AbstractBeyond modularityattempts a synthesis of Fodor's anticonstructivist nativism and Piaget's antinativist constructivism. Contra Fodor, I argue that: (1) the study of cognitive development is essential to cognitive science, (2) the module/central processing dichotomy is too rigid, and (3) the mind does not begin with prespecified modules; rather, development involves a gradual process of “modularization.” Contra Piaget, I argue that: (1) development rarely involves stagelike domain-general change and (2) domainspecific predispositions give development a small but significant kickstart by focusing the infant's attention on proprietary inputs. Development does not stop at efficient learning. A fundamental aspect of human development (“representational redescription”) is the hypothesized process by which information that isina cognitive system becomes progressively explicit knowledgetothat system. Development thus involves two complementary processes of progressive modularization and progressive “explicitation.” Empirical findings on the child as linguist, physicist, mathematician, psychologist, and notator are discussed in support of the theoretical framework. Each chapter concentrates first on the initial state of the infant mind/brain and on subsequent domain-specific learning in infancy and early childhood. It then goes on to explore data on older children's problem solving and theory building, with particular focus on evolving cognitive flexibility. Emphasis is placed throughout on the status of representations underlying different capacities and on the multiple levels at which knowledge is stored and accessible. Finally, consideration is given to the need for more formal developmental models, and a comparison is made between representational redescription and connectionist simulations of development. In conclusion, I consider what is special about human cognition by speculating on the status of representations underlying the structure of behavior in other species.