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What Leads Children to Adopt New Strategies? A Microgenetic/Cross‐Sectional Study of Class Inclusion
Author(s) -
Siegler Robert S.,
Svetina Matija
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00915.x
Subject(s) - psychology , inclusion (mineral) , developmental psychology , class (philosophy) , empirical research , logical reasoning , cognitive psychology , social psychology , mathematics education , philosophy , epistemology , artificial intelligence , computer science
Learning of class inclusion by 5‐year‐olds in response to empirical and logical explanations of an adult's answers was examined. Contrary to the view that young children possess an empirical bias, 5‐year‐olds learned more, and continued learning for longer, when given logical explanations of correct answers than when given empirical explanations. Once children discovered how to solve the problems, they showed few regressions. Many children in the microgenetic experiment followed the path of change anticipated from previous cross‐sectional studies, but children in the cross‐sectional part of the study seemed to follow a different path. Reasons for the superior effectiveness of the logical explanations were discussed.