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Discovery and maintenance of the many‐to‐one counting strategy in 4‐year‐olds: A microgenetic study
Author(s) -
Blöte Anke W.,
Otterloo Sandra G.,
Stevenson Claire E.,
Veenman Marcel V. J.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
british journal of developmental psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.062
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 2044-835X
pISSN - 0261-510X
DOI - 10.1348/026151004772901122
Subject(s) - psychology , task (project management) , session (web analytics) , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , computer science , management , world wide web , economics
This study investigated the development of the many‐to‐one counting strategy in 4‐ year‐old children. In the first experiment, 52 children participated. Their development with respect to two kinds of tasks, a hidden‐items task and a needed‐items task, was studied over four sessions. Children ( n = 28) who accurately used the many‐to‐one strategy in Session 4 also participated in the second experiment. These children were presented with more difficult hidden‐ and needed‐items tasks. It was found that children often produced the strategy for the first time on tasks with relatively few items. Most children then kept producing it, even if they initially did not obtain much profit from its use because of counting errors. Increasing task difficulty resulted in children making more counting errors or reverting to invalid strategies depending on the nature of the new task.