A Microgenetic/Cross‐Sectional Study of Matrix Completion: Comparing Short‐Term and Long‐Term Change

Abstract

A design that included both microgenetic and cross-sectional components was used to examine 135 Slovenian children's acquisition of matrix completion proficiency and compare microgenetic and age-related changes on the task. The microgenetic analyses indicated that children's errors became increasingly variable shortly before they discovered the correct strategy, that the correct strategy became dominant quite quickly following its initial use, that improvements in matrix completion performance generalized to conservation, and that amount of learning correlated positively with IQ. The microgenetic/cross-sectional comparison, which involved contrasting the changes that occurred over seven experimental sessions with the changes that occurred between ages 6 and 7 years, indicated that the two patterns of change were highly similar.

Dynamic testing and transfer: An examination of children's problem-solving strategies

“…These findings correspond with earlier literature reports (e.g., Resing & Elliott, 2011;Resing et al, 2015;Siegler & Svetina, 2002). …”

“…Tzuriel & George, 2009). Another suggestion for future research, supported by the observed differential patterns of progression in performance and strategy quality, is that children in this young age group might require a more tailored form of scaffolded instruction and feedback (Davidson & Sternberg, 1984;Siegler & Svetina, 2002), operating within their zone of proximal development (Alibali & Goldin-Meadow, 1993;Granott, 2002;Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). The transfer tasks should have this open character with "endless" possibilities, giving children a chance to spontaneously create analogies at their level of performance/thinking, which could subsequently be evaluated on the basis of their complexity.…”

“…However, to achieve this, an in-depth understanding of children's growth trajectories would be useful. Here, the use of a 6 microgenetic research design may prove especially helpful (Siegler, 2006;Siegler & Svetina, 2002;Tunteler & Resing, 2007;Winne & Nesbit, 2010). Such measurement designs, including regular measurements of an individual's changing performance on a number of parallel tasks over a relatively short period of time (Siegler & Crowley, 1991), were developed to investigate both the spontaneous development of cognitive abilities and a child's learning progress.…”

“…We expected that children would only show transfer once they had become good strategic problem solvers (Siegler, 2006). Optimal performance on inductive reasoning tasks is strongly influenced by strategy-use (Siegler & Svetina, 2002), and training has been shown to increase children's ability to explain the changes that occur within the tasks (Resing et al, 2012). Therefore, those children who were able to explain their problem-solving behaviour at the end of the study period were expected to construct the reversal transfer tasks in a particularly effective manner They are likely to have gained a good understanding of the underlying principles of the figural analogies (Harpaz-Itay, Kaniel, & Ben-Amram, 2006;Perkins, 1992), which should enable them to apply this knowledge to the transfer task.…”

Matrices de transición y patrones de variabilidad cognitiva

“…La variabilidad ha jugado un papel que ha oscilado entre la incomodidad y la promesa de ser la clave para entender el desarrollo (Miller, 2002;Puche-Navarro, 2003, 2008Siegler, 1995Siegler, , 2002aSiegler & Svetina, 2002van Dijk & van Geert, 2007;Yan & Fischer, 2002). La relación entre la variabilidad y procesos construcción del conocimiento, se consolida "como distintos itinerarios para acceder al conocimiento" (Rose & Fischer, 2009, p. 400).…”