Investigating Ongoing Strategic Behaviour of Students with Mild Mental Retardation: Implementation and Relations to Performance in a Problem-solving Situation

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent students with mild mental retardation exhibit strategic behaviour during problem solving and to investigate the relationships between the ongoing behaviours examined and the students' respective perfonnance. Eleven students with non-organic mild mental retardation participated in the study. Students were asked to perform the Block Design Cubes of the WISC-III and their problem-solving behaviour during task performance was video-recorded. For each participant student, two independent observers assessed cognitive, metacognitive and motivational strategic behaviours, such as analysing and combining activities, self-monitoring and maintaining self-motivation, by means of a structured observation instrument. The results showed that students' performance was at the lower end of the possible score range in the Block Design Cubes. Students' strategic behaviour was also recorded at the lower end of the assessment scale. Further consideration of participants' perfonnance and strategic profiles revealed individual differences within this group of students regarding their performance patterns but also their repertoire of strategic behaviours exhibited. As expected, significant relations were found between the students' strategic behaviour and respective performance. The educational implications of the study are discussed.

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