Progression paths in children’s problem solving: The influence of dynamic testing, initial variability, and working memory

Abstract

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Progression and individual differences in children's series completion after dynamic testing

“…() and Resing, Bakker et al . (). Moreover, when the children were asked to explain their answers, the question did not clearly indicate that they should name as many transformations as possible.…”

“…Our findings only partially support those reported by Resing, Bakker et al . (), who found a strong increase in the advanced verbal strategy of inductive reasoning after training was provided. Children's infrequent use of full‐inductive verbal explanations in our study might have occurred because the children in the current study were younger, and our task appeals less to step‐by‐step task solutions, which may affect children's verbal explanations.…”

“…Several studies in dynamic testing showed that children with a low initial ability profited more from training in inductive reasoning than children with a higher initial ability (e.g., Stevenson, Hickendorff et al ., ; Swanson & Lussier, ). Also, working memory has been hypothesized to contribute to children's performance during dynamic testing (e.g., Resing, Bakker, Pronk, & Elliott, ; Resing et al ., ; Stevenson, Bergwerff, Heiser, & Resing, ). Earlier research on dynamic testing has reported that both verbal and visual‐spatial working memory components play a role in solving visual‐spatial analogies.…”

“…Earlier research on dynamic testing has reported that both verbal and visual‐spatial working memory components play a role in solving visual‐spatial analogies. This is particularly apparent when, as part of the assessment, children are asked to explain their problem‐solving procedures (Resing, Bakker et al ., ; Stevenson, Heiser, & Resing, ; Tunteler et al ., ).…”

“…Moreover, we studied some factors that would potentially influence individual differences in solving series‐completion task items, by inspecting interindividual differences in performance changes between the pre‐test and post‐test stages. Previous research on inductive reasoning has focused on working memory (e.g., Resing, Bakker et al ., ; Stevenson, Heiser et al ., ; Swanson, ) and initial ability (e.g., Stevenson, Hickendorff et al ., ). On the basis of these earlier study results, we explored whether these factors would influence dynamic test outcomes.…”