Poster #43 - Young children’s choice of task difficulty based on a person’s ability and desire

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

Imagine a child who is not good at counting. If you have both an easy and hard counting activity, which would you want to give him? Would you want to give him the easy counting activity considering his ability level? What if he wants to learn to count? When we think about an appropriate task difficulty, we may need to consider not only a person’s ability but also his desire. The current study explored how young children come to consider an individual’s knowledge as well as desire for learning when they choose a task.

In Study 1, 61 young Korean children (age 3 to 5 years) were shown easy counting (e.g., counting 1) and hard counting activities (e.g., counting 10). Peers who were either good or not good at counting were then presented, and which activity children wanted to give the peer was asked. Children were also presented with peers introduced based on combinations of 2 variables (ability level: good or not good at counting) X 2 (desire: wants to do a task by himself or wants to learn counting), and their choices of the hard activity for the peer were assessed.
When children were only told the peer’s ability, 4- and 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, considered peer’s ability. (See Figure 1.) Older preschoolers tended to give a peer, who was not good at counting, easy counting activities and a peer, who was good at counting, hard counting activities. However, when children were given information about both the peer’s ability and desire, 4- and 5-year-olds tended to give hard activities when the peer wanted to learn counting no matter whether the peer was good or not good at counting. Taken together, 4- and 5-year-olds considered not only a person’s ability but also whether he wants to learn something to choose appropriate task difficulty. They understood a person needs to be challenged to learn.

In Study 2, in which 3- to 6-year-olds participated, children’s choice was again asked, but we also tested if their choice of the hard task decreases when the task looks extremely hard (e.g., counting 100). When children’s choices of activity were examined, 5- and 6-year-olds again tended to give a peer, who was not good at counting but wanted to learn counting, hard counting activities. However, this pattern only appeared when the task was moderately hard (e.g., counting 10), but not when it was extremely hard (e.g., counting 100). (See Figure 2.) Thus, if the counting activities were extremely hard, older children were not necessarily willing to give the hard ones to another, even when person wanted to learn counting.

The overall results indicated that while children’s basic tendency to adjust task difficulty based on another’s ability may appear by 4 years, they come to consider not only a person’s ability but also his desire for learning to choose appropriate task difficulty. Moreover, although older children understood a challenging activity is needed to improve an individual’s ability, they also recognized too hard activities are not best for learning.

Authors

• Jeein Jeong, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author

• Douglas Frye, University of Pennsylvania
  Non-Presenting Author